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The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers

Eric G. Lambert,1,5 Terry Cluse-Tolar,2 Sudershan Pasupuleti,2

Daniel E. Hall,3 and Morris Jenkins4

The concepts of fairness and justice are embodied within the organizing principle of social justice. Although social justice is a primary focus of social work, social service workers are not always treated with fairness by their own employers. The results from a survey of 255 social service employees from a variety of agencies in Northwest Ohio indicate that distributive justice and procedural justice, two dimensions of organizational justice, are both significant predictors of job sat- isfaction and organizational commitment, with procedural justice having two to three times the impact of distributive justice.

KEY WORDS: social workers; distributive justice; procedural justice; job satisfaction; organizational commitment.

I WANT JUSTICE: THE IMPACT OF DISTRIBUTIVE AND PROCEDURAL JUSTICE ON SOCIAL SERVICE WORKERS

The concepts of fairness and justice abound in modern society in novels, movies, and television shows (Bierhoff et al., 1986). People who are treated unfairly can become upset, even angry, from treatment they perceive to be unjust. This feeling of injustice can lead to frustration, resentment, and even lashing out at others. One of the primary functions of the government is to ensure that civil rights are not violated unjustly. Many government and social institutions not only

1College of Health and Human Services, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio. 2Department of Social Work, University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio. 3Miami University – Hamilton, Ohio. 4University of Toledo, Toledo, Ohio. 5All correspondence should be addressed to Eric G. Lambert, College of Health and Human Ser- vices, University of Toledo, HH 3000A, Mail Stop #119, Toledo, Ohio; e-mail: Eric.Lambert@ UToledo.Edu.

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412 Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins

embrace the concepts of fairness and justice for members of society, but also strive to ensure them. These agencies have rules and regulations aimed at ensuring that clients are served in a fair and just fashion. For example, Davies (1997) argued that the primary goal of social workers is to ensure that “life is more bearable for those whom others might prefer to forget—or choose to condemn” (p. 660), and Flynn (1995) argued that social service agencies must be structured in such a way to maximize social justice for clients.

While it is important that social service agencies advocate justice for their clients, the concepts of justice and fairness are also found in organizational settings among employees (Sheppard et al., 1992) where they are generally referred to as organizational justice. It is reasonable to assume that employees want fair and just treatment in the workplace (Deutsch, 1985). Greenberg (1990a) contended that organizational justice is “a basic requirement for the effective functioning of organizations and the personal satisfaction of the individuals they employ” (p. 399). Without organizational justice, organizations have difficulty motivating and guiding employees.

Workers at social service agencies are expected to be fair in their transac- tions with clients and interactions with the general public. In fact, one of the goals of social work is the promotion of social justice (Brocato and Wagner, 2003). While a great deal of literature focuses on why social service workers must treat their clients with fairness, little research has been done on whether organizational justice affects the attitudes of social service employees. Not only do social service workers represent a significant segment of the U.S. workforce, but they also provide crucial services to millions of people in need. Thus, it is crit- ically important to understand how organizational justice affects their attitudes, because these attitudes will ultimately affect the work behaviors of social ser- vice workers. Two of the most important employee attitudes are job satisfaction and organizational commitment. This study examined the impact of organiza- tional justice on the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of social service employees.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Social justice is a major focus of social work and is frequently discussed in social work literature (e.g., Beverly and McSweeney, 1987; Gil, 1998; Longres and Scanlon, 2001; Sheppard, 2002). It has been argued that social workers must be advocates for a just world (Queiro-Tajalli et al., 2003) and that social justice is the organizing principle of social work (Brocato and Wagner, 2003). In fact, the Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) has mandated that social justice be a prominent part of the social work curriculum (CSWE, 2003). Additionally, the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) advocates that social workers strive for and promote social justice in their dealings with clients (NASW, 1996).

The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers 413

Pelton (2001) argued that social justice involves “just actions that respect the dignity and worth of each and every individual” (p. 433).

