High scores and rewards ~ ~! ! ! Employees' sense of organizational justice and its influencing factors and effects

On the Incentive Function and the Principle of Fairness of Job Promotion

This paper analyzes the positive and negative effects of job promotion as an incentive measure in human resource management, puts forward the principle of fairness in promotion decision, and points out that fairness in results, procedures and communication of promotion decision is an important measure to give full play to the role of job promotion incentive and eliminate the possible negative effects of promotion.

Keywords: job promotion; Job promotion; Procedural justice; Fair communication

1. Job promotion is an important incentive measure for enterprises. The post promotion system of enterprises has two major functions, one is to select outstanding talents, and the other is to stimulate the enthusiasm of existing employees. [1] It is of great significance for enterprises to promote excellent employees to higher and more important positions from within, both for employees and for the development of enterprises. For individuals, job promotion is an important way for employees' personal career development. When employees get the opportunity of promotion, they will think that it is an affirmation and appreciation of their work ability and performance, an improvement of their value and a symbol of their career success. Job promotion will bring about the improvement of employees' economic and social status, opportunities for further promotion and more opportunities for external choices. For enterprises, internal position promotion has the following important significance: First, compared with other incentives (such as monetary incentives), promotion can stimulate the long-term behavior of organization members. Before promotion, the enterprise needs to evaluate the long-term performance of the promoted person, and the incentive provided is long-term incentive, so as to make the behavior of the organization members conform to the long-term interests of the enterprise; Enterprises often give monetary rewards to employees according to their short-term performance. This kind of incentive is mainly short-term incentive, which may drive the members of the organization to pay more attention to their short-term interests and ignore the long-term interests of the enterprise. Second, promoting excellent employees from within the enterprise can make employees who share weal and woe and grow together with the enterprise benefit from the fruits of enterprise development. Compared with external recruitment, promoting suitable candidates from within can strengthen the cohesion of enterprises. Thirdly, the employees promoted internally have recognized the values of the enterprise, are familiar with the operation of the enterprise, and have stronger adaptability and integration ability than the employees recruited externally. Fourth, internal promotion not only gives the promoted people more opportunities to display their talents in a larger scope, but also provides the expectation of career development for those who have not been promoted or newcomers, so that employees can combine their personal career development with the long-term development of the enterprise, thus enhancing their sense of belonging and loyalty to the enterprise. However, when enterprises take promotion as an incentive measure, some problems will arise. First of all, the level of promotion is limited. Enterprises can only promote a few employees, but not reward most people at the same time as monetary incentives. Second, even the best talents can't be promoted many times in the whole career of employees. And companies can often give monetary rewards to employees. Thirdly, because there are not many promotion opportunities, there will be promotion competition among colleagues, which may affect team spirit. Fourth, promotion has two functions: encouraging and selecting managers, which will conflict. The reward function is to reward employees who have outstanding performance in the past. Choosing a manager is to put the right person in the right position. Employees who perform well in their current positions may not be suitable for or interested in management. A typical example is that excellent scientists and engineers are not necessarily excellent managers. People who have the ability and outstanding performance in their current posts may not be qualified for a higher level post. However, motivated by promotion, the promoted person may keep asking for promotion until he finally reaches a position beyond his power. And he (she) will end his whole career in this incompetent position. [2] For employees who have not been promoted, the desire for promotion has not been realized, and the efforts made for promotion have no negative impact, which may be huge. Especially when employees think that people who are equal to their own conditions have been promoted, even those who are not as good as themselves have been promoted, and they are still standing still, they will think that the enterprise has violated the principle of fairness and justice, thus generating anger, reassessing and adjusting the relationship between individuals and organizations, including reducing their psychological commitment to the enterprise, increasing their intention to leave, and looking for job-hopping opportunities or immediately jumping ship. [3] Therefore, how to correctly use the promotion as an important incentive measure to minimize the negative impact caused by the promotion of only a few people, so that most excellent employees can continue to work hard and maintain professionalism is an important issue that cannot be ignored in enterprise management. Adhering to the principle of fairness in promotion is an important measure to play an incentive role in promotion and eliminate the possible negative effects of promotion.

