Content validation guidelines: Evaluation criteria for definitional correspondence and definitional distinctiveness.

Several reviews have been critical of the degree to which scales in industrial/organizational psychology and organizational behavior adequately reflect the content of their construct. One potential reason for that circumstance is a tendency for scholars to focus less on content validation than on other validation methods (e.g., establishing reliability, performing convergent, discriminant, and criterion-related validation, and examining factor structure). We provide clear evaluation criteria for 2 commonly used content validation approaches: Anderson and Gerbing (1991) and Hinkin and Tracey (1999). To create those guidelines, we gathered all new scales introduced in Journal of Applied Psychology, Academy of Management Journal, Personnel Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes from 2010 to 2016. We then subjected those 112 scales to Anderson and Gerbing's (1991) and Hinkin and Tracey's (1999) approaches using 6,240 participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk with detailed, transparent, and replicable instructions. For both approaches, our results provide evaluation criteria for definitional correspondence-the degree to which a scale's items correspond to the construct's definition-and definitional distinctiveness-the degree to which a scale's items correspond more to the construct's definition than to the definitions of other orbiting constructs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Adding the "in" to justice: a qualitative and quantitative investigation of the differential effects of justice rule adherence and violation.

Although justice scholars often assume that individuals react to injustice in a manner that is distinct from their reactions to justice, few studies have examined this assumption. Indeed, the most widely utilized measures in the literature assess only the adherence to rules of justice--not their violation. We conducted 2 studies to build and test theory about differential reactions to justice and injustice. An inductive study revealed that reactions to the adherence to justice rules reflected different constructs than reactions to the violations of justice rules. In a follow-up field study, we derived hypotheses for those patterns by drawing on the negativity bias and regulatory focus literatures. Specifically, justice rule violation was predicted to be more relevant to prevention-laden outcomes that represent a high level of vigilance and concerns about safety. Justice rule adherence was predicted to be more relevant to promotion-laden outcomes that represent concerns about becoming the ideal self. The field study supported many of those predictions while showing that a full-range justice measure (i.e., one that sampled both justice rule adherence and justice rule violation) explained more variance in outcomes than existing "truncated" justice measures.

Scale indicators of social exchange relationships: a comparison of relative content validity.

Although social exchange theory has become one of the most oft-evoked theories in industrial and organizational psychology, there remains no consensus about how to measure its key mechanism: social exchange relationships (Blau, 1964). Drawing on Cropanzano and Byrne's (2000) review of contemporary social exchange theorizing, we examined the content validity of perceived support, exchange quality, affective commitment, trust, and psychological contract fulfillment as indicators of social exchange relationships. We used Hinkin and Tracey's (1999) quantitative approach to content validation, which asks participants to rate the correspondence between scale items and definitions of intended (and unintended) constructs. Our results revealed that some of the most frequently utilized indicators of social exchange relationships--perceived support and exchange quality--were significantly less content valid than rarely used options like affect-based trust. Our results also revealed that 2 direct measures--Bernerth, Armenakis, Feild, Giles, and Walker's (2007) scale and a scale created for this study--were content valid. We discuss the implications of these results for future applications of social exchange theory.

Justice at the millennium, a decade later: a meta-analytic test of social exchange and affect-based perspectives.

Although a flurry of meta-analyses summarized the justice literature at the turn of the millennium, interest in the topic has surged in the decade since. In particular, the past decade has witnessed the rise of social exchange theory as the dominant lens for examining reactions to justice, and the emergence of affect as a complementary lens for understanding such reactions. The purpose of this meta-analytic review was to test direct, mediating, and moderating hypotheses that were inspired by those 2 perspectives, to gauge their adequacy as theoretical guides for justice research. Drawing on a review of 493 independent samples, our findings revealed a number of insights that were not included in prior meta-analyses. With respect to social exchange theory, our results revealed that the significant relationships between justice and both task performance and citizenship behavior were mediated by indicators of social exchange quality (trust, organizational commitment, perceived organizational support, and leader-member exchange), though such mediation was not apparent for counterproductive behavior. The strength of those relationships did not vary according to whether the focus of the justice matched the target of the performance behavior, contrary to popular assumptions in the literature, or according to whether justice was referenced to a specific event or a more general entity. With respect to affect, our results showed that justice-performance relationships were mediated by positive and negative affect, with the relevant affect dimension varying across justice and performance variables. Our discussion of these findings focuses on the merit in integrating the social exchange and affect lenses in future research.