According to Colton (2002), there are three areas of social justice for so- cial workers, legal justice, commutative justice, and distributive justice. Legal justice involves the desire for restitution over the infliction of retribution for of- fenses (Colton, 2002). Commutative justice “relates to interpersonal equity issues” (Colton, 2002, p. 659). Distributive justice “refers to the way economic and so- cial goods and services are distributed in a society” (Longres and Scanlon, 2001, p. 448) and focuses on the fair distribution of resources or outcomes (Colton, 2002). Young (1990) argued that social workers also need to be aware of “pro- cessual justice” (a synonym for procedural justice). Processual justice “refers to the decision-making processes that lead to decisions about distribution and to the relationships between dominate and subordinate groups, such as racial minorities and people of color, that affect decisions about distribution” (Longres and Scanlon, 2001, p. 448).

Social justice shares much in common with organizational justice; how- ever, the two are distinct concepts. An excellent definition of justice that en- compasses the concept used in both social and organizational justice is from the Encyclopedia of Social Work. Flynn (1995) defined justice “as the embodiment of fairness (whether people are dealt with reasonably), equity (whether similar situations are dealt with similarly), and equality (whether people and situations are dealt with in the same manner)” (p. 2176). The major dimensions of jus- tice incorporated in both social and organizational justice theories are equity and equality.

Every worker brings inputs to the organization, such as education, skills, effort, experience, and so forth. If fairness is to be achieved, outputs must be proportional to inputs. The outputs for most workers include but are not limited to pay, promotions, awards, recognition, honest feedback, and fair and accurate per- formance evaluations. This aspect of organizational justice is termed distributive justice. Distributive justice is a common term for both social and organizational justice, because outcomes are the focus of both theories. In social work literature on social justice, distributive justice is often used to describe the ideal distribution of goods and services at an aggregate level. In organizational justice, it refers to the outcomes for individual employees.

In terms of organizational justice, distributive justice is seen “as the person’s appraisal of the fairness of his/her rewards [outcomes] given his/her inputs” (Mueller et al., 1999, p. 871). Moreover, it is not limited to just rewards or favorable outcomes for employees. Distributive justice also is concerned with punishment. Punishment of an employee must also be just and proportional in comparison to the inappropriate behavior. Therefore, distributive justice is the degree of perceived fairness in distribution and allocation of outcomes within an organization based upon inputs (Cohen, 1985; Price and Mueller, 1986).

414 Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins

The second major foundation of both social and organizational justice is that they include the concept of equality. Social justice focuses more at the aggregate level of the process at which outputs are arrived and organizational justice focuses more at the individual level. While the concept of equality can fit into distributive justice, one dimension of equality in organizational justice is called procedural justice. Procedural justice is the perceived fairness of the process of determining distributive outcomes, such as pay, schedules, evaluations, promotions, and so forth (Thibaut and Walker, 1975). The majority of workers are aware whether the processes that their employing organization utilizes are fair or not.

While both are dimensions of organizational justice, distributive and procedu- ral justice are different concepts (Greenberg, 1986, 1987; Tyler, 1990). Distributive justice is concerned with the “ends,” while procedural justice is concerned with the “means.” The process of a decision can be just as important as the decision itself for most employees (Alexander and Ruderman, 1987; Greenberg, 1987). Even if an outcome is fair, the process for reaching that outcome can be unfair (Joy and Witt, 1992). Thus, administrators and managers must not only be fair and just in their decisions (i.e., outcomes), they must be perceived to be fair in how they arrive at those decisions (i.e., process) (Greenberg, 1990b). In fact, Lind and Tyler (1988) argue that people are more concerned with issues of process than they are with issues of outcome. Even if a favorable outcome is reached, a person who feels the process was unfair is more likely to be dissatisfied with the outcome even if it benefits him/her (Lind and Tyler, 1988; Tyler, 1990). Perceptions of procedural justice may have a greater impact on people than perceptions of dis- tributive justice. In summary, organizational justice is concerned with distributive justice (i.e., employees’ perceptions of the fairness of outcomes) and procedural justice (i.e., the perceived fairness of the process by which important decisions concerning employees are made).

Organizational justice has been found to impact employees. For example, Greenberg (1990c, 2002) found that as perceived unfairness by the employing organization increased, so too did employee theft and turnover. Another area where organizational justice can affect employees is through their level of satisfaction with the job. It is theorized that perceptions of organizational justice affect the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees (Price and Mueller, 1986). Job satisfaction is an affective response by an employee concerning his or her particular job in an organization, and this response results from the worker’s overall comparison of actual outcomes with those that are expected, needed, wanted, desired, or perceived to be fair or just (Cranny et al., 1992).