Second, the development of organizational justice theory

As a social value standard, justice has always been an ideal that people strive to pursue. According to the Modern Chinese Dictionary, fairness refers to handling things reasonably without taking sides. Justice means fairness and integrity, without favoritism. In the research literature of organizational justice, justice and fairness are interchangeable synonyms. This article also makes no distinction between justice and fairness. Social psychologists are the first people to study the issue of fairness. In the mid-1960s, the academic circle of enterprise management began to study the fairness within the enterprise organization. Organizational justice includes three types: result justice or distribution justice, procedural justice and interactive justice. The fairness of results refers to employees' evaluation of the fairness of enterprise decision-making results; Procedural justice is the judgment of employees on the fairness of the process of producing decision-making results; The fairness of communication involves the fairness of interpersonal communication. Early research on fairness mainly focused on the fairness of results. The fairness of the result is related to the distribution of income or cost. In human resource management, the decision-making results that employees are most concerned about include performance evaluation, salary distribution, promotion of positions (professional titles), opportunities for further study and training, etc. Employees often compare their own benefits and costs (such as workload, responsibility, stress and working hours) with others to assess whether they have been treated fairly. [4]

Since the mid-1970s, academic circles have begun to pay attention to the study of procedural justice. Researchers have found that people are not only concerned about the fairness of decision-making results, but also very concerned about the fairness of decision-making process. Many research results show that if employees think that the decision-making process of an enterprise is fair, even if the decision-making result is unfavorable to them, employees will often accept it. The basic principles of procedural justice include

(1) Managers make management decisions based on accurate and objective information;

(2) Managers treat all employees equally without personal prejudice;

(3) Employees have the right to express opinions and suggestions on management decisions involving themselves;

(4) Managers should listen to employees' different opinions on the decision-making results in good faith, so that mistakes must be corrected;

(5) The decision-making of enterprises should conform to the accepted social ethics. According to the theory of procedural justice, people attach importance to procedural justice because: (1) people believe that fair decision-making procedures will bring fair decision-making results; [4](2) Fair decision-making procedures reflect the value of employees as team members; [5](3) Fair decision-making procedures reflect the respect and appreciation of enterprise managers for employees' emotions and intelligence. [6] In 1986, Bies and Moag put forward the concept of communicative justice. Communication fairness in human resource management refers to the degree of fair treatment that employees feel in interpersonal communication with superiors. Whether the fairness of communication is an independent part of fairness or a sub-part of procedural fairness is still controversial in academic circles. Bies and others believe that procedural fairness ensures the two-way communication between managers and employees from the system, while communication fairness focuses on appropriate communication methods. Managers communicate with employees sincerely, politely and equally, which can improve the fairness of communication in employees' feelings. The performance of fair communication reflects the respect of managers for subordinates and helps to win the trust of employees in managers. [7] Academic circles have always had different views on the elements of organizational justice. Early researchers believe that fairness includes result fairness and procedure fairness. After Bies and Moag put forward the concept of communication fairness in 1986, many scholars still think that communication fairness is a sub-factor of procedural fairness. In the research of 200 1, Crowe Panzano thinks that "three kinds of justice are actually the same kind of justice". In the empirical study in 2002, the author conducted confirmatory factor analysis and second-order factor analysis on the three components of organizational justice. The results show that the sense of outcome justice, procedural justice and communication justice belong to the three second-order factors of organizational justice. This shows that it is reasonable to divide organizational fairness into procedural fairness, result fairness and communication fairness. At the same time, the three types of fairness are different, significantly related and influence each other. However, the academic circles have not yet reached a * * * understanding of the direction of the three types of fair interaction, and some theoretical analysis has not been empirically tested. From an objective point of view, fair decision-making procedures are more likely to bring fair decision-making results. Subjectively, the fairness of the results people feel will also affect the fairness of the procedures people feel. According to the fairness heuristic theory of procedural fairness, the order in which people obtain information is very important to the formation of people's perceived fairness. People's processing of information has a preconceived characteristic. If people get the information of the decision-making procedure first, and then get the information of the decision-making result, people will think that the influence of procedural fairness on the overall fairness will be greater than that of the result fairness, and vice versa. [8] Therefore, if people think that the decision-making result is fair, they are more likely to think that the decision-making procedure is fair. If people think that the decision-making result is unfair, they will carefully examine the fairness of the decision-making process and are more inclined to think that the decision-making process is unfair. Communication fairness involves the whole process of decision-making procedure and decision-making result. In the decision-making process, whether managers and employees (or between superiors and subordinates) can communicate effectively (procedural fairness) depends on whether managers respect employees and treat employees honestly and equally (communication fairness). Even after the decision-making results come out, or the decision-making results have been difficult to change, if managers can patiently listen to different opinions and make reasonable explanations, they can also improve the fairness of the results felt by employees. Therefore, the interaction of the three kinds of fairness should be two-way. The research results at home and abroad show that organizational justice will affect employees' work attitude and behavior. Results Fair results, fair procedures and fair communication are important factors to predict employees' job satisfaction, sense of belonging and organizational citizenship behavior. Kolov and others believe that organizational justice will enhance employees' trust in managers, and then increase employees' organizational citizenship behavior. [9] From the above analysis, we can sum up three just relationships as shown in figure 1.

