Contagious justice: Exploring the social construction of justice in organizations

This chapter addresses one of the most enduring questions underlying the justice literature: How do organizational actors know what is just or fair? It notes that despite increasingly frequent theoretical and empirical efforts to explore the 'social side' of justice in organizations, the literature continues to be dominated by a highly individualistic perspective on the justice judgment process. In contrast, the chapter develops the premise that the often ambiguous and emotionally charged nature of justice-related events compels organizational actors to engage in social 'talk' and arrive at a shared, socially constructed interpretation of justice. Using the concept of social contagion as a guide, I trace the developments of these shared justice beliefs at several levels of analysis and suggest that they can instigate a qualitative change in how organizational actors think and feel about justice. I further present arguments showing that storytelling and talk about reputations can enable organizational populations to maintain and strengthen their shared justice interpretations over time, and examine how these shared interpretations may become expressed at a broader organizational level in justice-related actions such as collective protests, group-based impression management efforts, and group-based antisocial behaviors. Finally, I outline implications of a contagion approach to justice for future research and organizational development efforts.