While there are many definitions (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986), organiza- tional commitment is typically defined as having the core elements of loyalty to the organization, identification with the organization (i.e., pride in the orga- nization and internalization of the goals of the organization), and involvement in the organization (i.e., personal effort made for the sake of the organization)

The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers 415

(Mowday et al., 1982). According to O’Reilly and Chatman (1986), a common thread through the various definitions and measures of organizational commitment is “the individual’s psychological attachment to an organization—the psychologi- cal bond linking the individual and the organization” (p. 492). Thus, organizational commitment is a much broader concept than job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is defined as the degree to which a person likes his or her job, while organizational commitment is defined as the strength of the bond a person has with the entire organization.

Job satisfaction and organizational commitment are crucial for both em- ployees and employers. Across a wide variety of organizations, high levels of job satisfaction and/or organizational commitment have been linked to positive worker attitudes and behaviors, such as productivity, creativeness, innovativeness, extra efforts, receptivity to change, and openness to innovation (Clegg and Dunkerley, 1980; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990; Witt and Wilson, 1991). Conversely, low levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment have been linked to absenteeism, turnover, psychological withdrawal from the job, decreased outcomes, and other detrimental behaviors (Cotten and Tuttle, 1986; Hulin et al., 1985; Mathieu and Zajac, 1990). Therefore, it is critical to explore, confirm, and understand the key antecedents of job satisfaction and organizational commitment among social service workers.

In the field of social work, there has been a fair amount of research on the antecedents of job satisfaction. Past research has shown that control over decision- making, job autonomy, job variety, job challenge, skill variety, supervision, role strain, role conflict, role ambiguity, job stress, and supportive supervision are all significant predictors of job satisfaction for social service workers (Gellis, 2001; Glisson and Durick, 1988; Itzhaky and Aviad-Hiebloom, 1998; Jayaratne and Chess, 1984; Poulin, 1994, 1995).

While job satisfaction has received a fair amount of attention in the social services literature, there has been little research on organizational commitment among this important group of workers. Moreover, while the impact of many ar- eas of the work environment has been explored with social service workers, there are many other areas that have not been studied. The impact of organizational jus- tice on the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of social workers has received little, if any, empirical research. No published studies could be located. Thus, there is a need to study the impact of perceptions of organizational justice on social service employees. It was predicted that organizational justice would be a significant antecedent of social service staff job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Specifically, it was hypothesized that both distributive and proce- dural justice would have significant effects on job satisfaction and organizational commitment among social service workers. In addition, based on the work of Lind and Tyler (1988), it was hypothesized that procedural justice would have a greater impact than distributive justice.

416 Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins

METHODS

Respondents

A survey was mailed to a wide array of social service employees in Northwest Ohio. One survey instrument was mailed with no follow-up mailing, so a cash raffle was offered in order to maximize the initial response rate. Respondents were informed that by returning a survey, whether completed or not, they were eligible to be included in the raffle drawing. In order to be part of the raffle, respondents needed to place their name and phone number on the back of the return self- addressed stamped business envelope. The return envelopes were separated from the returned survey, with no identifying marks placed in the surveys to ensure the anonymity of the respondents. The cash prizes ranged from $25 to $100, and a total of $325 was given away to six respondents. A total of 255 usable surveys were returned out of the 500 employees surveyed (i.e., a response rate of 51%). A 51% response rate is acceptable, particularly for mailed surveys. No demographic information on the employees to whom the questionnaires were sent exists; therefore, it is impossible to see if any demographic group was over- or underrepresented in terms of returned questionnaires.

In terms of gender, 83% of the respondents were female, and 17% were male. The median age was 41, and ranged from 20 to 69 years. The mean age was 40.87, with a standard deviation of 11.01. The mean tenure with the current employer was 7.35 years, with a standard deviation of 7.93, and ranged from 0 to 32 years. In terms of race, 84% of the respondents were White, 12% were African American, 3% were Hispanic, 0.4% were Asian American, none were Native American, and 1% were other. In terms of marital status, 61% of the respondents were married, 13% were divorced, 1% were widowed, 12% were single with a partner, and 12% were single with no partner. For the highest educational level reported, 4% of the respondents had a high school diploma or GED, 7% had some college but no degree, 12% had an associates degree, 51% had a bachelors degree, and 27% had a masters degree or higher. Forty percent of those surveyed indicated that they supervised others at work.