Third, the principle of fairness in decision-making of post promotion.

1. Employees' judgment on the fairness of promotion results

In the promotion decision, the fairness of the result refers to the employee's sense of justice to the promotion decision. Results the sense of justice comes from whether the promotion candidates that employees think are suitable are finally promoted. Employees form suitable candidates by comparing their abilities and contributions. If the final promotion candidate is consistent with the candidate in the employee's mind, the employee will think that the promotion result is fair. If it is inconsistent, it will have an unfair feeling. People's sense of justice is formed through comparison. People tend to be partial to themselves when comparing, that is, they tend to overestimate their own input (performance, contribution and ability) and underestimate the input of others. The asymmetry of fairness is also manifested in the fact that if the result is unfavorable to themselves, people will easily feel unfair. On the contrary, if there is a favorable unfair result, people may feel guilty, but they will not try to eliminate this unfairness, but will find various reasons in their own minds to rationalize this situation, and even take some measures to maintain this situation. [8] Therefore, on the one hand, there are few opportunities for successful promotion, and the result of promotion is usually only one winner; On the other hand, due to the tendency of people's sense of fairness, when the promotion results are announced, most people who fail to be promoted may feel unfair and lost. ?

2. Five principles of fairness in the promotion decision-making process.

Procedural justice refers to the degree of justice that people feel in the decision-making process. In the internal promotion decision, procedural fairness should include the following five principles.

(1) Principle of openness: Before internal selection, managers should disclose the selection criteria and procedures, such as requirements for performance, technology, qualifications and abilities, to employees.

(2) Objectivity principle: decision makers should accurately and objectively evaluate the true performance and ability of candidates.

(3) Consistency principle: the selection procedures and rules treat all qualified employees equally, without favoritism or favoritism, and maintain the continuity of the rules.

(4) Two-way communication principle: including employees' right to speak and managers' explanation. In the selection process, employees should have the right to participate in the selection of candidates and have the right to express their opinions and suggestions. Managers should listen to the opinions and suggestions of employees and explain the standards, procedures and results of promotion to employees.

(5) The principle of irrefutable results: employees have the opportunity to raise their own questions or objections to the promotion results and decision-making procedures to managers. [9] If the decision is wrong, it should be corrected.

Procedural fairness ensures the fairness, justice and openness of the promotion procedure. The theory of procedural fairness points out that fair decision-making procedures can make employees believe that the enterprise has a sound system and the power of leaders is legal. This sound system can reduce the uncertainty of job promotion felt by employees, thus generating a sense of trust and belonging to the enterprise.

3. The connotation of communication justice

Communication justice refers to the degree to which employees are treated fairly in the process of communication with superiors. Procedural justice ensures the two-way communication between superiors and subordinates from the system, while communication justice focuses on the appropriate form of this communication. For example, whether decision makers listen to employees' opinions seriously and patiently, or engage in formalism and go through the motions; Whether the decision-maker has solemnly explained the selection criteria, decision-making process and decision-making results to employees, or whether he should also explain them on other occasions. Fair communication is very important, which is related to whether employees have a real say and whether employees are willing to express their true opinions. Whether managers are sincere, polite and equal in their interaction with employees will affect the willingness and courage of employees to express their opinions. In the process of communication, superiors treat subordinates honestly and equally, show respect for subordinates, and win the trust of employees in managers.

Fourth, adhere to the principle of fair promotion

1. The fairness of promotion results has promoted the development of enterprises and improved the professional satisfaction of employees. The fairness of promotion results is simply to put the right person in the right position. The so-called suitable person is that the management ability, morality, contribution and personality of the promoted person meet the requirements of the promoted position. Enterprises promote outstanding talents to higher positions, which is a great incentive for those who are promoted, and also has a long-term incentive effect on other employees, which can help employees form correct career development expectations and correctly guide future behaviors. The theory of organizational justice points out that the fairness of results is related to employees' satisfaction with personal returns. A person's career usually has only a few promotions. Fair promotion results can improve employees' career satisfaction, while unfair promotion results will increase employees' turnover intention. ?

