The Mixed Effects of Procedural Justice in Novel Organizational Policy Decisions

Over the last several years, it has been particularly challenging for organizations to protect their employees from experiencing various negative job attitudes as a result of unprecedented external events. In this persistent, broader context of uncertainty, organizations have had to make numerous challenging decisions that pose additional, unwanted risk to employee attitudes. This dissertation includes two research papers that examine the impact of two unique organizational decisions on different types of uncertainty, and whether certain moderating factors, with particular interest in procedural justice, might mitigate adverse impact on employee uncertainty in the wake of different decision situations. In paper 1, I examine the impact of the organizational decision to close or remain open during the COVID-19 pandemic on employee job, financial, and health uncertainty. Moreover, it considers the interactive effects that employee expectations and procedural justice have on the relationship between the organizational decision and employee uncertainty. Cross-sectional study data were obtained from a sample of 273 U.S.-based employees in April and May of 2020, when job uncertainty had spiked to historic levels. Results showed that the impact of organizational decision depended on other moderating factors. First, employee job uncertainty was higher in the unexpected decision to close, and health uncertainty was higher in the unexpected decision to stay open. Furthermore, three-way interaction regression analyses found that procedural justice tended to exhibit varying directions of relationships with uncertainty depending on whether alignment existed between employee expectations and organizational decisions. In some instances, the findings are consistent with uncertainty management theory. However, other counterintuitive findings emerged that are inconsistent with uncertainty management theory and instead exemplary of a less common form the fair process effect. In paper 2, I consider the impact of the organizational decision to implement (or not implement) a return-to-office (RTO) policy on employee job insecurity. This paper builds on paper 1 by considering psychological contract breach as the psychological mechanism that moderates the potential impact of the decision, and tests hypotheses across two studies. Data collection of employee participants occurred in both studies during Winter of 2025, when RTO policies had become a nationwide norm. Study 1 was a lagged survey-based field study on 370 U.S. employees’ experiences with RTO policies. Study 2 was an online experimental vignette study with a different sample of 382 U.S. employees. This study utilized random assignment in a 2 (RTO: yes, no) x 2 (psychological contract breach: yes, no) x 2 (procedural justice: high, low) experimental design to test the causal nature of hypothesized relationships. Findings across both studies varied but ultimately emphasize the relationship between the decision to implement an RTO policy and job insecurity depended largely upon employees’ perceptions of psychological contract breach, procedural justice, and the interactive effects between the two. Through the examination of novel organizational decision-making situations, these three studies across two different papers collectively illuminate the complexity through which such decisions can impact employee job attitudes. Findings offer new insights for both uncertainty management theory and the fair process effect. Additionally, they illustrate the need for further research examining the contextual features that determine the status and direction of relationship between procedural justice and resulting job attitudes.