Measures

Distributive Justice

As previously indicated, distributive justice is concerned with the fairness of outcomes. The issue of pay satisfaction and fairness of pay were the original focus of early research on distributive justice among employees. While pay is important, distributive justice concerns a wider array of organizational outcomes (Martin and Bennett, 1996), such as work schedules, benefits, and performance

The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers 417

evaluations. Basically, distributive justice represents the fair outcome of the efforts and performance of the employee. Therefore, perceptions of fairness of rewards and evaluation were measured. Perceptions of distributive justice were measured using the following four questions, which were answered on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

1. My last annual performance rating presented a fair and accurate picture of my actual job performance.

2. I am fairly rewarded at this place based upon my education level and job skills.

3. I am fairly rewarded considering the responsibilities and work that I do. 4. At this place, I am not properly rewarded for my hard work. (reverse

coded)

The four questions were summed to form an index (Cronbach’s α coeffi- cient = 0.81; median = 13; mean of 13.13; standard deviation = 3.52).

Procedural Justice

Procedural justice is concerned with the procedures used to reach outcomes that affect employees and covers a wide range of organizational procedures and processes. In this study, perceptions of fair promotional procedures, evaluations, and credit for ideas were measured. Promotional procedures are at the discretion and control of administrators and are perceived by most workers as being entirely controlled by the organization (Sheppard et al., 1992). Lincoln and Kalleberg (1990, p. 105) argued, “More than earnings, we think, opportunity for promotion is a key weapon in the corporatist arsenal for winning the compliance and com- mitment of employees: workers who perceive that they have a career with the company are more likely to be committed to its goals and fortunes over a long period of time.” Additionally, employees want the procedures and objectives used to evaluate them to be fair. Performance evaluations are important outcomes for the vast majority of workers because they reflect the worth and performance of the employee and are used in reaching other important organizational outcomes, such as rewards or pay increases.

The following five questions were used to measure perceptions of procedural justice.

1. Promotions are seldom related to employee performance. (reverse coded) 2. Promotions are more related to whom you know rather than the quality of

work. (reverse coded) 3. Promotions are done fairly here. 4. The standards used to evaluate my performance at this place have been

fair and objective.

418 Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins

5. Supervisors at this place give full credit to ideas contributed by employees.

These questions measuring the respondent’s perception of a fair and just “playing field” were answered using a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The five questions were summed together to form an index of perceptions of procedural justice (Cronbach’s α coefficient = .85; median = 17; mean of 16.18; standard deviation = 4.34).

Control Variables

Personal characteristics of gender, race, age, tenure with the current employer, education level, marital status, and supervisory status were selected as control variables. Gender was measured as a dichotomous variable representing whether the respondent was female (0) or male (1). Race was measured as a dichotomous variable representing whether the respondent was White (1) or Nonwhite (0). Age was measured in continuous years, and tenure at the current employer was also measured in continuous years. Education level was represented by an ordinal-level variable, with 1 = high school diploma/GED, 2 = some college but no degree, 3 = Associate or Vocational degree, 4 = Bachelor degree, and 5 = Graduate or higher degree. Marital status was measured as a dichotomous variable representing whether a person was currently married (1) or not (0). Finally, supervisory status was measured using a dichotomous variable of 0 = not a supervisor and 1 = supervisor.

Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction, an affective response a person has toward his or her job (Cranny et al., 1992), was one of the two dependent variables in the study. A global, rather than a facet-oriented, measure of job satisfaction was used (Cranny et al., 1992). The five questions below, adapted from Brayfield and Rothe (1951), were used to measure overall job satisfaction

1. I definitely dislike my job. (reverse coded for the index) 2. I like my job better than the average worker does. 3. Most days I am enthusiastic about my job. 4. I find real enjoyment in my job. 5. I am very satisfied with my job.

The five questions were answered on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree. The five questions were summed to form a job satisfaction index (Cronbach’s α = .82; median = 20; mean = 19.95; standard deviation = 3.26).

The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers 419

Organizational Commitment

Organizational commitment was the other dependent variable. There are two primary methods for measuring organizational commitment, behavioral and attitudinal. An attitudinal-based measure of organizational commitment was used and was measured using the following six questions from Mowday et al. (1982), which were answered using a 5-point Likert-type response scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree.

