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Employees' perceptions of fairness and their responses to justice have been researched extensively under the heading of organizational justice ([18] Li and Cropanzano, 2009). Fairness or justice (used interchangeably here) is an important topic to managers and employees alike because when it is present, it can "bind together conflicting parties and create stable social structures" ([21] Konovsky, 2000, p. 489). Findings from extensive research over the past few decades reinforce the important role of justice in the workplace. For example, results from a meta-analysis of 183 studies published between 1975 and 1999 showed that fairness perceptions are linked to organizational outcomes such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, evaluation of authority, organizational citizenship behavior, withdrawal, and performance ([9] Colquitt et al. , 2001). Corroborated in another meta-analysis of 190 studies was that organizational justice constructs were related to many of the same outcomes as reported by [9] Colquitt et al. (2001), as well as negatively related to counterproductive work behaviors and positively related to trust ([6] Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001).
The proliferation of organizational justice research has included many studies that explore the conceptualization and measurement of fairness ([6] Cohen-Charash and Spector, 2001; [7] Colquitt, 2001; [9] Colquitt et al. , 2001; [24] Moorman, 1991). Though considerable attention and progress have been made in the refinement of organizational justice measurement, more remains to be done. Specifically, after analyzing the results of their comprehensive meta-analysis, [9] Colquitt et al. (2001, p. 438) state that "it is [...] critical that researchers devote more care and effort to the measurement of justice dimensions." Although a review of the research issues associated with the organizational justice domain is beyond the purview of this paper, we contribute to the measurement debate by exploring the criterion-related validity of two well-developed measures of organizational justice that appear frequently in the research literature; namely, [24] Moorman's (1991) three-scale measure that assesses a three-dimension conceptualization of justice perceptions (i.e., distributive, procedural, and interactional justice) and [7] Colquitt's (2001) four-scale measure that assesses a four-dimension conceptualization of justice perceptions (i.e., distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice). Both measures purport to explain the depth and breadth of organizational justice, but using different scales.
Our study is essentially a replication and, most importantly, an extension of [7] Colquitt's...