Justice Climate: Consideration of Source, Target, Type, Specificity, and Emergence

This chapter seeks to integrate and expand on the ideas presented by Cropanzano, Li, and James (this volume), Ambrose and Schminke (this volume), and Rupp, Bashshur, and Liao (this volume). First, it summarizes and comments on the key insights made by each set of authors. It then presents five propositions, along with some preliminary evidence supporting each: (1) employees can and do make source-based justice judgments; (2) justice treatment is directed at different targets (including individuals and groups, both internal and external to the organization); (3) global justice climate may be a useful approach to studying justice once the relationship between more specific justice climates (e.g., interunit or intraunit justice climate) is better understood; (4) it is necessary to study both general and specific justice climates to understand the unfolding of justice reactions over time; and (5) a climate for justice can be behaviorally measured and trained.