1. I tell my friends that this is a great organization to work for. 2. I feel little loyalty to my employer. (reverse coded) 3. I find that my values and the employing organization’s values are very

similar. 4. I am proud to tell people that I work here. 5. This place really inspires the best in me in the way of job performance. 6. I really care about the fate of this place.

The above six items measure attitudinal commitment rather than the conse- quences of commitment (O’Reilly and Chatman, 1986). The responses on the six questions were summed together to form an index (Cronbach’s α = .84; median = 27; mean = 26.33; standard deviation = 5.08).

RESULTS

Pearson’s correlation coefficients were calculated, and the results are pre- sented in Table I. Age, marital status, supervisory status, distributive justice, and procedural justice all had statistically significant correlations with job satisfac- tion. As age increased, so did job satisfaction. Those who were married generally reported higher levels of job satisfaction than did those who were not married. Similarly, supervisors had on average higher levels of job satisfaction than did nonsupervisory respondents. Both distributive and procedural justice positively correlated with job satisfaction. In terms of size of correlations, both distributive and procedural justice had correlations with job satisfaction almost twice the size of the correlations found for the personal characteristics. Finally, the correlation for procedural justice was slightly larger than was the correlation for distributive justice.

Race, marital status, supervisory status, distributive justice, and procedural justice all had statistically significant (p ≤ 0.05) correlations with organizational commitment. Whites on average tended to report higher levels of organizational commitment as compared to Non-Whites. Similarly, those who were married gen- erally reported higher levels of organizational commitment than did those who were not married. Both distributive and procedural justice positively correlated

420 Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins

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The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers 421

Table II. OLS Regression Results for Social Service Workers’ Job Satisfaction and Organizational Commitment (N = 254)

Job satisfaction Organizational commitment

Variable B SE (B) β B SE (B) β

Gender .03 .46 .00 .38 .61 .03 Race .01 .49 .00 .78 .64 .06 Age .07 .02 .23∗∗ .04 .02 .09 Tenure −.04 .02 −.09 −.10 .03 −.17∗∗ Education .00 .18 .00 .08 .24 .02 Marital status .61 .36 .09 .90 .48 .10 Supervisory status .01 .37 .00 .58 .49 .06 Distributive justice .15 .06 .17∗ .19 .08 .15∗ Procedural justice .31 .05 .41∗∗ .50 .07 .48∗∗

R2 .36∗∗ .43∗∗ Adjusted R2 .33∗∗ .40∗∗

Note. B represents the unstandardized OLS regression coefficient. SE (B) represents the estimated standard error of the slope, and β represents the standardized OLS regression coefficient. See Table I note for how variables were coded. ∗p ≤ 0.05; ∗∗p ≤ 0.01.

with organizational commitment. Furthermore, the correlations for both distribu- tive and procedural justice were at least twice the correlations for the personal characteristics variables. Additionally, procedural justice had a larger correlation with organizational commitment as compared to distributive justice. Finally, the correlational results provide support for the position that both distributive and procedural justice are important in shaping the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of social service workers.

Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression equations were computed with the job satisfaction and organizational commitment indexes as the dependent vari- ables. The personal characteristics and the indexes for distributive and procedural justice were entered as independent variables. Based upon the correlation matrix in Table II, the Variation Inflation Factor (VIF) statistics, and the tolerance statistics, there appeared to be no issue with collinearity or multicollinearity. The results of the OLS regression analyses are presented in Table II.

For the OLS regression model for job satisfaction, R2 was .36. This means that approximately a third of the variance observed in the job satisfaction index was accounted for by the seven personal characteristics and the two organizational justice measures. For the personal characteristics, only age had a statistically sig- nificant relationship with job satisfaction. As age increased, job satisfaction rose among the social service workers. The other six personal variables exerted no reliable effects. Both distributive and procedural justice had significant positive impacts on job satisfaction. As predicted, both forms of organizational justice were important in shaping the job satisfaction of social service employees. Look- ing at the magnitude of effects (i.e., the standardized OLS regression coefficients),

422 Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins

procedural justice had the largest effect, followed by age and distributive justice. In fact, procedural justice had more than twice the impact as distributive justice or age.

