"It's All About Something We Call Wasta": A Motivated Moralization Approach to Favoritism in the Jordanian Workplace

There has been a limited focus on the construal of justice judgments in contexts where norms are potentially conflicting, despite the relevance of norms in justice research. The present study aimed to close this gap by looking at the case of favoritism in Jordan where such conflicting norms are highly salient. A qualitative approach was chosen to facilitate ample exploration of the contextual complexities of the study's setting. The main data basis were 22 problem-centered interviews conducted with managers and employees in Jordanian non-profit organizations. Data collection and analysis were guided by grounded theory methodology. The resulting theoretical framework of motivated moralization demonstrated that people flexibly construed favoritism as either unjust or justifiable to pursue a number of goals. Instead of relying on a single norm or standard, people strategically adopted the norms that were best suited to substantiate or legitimize a desired position. The norm conflict surrounding favoritism in Jordan facilitated this process by providing a selection of fitting norms for appropriation.