Chapter 4: Are Interactional Justice and Procedural Justice Different?: Framing the Debate

There is growing uncertainty in the organizational justice literature as to whether it is meaningful to distinguish the concepts of interactional justice and procedural justice. In the present paper, we take stock of the relevant issues. Drawing on Schwab’s (1980) article on construct validity in organizational behavior research, we pose four principal questions by which researchers can evaluate whether these two constructs are fundamentally different. In a final section, we summarize our analysis and identify some key areas for future research. By highlighting the central issues, our hope is that the present framework will serve as a foundation from which the literature can build productively toward a resolution.