Chapter 4: The Impact of a Victim’s Reaction to Unfair Treatment on third Parties’ Emotion and Retribution: A Moral Perspective

Organizational justice refers to individuals’ perceptions of fair treatment in the workplace. Most organizational justice research has explored the causes and consequences of unfairness from the victim’s (i.e., the employee’s) perspective. Growing research, however, reveals that unfair treatment can impact third parties (e.g., co-workers, customers, investors, and members of the general public), who can react negatively to both the wrongdoer and the organization in which the transgression occurred. Brockner and colleagues (Brockner, DeWitt, Grover, & Reed, 1990; Brockner & Greenberg, 1990; Brockner, Grover, Reed, DeWitt, & O’Malley, 1987), for instance, showed that the way in which a company managed its layoffs reduced co-workers’ (i.e., layoff survivors’) organizational commitment and increased their intent to leave. Skarlicki, Ellard, and Kelln (1998) found that how employees were treated in a layoff lowered third parties’ intentions to buy the company’s products and to apply for jobs at the company in which the layoff occurred.