For organizational commitment, about 43% of the variance was explained by the personal variables and the two organizational justice indexes. Among the seven personal characteristics, only tenure had a statistically significant relationship. As tenure increased, organizational commitment decreased, suggesting burnout. The remaining six personal variables exerted no reliable effects. Both distributive and procedural justice had a significant impact on the organizational commitment of social service employees. As distributive justice increased, organizational com- mitment also rose. Likewise, as procedural justice increased, so did organizational commitment among the responding social service workers. Thus, as postulated, both forms of organizational justice were important in shaping the level of organi- zational commitment among social service staff. In terms of magnitude of effect, procedural justice exerted the greatest impact, followed by tenure and distributive justice. Once again, procedural justice had almost three times the effect of tenure or distributive justice.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The focus of the study was to see what impact, if any, organizational jus- tice had on the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of social service employees. The results suggest that management has the duty to stress orga- nizational justice in the workplace for the well being of social service work- ers. Both distributive justice and procedural justice were found to be impor- tant in shaping the level of job satisfaction and commitment of the respondents surveyed.

The findings have strong administrative implications considering the increas- ing concern over turnover rates, especially in social work agencies like public child welfare. If social service administrators and managers wish to improve job satis- faction and organizational commitment, they need to be aware of the importance of organizational justice. Organizational justice must become part of the orga- nization’s culture. Employees must be treated fairly. Decisions cannot be made arbitrarily. There must be more than just a “veneer of fairness” and there should be sincerity in the efforts of superiors in dealing with subordinates (Greenberg, 1990b, p. 139).

Administrators and managers of social agencies should provide employ- ees an opportunity to express concerns about the decisions and the procedures for decision-making within the agency. Employees should be provided adequate consideration for their input on matters of distributive and procedural justice. Thibaut and Walker (1975) call this having a “voice” in the process. Without meaningful input and consideration of their views, it has been suggested that employees will see organizational justice in their workplace as a sham (Cohen,

The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers 423

1985; Folger and Bies, 1989). Additionally, to remain committed, workers must feel that they are able to voice their concerns and opinions concerning organiza- tional justice to the administration without fear of retaliation (Cohen, 1985). With- out input or consideration of employees concerns, there can be no organizational justice.

The aforementioned will be enhanced by open, two-way communication be- tween staff and administrators and feedback to see how employees view distribu- tive and procedural justice within their social organization. This communication process must be neutral, with no hint of favoritism, and with no employee be- ing left out of the communication loop. Moreover, administrators and managers tend to have different and more detailed information than do workers (Greenberg, 1990b). This information needs to be shared with line workers, particularly those directly impacted by an outcome decision. Administrators and managers should be able and willing to answer questions dealing with organizational justice within their organization or workers will develop a view that organizational justice is just a buzzword thrown around by management. Therefore, all administrators and managers in the social agency must be knowledgeable about organizational justice and how it can be accomplished in their agency. Organizational justice must not only be preached, but it must be practiced. If not, the job satisfaction and organi- zational commitment of the staff will drop, which will ultimately affect the health of the organization and the services it provides to clients. Therefore, timely and relevant feedback is critical.

Open, honest, two-way communication requires that justifications be pro- vided to employees for salient outcomes and this must be done in a timely manner (Folger and Bies, 1989). According to Tyler (1988), organizational justice requires that administrators and managers be truthful in the explanations they provide to workers. Deception will only lead to a lowering of perceptions of organizational justice within the social service agency. Moreover, administrators and managers must be civil when dealing with subordinates, especially when providing justifica- tions. Employees must be treated with respect and dignity when they are informed of issues involving organizational justice (Joy and Witt, 1992). Basically, social service employees are not cogs to be manipulated at the will of administrators and managers.

In terms of the size of the impact, procedural justice had a much larger effect on both social service staff job satisfaction and organizational commitment than did distributive justice. For most employees, procedural justice is more important than is distributive justice. In many social agencies, outcomes (e.g., pay, benefits, etc.) are not as easy for management to change in comparison with procedural matters. Procedural justice generally represents the core of the organization. If an organization’s leaders are fair, honest, and open in their processes, then it is probably easier for a person to bond with the organization and be satisfied with his/her job. If the organization’s leaders are deceitful, manipulative, untrustwor- thy, arbitrary, and capricious in their decision-making, it is probably hard for a

424 Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins

person to bond with the organization or to be satisfied with his/her job. Procedu- ral justice probably represents what the organization stands for and its degree of legitimacy.