Explaining the justice-performance relationship: trust as exchange deepener or trust as uncertainty reducer?

Past research has revealed significant relationships between organizational justice dimensions and job performance, and trust is thought to be one mediator of those relationships. However, trust has been positioned in justice theorizing in 2 different ways, either as an indicator of the depth of an exchange relationship or as a variable that reflects levels of work-related uncertainty. Moreover, trust scholars distinguish between multiple forms of trust, including affect- and cognition-based trust, and it remains unclear which form is most relevant to justice effects. To explore these issues, we built and tested a more comprehensive model of trust mediation in which procedural, interpersonal, and distributive justice predicted affect- and cognition-based trust, with those trust forms predicting both exchange- and uncertainty-based mechanisms. The results of a field study in a hospital system revealed that the trust variables did indeed mediate the relationships between the organizational justice dimensions and job performance, with affect-based trust driving exchange-based mediation and cognition-based trust driving uncertainty-based mediation.

Looking ahead in times of uncertainty: the role of anticipatory justice in an organizational change context.

Our study drew on past theorizing on anticipatory justice (D. L. Shapiro & B. L. Kirkman, 2001) and fairness heuristic theory (K. Van den Bos, E. A. Lind, & H. A. M. Wilke, 2001) to build and test a model of employee reactions to a smoking ban. The results of a longitudinal study in a hospital showed that employee levels of preban anticipatory justice were predicted by their global sense of their supervisor's fairness. The combination of anticipatory justice and global supervisory fairness then predicted the experienced justice of the ban 3 months after its implementation, with the effects of the 2 predictors dependent on perceptions of uncertainty and outcome favorability regarding the ban. Finally, experienced (interpersonal) justice predicted significant other ratings of employee support for the ban.

An actor-focused model of justice rule adherence and violation: the role of managerial motives and discretion.

Research on organizational justice has focused primarily on the receivers of just and unjust treatment. Little is known about why managers adhere to or violate rules of justice in the first place. The authors introduce a model for understanding justice rule adherence and violation. They identify both cognitive motives and affective motives that explain why managers adhere to and violate justice rules. They also draw distinctions among the justice rules by specifying which rules offer managers more or less discretion in their execution. They then describe how motives and discretion interact to influence justice-relevant actions. Finally, the authors incorporate managers' emotional reactions to consider how their actions may change over time. Implications of the model for theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Justice as a dependent variable: subordinate charisma as a predictor of interpersonal and informational justice perceptions.

Research in the organizational justice literature has shown that interpersonal and informational justice are significant predictors of subordinate attitudes and behaviors. However, scholars have neglected to explore whether certain subordinate characteristics might be associated with managers' adherence to interpersonal and informational justice rules. The current authors' study tested a model, inspired by approach-avoidance perspectives (e.g., Gray, 1990), in which manager ratings of subordinate charisma influenced subordinate ratings of interpersonal and informational justice through the mechanisms of positive and negative sentiments (i.e., emotions felt by the manager toward the subordinate). A field study of 181 employees of a large national insurance company revealed partial support for this model. Structural equation modeling revealed that subordinate charisma was related to interpersonal justice perceptions, a relationship that was fully mediated by positive and negative sentiments. However, subordinate charisma was not associated with informational justice perceptions. These findings signal the potential utility in examining subordinate-based predictors of justice variables.

Trust, trustworthiness, and trust propensity: a meta-analytic test of their unique relationships with risk taking and job performance.

The trust literature distinguishes trustworthiness (the ability, benevolence, and integrity of a trustee) and trust propensity (a dispositional willingness to rely on others) from trust (the intention to accept vulnerability to a trustee based on positive expectations of his or her actions). Although this distinction has clarified some confusion in the literature, it remains unclear (a) which trust antecedents have the strongest relationships with trust and (b) whether trust fully mediates the effects of trustworthiness and trust propensity on behavioral outcomes. Our meta-analysis of 132 independent samples summarized the relationships between the trust variables and both risk taking and job performance (task performance, citizenship behavior, counterproductive behavior). Meta-analytic structural equation modeling supported a partial mediation model wherein trustworthiness and trust propensity explained incremental variance in the behavioral outcomes when trust was controlled. Further analyses revealed that the trustworthiness dimensions also predicted affective commitment, which had unique relationships with the outcomes when controlling for trust. These results generalized across different types of trust measures (i.e., positive expectations measures, willingness-to-be-vulnerable measures, and direct measures) and different trust referents (i.e., leaders, coworkers).

