Fairness at the Group Level: Justice Climate and Intraunit Justice Climate

Like many constructs within the managerial sciences, organizational justice has traditionally been conceptualized as an individual-level phenomenon. In recent years, this has begun to change, as a number of research studies have explored justice as a collective or group-level construct. The authors provide a review of this literature, historically tracing the growth of this research tradition, reviewing measurement issues, and discussing available research findings. The authors argue that there are at least two viable treatments of unit-level justice. Justice climate pertains to the manner in which a team is treated by outside agents, such as an authority figure. Intraunit justice climate pertains to the manner in which teammates treat one another. Although much more research is needed, evidence suggests that both justice climate and intraunit fairness are useful predictors of work attitudes and behavior.