2. Procedural justice is an important way to ensure fair results. Promoting procedural justice is the key to ensure the quality of selecting talents. Procedural fairness requires that the selection process be open, objective and subject to supervision. Problems in any link in the decision-making process may be discovered, thus effectively preventing non-procedural and illegal factors (such as pulling ties, canvassing, giving gifts and bribery, false accusations and framing) from interfering with the promotion process and ensuring that excellent and capable talents are promoted to suitable posts. Adhere to the procedural fairness of job promotion, not to reach a unified decision, nor to reconcile everyone's views, needs and interests through compromise in order to win people's support. Realizing procedural justice does not mean that managers should give up their power to make decisions, rules and procedures. The purpose of procedural justice is to pursue the best idea, no matter whether it is put forward by many people or someone. Therefore, procedural justice is an important way to ensure the fairness of the results.

3. procedural fairness makes employees clear their development goals. Procedural fairness enables employees to find promotion rules that they can follow. A fair selection procedure can make every employee who is eager to be promoted understand the expectations of the enterprise, understand the selection criteria of the position he wants to be promoted, and set a clear goal for himself. As an inducement, when the goal has great practical significance and the possibility of realization, it will induce a strong motivation for action and make people show higher enthusiasm. From the beginning of obtaining the current position, employees focus on the target design of the next position and work towards this goal step by step in their daily work. This is a long-term incentive for employees, and at the same time enables employees to consciously unify their personal goals with the development goals of the enterprise. ?

4. The performance of procedural justice eliminates or partially eliminates the negative emotions of employees who have not been promoted. The theory of procedural justice points out that people not only pay attention to the decision-making results, but also pay attention to the decision-making process. Employees who can't get promoted as they wish will look for reasons for failure. They will review the fairness of the whole selection process, and if they think the process is unfair, it may aggravate their frustration and anger. For the employee who failed in promotion, he can only believe that the result is fair if he thinks that the promotion procedure is fair. Procedural justice gives employees the opportunity to express their opinions and suggestions in the selection process, and to show and explain their achievements and talents to managers, thus increasing their sense of control and participation in the decision-making process. Even if the final decision-making result is unfavorable to them, employees have a high recognition of the decision-making result, thus reducing possible negative emotions. Therefore, if the decision-making system is fair, it is easier for people to accept the decision-making results and cooperate with the implementation of the decision-making in their future work, no matter whether they benefit from the decision or suffer losses.

5. The fairness of communication reflects the respect and appreciation of employees. Promotion decision-making system is formulated by enterprises and implemented by managers. Procedural justice reflects the degree of justice of enterprise system; The fairness of communication reflects the fairness of interpersonal communication within the enterprise. The theory of organizational justice points out that the procedural justice that employees feel affects employees' attitudes and behaviors towards enterprises. The fairness of communication that employees feel will affect employees' attitudes and behaviors towards managers, including trust in managers, cooperative spirit and helping others. [10] As a result of the promotion decision, the original colleague relationship at the same level often becomes a superior-subordinate relationship. This change can easily destroy the team spirit and the original harmonious atmosphere. Managers should not only explain the decision-making process and results to employees and listen to their opinions, but also be honest, polite, equal and sensitive in the process of explanation and listening, so as to show respect for employees' emotions and appreciation of employees' wisdom. Managers should convince employees that although they have not been promoted, they are still valuable and respected members of the enterprise. Managers treat employees fairly, which can make employees have a high evaluation of the relationship between superiors and subordinates, and are willing to maintain this relationship, and at the same time establish a reciprocal commitment to managers in their minds. Employees' trust and commitment to managers will extend to their trust and commitment to enterprises, thus showing cooperative attitude and behavior in the decision-making process. On the other hand, if managers can't be honest and fair in the process of interacting with employees, it will cause employees' dissatisfaction with managers. This dissatisfaction will also extend to dissatisfaction with enterprises.

Five, job promotion as an incentive measures should pay attention to other issues.