Psychological collectivism: a measurement validation and linkage to group member performance.

The 3 studies presented here introduce a new measure of the individual-difference form of collectivism. Psychological collectivism is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct with the following 5 facets: preference for in-groups, reliance on in-groups, concern for in-groups, acceptance of in-group norms, and prioritization of in-group goals. Study 1 developed and tested the new measure in a sample of consultants. Study 2 cross-validated the measure using an alumni sample of a Southeastern university, assessing its convergent validity with other collectivism measures. Study 3 linked scores on the measure to 4 dimensions of group member performance (task performance, citizenship behavior, counterproductive behavior, and withdrawal behavior) in a computer software firm and assessed discriminant validity using the Big Five. The results of the studies support the construct validity of the measure and illustrate the potential value of collectivism as a predictor of group member performance.

Does the justice of the one interact with the justice of the many? Reactions to procedural justice in teams.

This article reported the results of 2 studies that examined reactions to procedural justice in teams. Both studies predicted that individual members' reactions would be driven not just by their own procedural justice levels but also by the justice experienced by other team members. Study 1 examined intact student teams, whereas Study 2 occurred in a laboratory setting. The results showed that individual members' own justice interacted with others' justice, such that higher levels of role performance occurred when justice was consistent within the team. These effects were strongest in highly interdependent teams and weakest for members who were benevolent with respect to equity sensitivity.

Organizational justice and stress: the mediating role of work-family conflict.

This study examined the relationship between organizational justice and stress and whether work-family conflict was a mediator of the relationship. Distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational injustice were cast as stressors to explore their relationships with the stress levels of 174 faculty members employed at 23 U.S. universities. The results revealed that procedural and interpersonal justice had the strongest relationships with stress, and that these effects were mediated by work-family conflict. The presence of justice seemed to allow participants to better manage the interface of their work and family lives, which was associated with lower stress levels. These results were observed even when controlling for job satisfaction and the presence of organizational work-family policies.

Conscientiousness, autonomy fit, and development: a longitudinal study.

The authors examined employee development and its relationship with Conscientiousness and person-environment fit (in terms of needs and supplies of autonomy). They hypothesized that Conscientiousness would be positively associated with development but only when employees felt that the autonomy supplied by the organization did not fit their needs. In other words, whereas Conscientiousness could supply the dispositional resources for development, misfit was needed to create the need for development. The results supported the authors' predictions. Conscientiousness was positively related to development but only when employees were misfits with respect to autonomy. Employee involvement in development activities was then linked to subsequent fit.

To justify or excuse?: A meta-analytic review of the effects of explanations.

The authors used R. Folger and R. Cropanzano's (1998, 2001) fairness theory to derive predictions about the effects of explanation provision and explanation adequacy on justice judgments and cooperation, retaliation, and withdrawal responses. The authors also used the theory to identify potential moderators of those effects, including the type of explanation (justification vs. excuse), outcome favorability, and study context. The authors' predictions were tested by using meta-analyses of 54 independent samples. The results showed strong effects of explanations on both the justice and response variables. Moreover, explanations were more beneficial when they took the form of excuses rather than justifications, when they were given after unfavorable outcomes, and when they were given in contexts with instrumental, relational, and moral implications.

Computer-assisted communication and team decision-making performance: the moderating effect of openness to experience.

This study examined the effects of computer-assisted communication on team decision-making performance as a function of the team's openness to experience. Seventy-nine teams performing a multiple-cue probability learning task were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 experimental conditions: (a) verbal communication or (b) computer-assisted communication (which combined verbal and computerized communication). The results indicated that access to computer-assisted communication improved the decision-making performance of teams, but only when the teams were high in openness to experience. This effect was observed using both global openness and more specific openness facets, as well as a variety of team-level aggregation strategies. Moreover, the beneficial effects of openness in computer-assisted conditions were mediated by the efficiency with which teams integrated verbal and computerized forms of communication.