CRITIQUE OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE

Critique of Organizational Culture

Critique of Organizational Culture

Introduction

What is perceived as fair in organizations has been a topic that has received an enormous amount of research attention as it has the potential to impact individual, group, and organizational outcomes. Due to increased intercultural interaction in recent years, cultural differences in perceptions of justice have gained an increased practical importance as well. This chapter reviews relevant findings of organizational justice research in various fields such as industrial/organizational psychology, organizational behavior, human resource management, cross-cultural psychology, and international management in an attempt to identify and understand the influence of culture on human perceptions and behavior. The chapter presents representative results of cross-cultural comparisons of the processes that mediate perceptions of justice and behavior in various cultures. Further, the theoretical and practical implications of these results for human resource management in organizations are discussed.

All the people like us are WE

And everyone else is THEY

And THEY live over the sea,

While WE live over the way.

But—would you believe it?—

They look upon WE

As only a sort of THEY.

Rudyard Kipling

Discussion

The genesis of fairness perceptions construct lies in the tenets of Adams's (1965) equity theory. Organizational justice is the overarching theoretical concept that deals with fair treatment of people in organizations. Most current research and thinking on this topic follows the theoretical framework suggested by Colquitt et al. (2001). Current research acknowledges the existence of three types of fairness perceptions or organizational justice: (a) distributive justice, which deals with the fairness regarding how outcomes are distributed; (b) procedural justice, which deals with the fairness regarding the procedure(s) adopted to distribute outcomes; and (c) interactional justice, which deals with how individual employees are treated in an organization. Interactional justice, further, has been found to have two components: (1) interpersonal and (2) informational. Interpersonal justice refers to perceptions of treating people with respect and dignity. Informational justice refers to the fairness in timely, complete, and accurate information distribution.

As what is perceived as fair or just is inherently normbased, culture and internalized values play a significant role in shaping expectations and fairness perceptions. As cultures prescribe norms and values for its members, it would be interesting to see cross-cultural differences in perceived fairness at all three justice levels.

Cross-Cultural Justice Research

Cross-cultural researchers have studied people's reactions to resource allocation outcomes (distributive justice), processes through which allocation decisions are made (procedural justice), and perceptions of fairness in interpersonal treatment they received (interactional justice). In most of the early work in cross-cultural justice research, culture was equated to country differences. In other words, most of the early studies were essentially cross-country studies. The major assumption adopted being people in one country share similar culture. Culture has also been captured through dimensions of values (e.g., individualism-collectivism). Scientists have also tried to adopt a more functional approach to understand organizational culture by studying employees' work-related values. People from different cultural backgrounds bring to work different values. These similarities and differences in value orientations related to work can be a source of growth or ...