STUDYING ORGANIZATIONAL JUSTICE CROSS‐CULTURALLY: FUNDAMENTAL CHALLENGES

Because justice is inherently norm‐based, understanding people's perceptions of fairness in organizations requires considering the prevailing cultural standards in which those organizations operate. Social scien‐tists study cross‐cultural differences in justice primarily to comprehend the connection between culture and fairness, providing insight into the different meanings of justice around the world, and to assess the generalizability of culture‐bound organizational justice phenomena. The present studies focus on assessing generalizability, but fall short of doing so optimally because they suffer from several conceptual and methodo‐logical problems that are endemic in this literature. Cross‐cultural research suggests that although concerns about justice may be universal, operationalization of justice standards is highly particularistic. Finally, I address Gallon's Problem as it pertains to justice—that is, how observed connections between culture and justice perceptions may be inflated spuriously because of inevitable cultural diffusion. In closing, I note that the present research appears to be aimed more squarely at theory‐development rather than theory‐testing, which is appropriate, given the current state of the literature.