Chapter 2: Task-Relevant Justice: Receiving the Resources to Get the Job Done

Being able to properly do their jobs can be an important part of how employees experience work, view their organization, and derive work satisfaction. Yet without adequate tools and resources employees are less able to complete the work tasks that they are held responsible for—by managers, colleagues, clients, and themselves. We argue here that receiving the resources to properly do one’s job is an important and unexplored type of fairness. Research has shown the importance in organizations of efficiently distributing resources (Greenberg, 1981; Leventhal, 1976), and the importance to employee motivation of believing they have the resources to do theirjobs (Eden, 2001; Eden, Ganzach, Flumin-Grant & Zigman, 2010). Although tasks (αnd individuals) will differ in the extent that they are dependent on external resources, when people believe that they have the internal resources combined with the externally-provided tools, they feel most efficacious and motivated (Eden, 2001). However, whereas the organizational justice literature has shown the importance of just rewards, procedures, and interpersonal treatment, the fair allocation of task-relevant resources has received almost no attention.