The Effects of in-group and out-group tie strengths on employees’ perception of procedural and distributive justice

Using a social network perspective, we examined how different social referents would influence employees’ organizational justice perception differently. We hypothesized that strength of in-group ties and out-group ties would have different impact on employees’ perception of procedural and distributive justice. Through a social network survey, we found that the strength of in-group ties enhanced employees’ perception of procedural justice whereas the strength of out-group ties increased their distributive justice perception. Our study sheds light on the process of justice perception with an emphasis on different types of social referents as important sources of information in forming the perception of procedural and distributive justice in organizations.