Abstract
The goal of our study is to identify the rules used to form justice perceptions and the underlying issues at stake in different work relationships. We conducted 33 semi-structured interviews with full time employees in order to let respondents describe fairness incidents in different types of work relationships in their own terms. This seems necessary, as the present fairness motives and rules have been mostly developed in the context of cross-hierarchical distant relationships, and we do not know much about the rules used and the underlying issues at stake in other kinds of work relationships. We find that the relative importance of the traditional instrumental, relational as well as deontic motives, and the use of traditional distributive, procedural, informational and interpersonal justice rules may depend on the hierarchical link between the parties and how close their relationship is. Moreover, some new rules and motives emerge that could improve our understanding of justice at work.