The Apparent Locus of Managerial Decision Making and Perceptions of Fairness in Public Personnel Management

Justin Michael Stritch*, Mogens Jin Pedersen

*Corresponding author for this work
    1 Citation (Scopus)

    Abstract

    A topic that remains underexplored in public management research is how the appearance of a formal rule or policy as guiding personnel decisions may affect employee perceptions of organizational decision outcomes. In this article, we consider how the locus of decision making (e.g., the apparent source of a decision) affects perceptions of a decision’s fairness. We examine this question with three survey experiments using case vignettes, each describing a distinct personnel decision-making scenario. In each case vignette, we manipulate the locus of decision making (a single supervisor, a team of supervisors, or an organizational policy). We find heterogeneous effects across the three case vignettes. We conclude with a discussion of the implications and future directions for public management research
    Original languageEnglish
    JournalPublic Personnel Management
    Volume48
    Issue number3
    Pages (from-to)392-412
    ISSN0091-0260
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2019

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