How regulatory focus impacts the process-by-outcome interaction
for perceived fairness and emotions
q
Russell Cropanzano
a,
*
, Layne Paddock
b
, Deborah E. Rupp
c
,
Jessica Bagger
d
, Amanda Baldwin
c
a
Department of Management and Organizations, Eller College of Management, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721-0108, USA
b
Department of Management, College of Management, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA
c
Department of Psychology, Institute of Labor and Industrial Relations, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL 61820, USA
d
College of Business Administration, California State University Sacramento, Sacramento CA 95819-6088, USA
Received 28 March 2005
Available online 24 July 2006
Accepted by John Schaubroeck
Abstract
Judgments of fairness take into account at least two pieces of information—the outcome received and the process by which the
outcome was assigned. Generally speaking, low levels of fairness are apt to be reported when the outcome is unfavorable and the
allocation process is deemed inappropriate. In this study, we investigate how regulatory focus theory can further our understanding
of the process by outcome interaction. Specifically, when individuals are working to add to their earnings (a promotion focus) the
typical effect is observed. However, when individuals are focused on maintaining something that is their own (a prevention focus) the
most negative emotion occurs when individuals are allocated an unfavorable outcome through a process that contains procedural
safeguards.
Ó 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Organizational justice; Regulatory focus theory; Procedural justice
Introduction
In the past three decades organizational justice has
emerged as a major topic of inquiry for management sci-
entists. In large measure, this interest has been driven by
its practical relevance to the quality of employees’ work
lives. For example, when organizations and decision-
makers are perceived to be fair, workers manifest higher
job performance, higher rates of effective citizenship
behaviors, and more favorable work attitudes (Cohen-
Charash & Spector, 2001; Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson,
Porter, & Ng, 2001). Given these important benefits,
many scholars have studied the cognitive processing
involved when individuals decide that an event is fair or
not fair (Cropanzano, Byrne, Bobocel, & Rupp, 2001).
Among other things, considerable research suggests
that individuals often evaluate the fairness of an event
by taking into account the allocation process by which
an outcome was assigned. An occurrence might be
hedonically unfavorable. However, when an unfortu-
nate event results from a process perceived as fair, indi-
viduals are less likely to experience negative feelings
(Brockner, 2002; Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 1996). Speci-
fically, the allocation process interacts with outcome
favorability. Individuals report the least fairness when
two conditions are met. First, they obtain a result that
is less than they would like. Second, this unfavorable
0749-5978/$ - see front matter Ó 2006 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.obhdp.2006.06.003
q
The authors thank Seth Spain, Sarah Janssen, Heather Pehlke,
Ryan Smith, and Alan Stenger for their assistance with data collection.
*
Corresponding author. Fax: +1 520 621 4171.
E-mail addresses: russell@eller.arizona.edu (R. Cropanzano),
layne.paddock@cba.ufl.edu (L. Paddock), derupp@uiuc.edu (D.E.
Rupp), baggerj@email.arizona.edu (J. Bagger), ambaldwi@uiuc.edu
(A. Baldwin).
www.elsevier.com/locate/obhdp
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 105 (2008) 36–51