We've made it lesson three of module three. This is the last lesson in this module, but since both modules two and three have been focused on the different reasons why people work. Then you should think of this lesson as a conclusion to both module two and module three. Now in modules two and three I've tried to do two things. One, we've looked at the different reasons why people work. But I've also used this as an opportunity to try to drive additional lessons that come from the disciplines that study work and workers, in particular, economics, psychology, and sociology. So this conclusion will have a similar flavor, it'll be somewhat about concluding thoughts on the different reasons why people work, but also mixing in lessons from economics, psychology, and sociology. So this first concluding video in this last lesson is on fairness and justice. Fairness and justice is an important issue for workers, for managers, and organizations. Now, workers, and even society, typically have expectations around fairness and justice, and if a manager, or if an organization, fails to live up to those standards. Then the manager or the organization can suffer consequences, there can be low moral, poor productivity, maybe even in some extreme situations. There can be a deteriorating public image for that organization and in fact sometimes calls for regulation or legislative standards. Now think of these workers here, now if these workers were feeling this way because they felt a sense of injustice or unfairness from how their organization or their manager was treating them. Presumably they're not being very productive, so again fairness and justice are important issues for managers and organizations. However, fairness and justice are very challenging organizations for managers and organizations because there's a lot of different perspectives on these two key ideas. There can be market based perspectives, organizational perspectives and the like. And so this video, will give you an introduction to some of those different perspectives. First, let's consider market based perspectives. Remember in main stream economics, or the neoliberal market ideology, markets are king. There's a real emphasis on perfectly competitive markets. And we saw in an earlier video, that if all agents are equal than scarce resources are optimally allocated. Well, for people who believe in this school of thought then market outcomes are fair. Let's think about why. Well if markets are ideally competitive or perfectly competitive then wage that somebody receives equals the value of what they're contributing to the organization. That's coming from perfect competition. Now, if you don't like something, a worker is free to take whatever other job opportunities are available to them. So market based outcomes are efficient. They're equitable, because wages equal the value that they are produced and voice is something that employees can exercise through their feet. From this perspective, again, market outcomes are seen as fair. Now in pluralist industrial relations by contrast, all agents are not seen as equals, so therefore labor markets are seen as destructively competitive, rather than perfectly competitive. So wages don't equal the value that someone contributes to the organization and alternative opportunities are typically constrained and the market doesn't provide very much voice either. So from an industrilations perspective, market outcomes are not seen as fair and instead equity, or fairness, is seen as minimum standards for wages, terms and conditions of employment, and employee voice. So again, both the mainstream economics on the industrialization perspectives on fairness, justice, and equity are market based conceptualizations. And these are important but workers in your organization probably have deeper expectations they're also concerned with how their organization and in particular their manager is treating them as individuals. So there's also a lot of research within the organization looking at organizational justice. And there's different categorizations but I'm gonna focus on four different forms of organizational justice in this video. There's Distributive Justice. Procedural Justice. Interpersonal Justice. And information justice. So first, Distributive Justice. This is perceived fairness of outcomes. An enduring theory in this regard Is Equity Theory. Now prediction from Equity Theory, is that workers will alter their behavior to establish equitable outcomes with some reference group. So this is typically thought of as an individual comparing their outcomes to their inputs. What am I getting out of what I'm putting in? And I'm gonna compare this to some comparison group or some reference group. So, I look at the same ratio. What is somebody else getting for their outcomes based on their inputs. And I wanna weight this up and see how my outcomes to inputs compare to other people's outcomes to their inputs. And so for example, if you believe that you're that you're working harder than your co-workers, but you're getting paid the same. Equity Theory predicts that you will reduce your effort to match that of your coworker's or you'll see higher compensation. Both are strategies to try to level out, this comparison here, balance out this comparison. So Distributive Justice, again, raise questions as to whether workers think outcomes are fair. And for outcomes, we're thinking about things going on within the work group, like a performance appraisal, which might lead to a merit raise, might lead to a promotion or not, things of that nature. Some questions that researches typically use, which could help you think about Distributive Justice from the prospective of the worker. The mind worker might ask, does my wage, for example? Or whether I receive this promotion or not reflect the effort that I've put into my work? Does this outcome reflect what I've contributed to the organization? So again, Distributive Justice is about fair outcomes. Procedural Justice, asks whether the processes leading to these outcomes are fair or not. So again, we're thinking about processes like a performance appraisal process, determination of a promotion or not, things of that nature. And some questions that one could ask to assess Procedural Justice include, have the procedures been applied consistently? Have the procedures been free of bias? Has the individual being evaluated been able to express their views and feelings during the procedure? Thirdly, is Interpersonal Justice. This looks at the fairness of the delivery of the message containing the outcome, the performance evaluation outcome, or the merit increase, or whether or not somebody received a promotion. Some key questions in this regard, has the manager treated the person in a polite fashion? They treated them with dignity, they treated them with respect. And then lastly, Informational Justice. This looks at whether explanations of the outcome have been fair. Some key questions in this regard has the manager explained the procedure thoroughly? We're the manager's explanation regarding the procedures reasonable? Have the details been communicated in a timely fashion? So organizational justice is important for managers. A lot of research finds that perceptions of different types organizational justice predict employee attitude such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment. And not only attitudes, but work behaviors as well. Not only job performance, but also organizational citizenship behaviors. That is, are individuals willing to give a little extra, lend a helping hand to others. Now, at first glance, fairness might seem like a hard thing to tackle, because of its ambiguous nature. Lots of different perspectives. So yes, it is complicated but it doesn't have to be elusive if you think of the different elements that I've presented here. You should think about potential frustrations that individuals have with perceived unfairness in market oriented outcomes. And also think about different aspects of perceived injustice or fairness dealing with manager treatment as well. And remember, in thinking about justice and fairness, your goal isn't to make everybody happy per se. Your goal is to make people productive. Fostering feelings of justice and fairness will help with this key goal.
