Pay procedures - what makes them fair?

Instrumental and value-expressive models of procedural justice were the basis of a field study with 612 employees of a large county government. The purpose was to identify the standards used to assess the fairness of pay procedures, and to determine the extent to which instrumental and value-expressive models of procedural justice explain procedural assessments. Results support the inference that both instrumental and value-expressive evaluation standards are used for fairness judgments of pay procedures. Results also indicate that the relevance of instrumental and value-expressive standards is dependent upon the component of the pay process being evaluated and the criterion referent.