Employees are concerned with the fairness of organizational outcomes they receive and the fairness of the decision-making processes used to determine how these outcomes are allocated in accordance with organizational policies. The present study focused on the distributive justice and procedural justice outcomes of disciplinary actions in work place settings. This study assessed the effects of three levels of the severity of rule violation, severity of punishment, and decision-making processes utilized. The results indicated that conditions allowing participation in the decision-making process resulted in perceptions of greater procedural fairness to employees, but did not influence perceptions of distributive fairness. The moderately severe punishment was perceived to be more appropriate and more fair to the punished employee and his/her co-workers. Increased punishment severity was perceived as significantly more likely to deter future rule violations by the punished employee and the employee's co-workers.
","abstract_html":"<p>Employees are concerned with the fairness of organizational outcomes they receive and the fairness of the decision-making processes used to determine how these outcomes are allocated in accordance with organizational policies. The present study focused on the distributive justice and procedural justice outcomes of disciplinary actions in work place settings. This study assessed the effects of three levels of the severity of rule violation, severity of punishment, and decision-making processes utilized. The results indicated that conditions allowing participation in the decision-making process resulted in perceptions of greater procedural fairness to employees, but did not influence perceptions of distributive fairness. The moderately severe punishment was perceived to be more appropriate and more fair to the punished employee and his/her co-workers. Increased punishment severity was perceived as significantly more likely to deter future rule violations by the punished employee and the employee's co-workers.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Phillips, Debra"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Arts","degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":"Department of Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2002,"date_issued":"2002-07-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2002-07-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T06:07:42Z","subjects":["Industrial and Organizational Psychology"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/630","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Phillips, Debra"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Department of Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Arts"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Industrial and Organizational Psychology"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://digitalcommons.wku.edu/theses/630"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["Employees are concerned with the fairness of organizational outcomes they receive and the fairness of the decision-making processes used to determine how these outcomes are allocated in accordance with organizational policies. The present study focused on the distributive justice and procedural justice outcomes of disciplinary actions in work place settings. This study assessed the effects of three levels of the severity of rule violation, severity of punishment, and decision-making processes utilized. The results indicated that conditions allowing participation in the decision-making process resulted in perceptions of greater procedural fairness to employees, but did not influence perceptions of distributive fairness. The moderately severe punishment was perceived to be more appropriate and more fair to the punished employee and his/her co-workers. Increased punishment severity was perceived as significantly more likely to deter future rule violations by the punished employee and the employee's co-workers.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Perceptions of Fairness of Discipline Events in the Work Place"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:creator":["Phillips, Debra"],"dc:description.abstract":["Employees are concerned with the fairness of organizational outcomes they receive and the fairness of the decision-making processes used to determine how these outcomes are allocated in accordance with organizational policies. The present study focused on the distributive justice and procedural justice outcomes of disciplinary actions in work place settings. This study assessed the effects of three levels of the severity of rule violation, severity of punishment, and decision-making processes utilized. The results indicated that conditions allowing participation in the decision-making process resulted in perceptions of greater procedural fairness to employees, but did not influence perceptions of distributive fairness. The moderately severe punishment was perceived to be more appropriate and more fair to the punished employee and his/her co-workers. Increased punishment severity was perceived as significantly more likely to deter future rule violations by the punished employee and the employee's co-workers.
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