In promotion, it is not always fair for the best performers to get promoted. Outstanding employees should be rewarded and commended, but whether they are promoted or not depends more on their work ability and personality characteristics. This should be clearly stated in the promotion criteria and requirements, and explained after the decision of the promotion candidate. Moreover, enterprises should give enough recognition and compensation to outstanding employees who have not been promoted to reflect the due status and value of different types of employees in enterprises. Because a higher position means higher income and greater power, if employees who have performed well but have not been promoted are not recognized and compensated as they should, it will not only greatly dampen the enthusiasm of outstanding employees, but also have a bad demonstration effect on other employees, resulting in low morale of employees. Enterprises should provide different promotion ladders for different types of employees, [1 1] reflects the fairness of distribution. If a person is very capable and plays an important role in an enterprise, but he or she is not suitable for being promoted to a management position, so that his or her value and role cannot be properly reflected and rewarded, he or she will feel unfair. Enterprises should formulate a multi-step promotion system for different groups such as managers, professionals, technical service personnel and skilled workers. Avoid all talented people being crowded on the promotion ladder. In addition, management may not meet the professional goals of some professional technicians. They don't want to get higher administrative positions and have higher management power. If they are pushed to management positions, on the one hand, they will not be able to manage well because they are not interested. On the other hand, they are divorced from professional and technical work, which makes their accumulated professional knowledge and experience unable to play a role. For enterprises, this approach is to exchange an excellent expert for a poor manager. Multi-step system provides a number of equal promotion steps, one is the road of management position, the other is the road of career development. This system enables professional and technical personnel who have no management interest or management ability to be promoted on the professional and technical ladder, which not only ensures their motivation, but also enables them to give full play to their professional expertise.

Conclusion of intransitive verbs

Promotion is an important incentive measure for enterprise human resource management. The fair performance of the promotion results has increased employees' professional satisfaction. Ensuring the fairness of the internal selection process can ensure the fairness of the promotion results to the greatest extent, which truly conforms to the promotion purpose of "putting the right person in the right position". Procedural fairness can also eliminate or reduce the unfairness and negative emotions of employees whose promotion aspirations are not satisfied, and maintain the enthusiasm of most employees. The fairness of the promotion procedure can also point out the direction of future efforts for employees who have not been promoted, establish appropriate career development expectations, guide employees to combine their personal career development with corporate goals, and thus cultivate employees' psychological identity, professionalism and loyalty to the enterprise. Managers treat employees fairly in the process of promotion decision-making, which can reflect managers' respect and appreciation for employees, improve the relationship between superiors and subordinates, and advocate the spirit of cooperation and mutual assistance. Of course, adhering to the principle of fairness in promotion decision-making is not the only measure to give full play to the promotion incentive function correctly. Designing a career development path for each employee, providing diverse development space for employees with different abilities, specialties, interests and personalities, and allowing all kinds of employees to display their talents are also important measures for enterprises to retain and motivate outstanding talents.

refer to

Ma Lijuan. Misunderstanding and improvement in enterprise position promotion. Leadership science, 1999, (9).

[2] Min Xueqin. If the promotion is not satisfactory. China human resources development, 200 1, (1 1):35.

[3] Suzanne S. Masterson, Kyle Lewis and M. Susan Taylor, Integrating Justice and Social Exchange: Different Effects of Fair Procedures and Treatment on Working Relations. Journal of School of Management, 2000,43 (4738-748).

[4]Mary a. Konovsky. Understand procedural justice and its impact on business organizations. Journal of Management, 2000,26 (3): 496.

[5] Tina Robbins, Timothy Summers, Janis Miller and William Hendricks. Explain the role of non-instrumental justice in distinguishing distributive justice from procedural justice with group value model. Journal of occupational and organizational psychology. Leicester, 20001February.

[6] W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne. Procedural justice, strategic decision and knowledge economy. Journal of strategic management, 1998, 19(323-338).

[7] Bowen David E, Geelan Stephen W and folger Robert. Human resource management and service fairness: how to treat employees spilling over to customers fairly. Organizational dynamics, Winter 1999, July 24.

[8] Russell Cropanzana. Justice in the Workplace: From Theory to Practice, Volume 2, Lawrence Elbaum Associates.

[9] Robert folger Russell Crowe Panzano. Organizational Justice and Human Resource Management Sage Publishing Company.

Wang Chunxiao, Xie Lishan, Cen Chengde, Shen Wenguo, Han Xiaoyun. Intelligent enterprise management. Guangzhou: sun yat-sen university press, 2000.

Lu, Tang Yuanhu. On double/multi-level promotion system. Science and technology management, 200 1,