The finding that procedural justice has a greater effect in shaping both job satisfaction and organizational commitment of social service workers also has implications for social agencies. This finding suggests that if social service ad- ministrators are forced to aim their efforts and resources toward only one area of organizational justice, they should choose procedural justice in the short run. Procedural justice has a far greater impact on job satisfaction and organizational commitment than does distributive justice. Furthermore, in the short term, it is easier for social service administrators to institute changes involving procedu- ral justice areas than it would in distributive justice areas. Procedural justice changes tend to be less costly for most social service agencies to implement and follow than are comprehensive distributive justice improvements, such as pay, incentive programs, and so forth. Martin and Bennett (1996) point out that “the economic costs of acting in a procedurally fair manner—treating individuals with respect, providing advance notice of and justification for actions—are minimal” (p. 100).

Nevertheless, it is important to remember that the results indicate that dis- tributive justice is important in shaping the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of social service workers. As such, the issue of distributive justice cannot be ignored by administrators. In the long term, administrators need to fo- cus not only on procedural justice issues, but also distributive justice. Failure to do so could lead to decreases in the job satisfaction and organizational com- mitment of employees. This, of course, will require meaningful thought and discussions on the issue among administrators, managers, and employees at social agencies. It will require dedication, hard work, and vigilance to ensure that distributive justice is in place and routinely practiced within the organi- zation.

This study was limited to social service workers in Northwest Ohio. How- ever preliminary the results, it is clear that additional research is required on the effects of the perceptions, distributive and procedural justice, on social service staff. This study used a variety of questions to measure perceptions of distribu- tive and procedural justice. Like all measures, future research needs to be done to validate the measures of perceived distributive and procedural justice used in this study. There is also the issue that the index of perceptions of distribu- tive justice was measured using questions aimed at outcomes for the individual (e.g., I am fairly rewarded at this place based upon my education level and job skills), while the index of perceptions of procedural justice deals mostly with issues for the organization which might not necessarily relate to the individ- ual (e.g., Promotions are seldom related to employee performance). It could be that different results could have occurred if a different index of perceptions of

The Impact of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Social Service Workers 425

procedural justice aimed at the individual was used. This needs to be investigated. The same can be said for the perceptions of distributive justice. It is possible that a measure of perceptions of distributive justice at the organizational level rather than at the individual level (employee) could have resulted in different findings.

Moreover, the effects of different areas of perceptions of distributive and procedural justice need to be studied beyond those examined in this study. As previously indicated, both cover a broad array of areas. Besides looking at the different areas of perceptions of distributive and procedural justice, fu- ture research should examine the impact of perceptions of organizational jus- tice on other areas of social service worker attitudes and behaviors, such as job stress, work–family conflict, psychological and emotional withdrawal from the job, intention to quit, turnover, and absenteeism. According to the correlational analysis, there was a difference between White and Non-White respondents in their level of organizational commitment but this difference disappeared in the multivariate analysis. Future research might usefully examine whether White and Non-White employees have different perceptions of organizational justice. Future research is also needed to examine why some social service adminis- trators, managers, and supervisors display greater organizational justice skills than others. In addition, methods of increasing organizational justice in ser- vice agencies need to be developed and examined for effectiveness. All of this should lead to a greater understanding of organizational justice in social ser- vice agencies and ultimately broaden the concept of justice in the field of social work.

In closing, the world of management has drastically changed over the past hundred years when workers were generally treated as machines to be used and even abused. While workers are generally treated better today, there is still room for improvement. Organizational justice is an area that warrants further attention by both administrators and researchers. If social service employees are asked to provide social justice to those whom they serve, it is reasonable to argue that they in turn deserve organizational justice at their jobs. The ability to understand the antecedents of social service worker attitudes and behaviors is critical for all parties involved, including administrators, managers, employees, clients, the families of clients, academicians, and society in general. Perceptions of organizational justice appear to be important work environment factors that shape the attitudes of correctional staff. Specifically, this study found both perceptions of procedural and distributive justice were salient antecedents for social service employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Organizational justice should not be ignored by future research on social service employees, nor by administrators of social service agencies. Social service employees deserve organizational justice, especially in light of the fact that they are called upon to deliver social justice to the clients and public they serve.

426 Lambert, Cluse-Tolar, Pasupuleti, Hall, and Jenkins

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors thank Janet Lambert for her help in editing and proofreading this article. The authors also thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. Their comments made the paper better.

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