SYMBIOSIS INTERNATIONAL DEEMED UNIVERSITY

STUDY ON DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE AND PROCEDURAL JUSTICE

AND THE INFLUENCE OF FAIRNESS NORMS ON COOPERATION
AND COMPETITION

Submitted by:-
HARITHA MALEPATI
18010324053
Division ‘C’
BBA LLB
4th Semester

SYMBIOSIS LAW SCHOOL, HYDERABAD

In March 2020

Under the guidance of

Dr Prageetha G Raju
 INTRODUCTION
Organisational justice has received a fair amount of attention in business environments. In
history, justice is expressed as an essential need for humans’ social lives as they need fairness
in every aspect of their lives. Justice is a concept that relates to our ideas about what is right
and what is wrong, what is fair, how people should treat each other or the ideal for which
humans should strive. We expect justice in our relationships with each other and fellow
employees as well as in the workplace, in which we spend our working days. Justice that relates
to the workplace is called as organisational justice and can be conceptualised on different
dimensions. Two of the most important types of organisational justice is described below.

Distributive justice can be defined as people’s perception of the fairness of outcomes (benefits
or punishment) as well as their evaluations of the end state of the allocation process. This
concept refers to the fairness of outcomes that people receive in the workplace for
compensation such as pay or promotion opportunities. For example, we could distribute raises
equally among employees, or we could base raises on which employees need money the most.

Procedural justice concerns the fairness and transparency of the processes by which decisions
are made, and may be contrasted with distributive justice. It is also considered about creating
policies and procedures that take all perspectives and concerns into consideration. When
employees believe problems will be resolved fairly and honestly, they will have more
confidence in the decision. This puts a burden on companies to create procedures and policies
which demonstrate procedural justice meaning the response will be fair and consistent
regardless of who is involved in the situation.

Fairness is concerned with how we treat one another in our social and economic interactions.
Most generally, we can say that when individuals or groups interact they may take either
cooperative or competitive positions. When we cooperate, the parties involved act in ways that
they perceive will benefit both themselves and others. Cooperation is behaviour that occurs
when we trust the people or groups with whom we are interacting and are willing to
communicate and share with the others, expecting to profit ourselves, thought the increased
benefits that can be provided through joint behaviour. On the other hand, when we engage in
competition, we attempt to gain as many of the limited rewards as possible for ourselves, and
at the same time we may work to reduce to likelihood of success for the other parties. Although
competition is not always harmful, in some cases one or more of the parties may feel that their
self-interest has not been adequately met and may attribute the cause of this outcome to another
party. People have simultaneous goals of cooperating and competing, and the individual must
coordinate these goals in making a choice.

An important part of morality involves determining what is ‘right’ or ‘fair’ in social interaction.
We want things to be fair, we try to be fair ourselves, and we react negatively when we see
things that are unfair. And we determine what is or is not fair by relying on another set of social
norms appropriately called social fairness norms which are beliefs about how people should be
treated fairly.

Background

The reason that made me choose this topic is because a sense of injustice is aroused when
individuals come to believe that their outcome is not in balance with the outcomes received by
people like them in similar situations. When people have a sense that they are at an unfair
advantage relative to others, or that they have not received their ‘fair share’, they may wish to
challenge the system that has given rise to this state of affairs. This is especially likely to happen
if a person or groups’ fundamental needs are not being met, or if there are large discrepancies
between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have-nots’. This is particularly apparent in both Europe and the
Middle East since 2013, but it is also going on, to a lesser extent in the United States where the
distribution of wealth is getting more and more unequal.

Justification/significance- research questions

It has been suggested that procedural justice plays an important role in promoting citizen
compliance with the law. When people believe that the political system is essentially fair, such
as when citizens are adequately presented by their elected representatives, they are more likely
to accept legal rules, even when these might not be viewed as personally desirable. We believe
in the importance of fairness in part because if we did not, then we would be forced to accept
the fact that life is unpredictable and that negative things can occur to us anytime. Believing in
fairness allows us to feel better because we can believe that we get what we deserve and deserve
what we get. These beliefs allow us to maintain and control over our worlds. To believe that
those who work hard are not rewarded and that accidents happen to good people forces us to
concede that we too are vulnerable.
The research questions are:-

1. What is distributive justice and procedural justice?

2. How do fairness norms influence cooperation and competition amongst students up
against one another as a team of three in a moot court competition?

Objectives

The objectives of this study are:-

 To compare distributive justice and procedural justice

 To determine the influence of fairness norms on cooperation and competition amongst
students in a moot court competition
 To consider the situational determinants of competition and cooperation through their
various models
 To suggest changes and recommendations to improve fairness norms in situations of
both cooperation and competition

Methodology

 Scope of study – The scope of the study is limited to the students within a college who
participate in a number of moot court competitions
 Data collection methods- Secondary sources are the main method of data collection in
the form of observations, news which includes telecast, print and internet and articles
written by experts
 Sample- the sample chosen is the group of students who participate in moot court
competitions regularly within a law college like Symbiosis
References

1. Tyler, T. R., & Blader, S. (2000). Cooperation in groups: Procedural justice, social
identity, and behavioural engagement. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

2. Rispens, S., & Jehn, K. A. (2011). Conflict in workgroups: Constructive, destructive,

and asymmetric conflict. In D. De Cremer, R. van Dick, & J. K. Murnighan
(Eds.), Social psychology and organizations (pp. 185–209). New York, NY:
Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.

3. Sherif, M., Harvey, O. J., White, B. J., Hood, W. R., & Sherif, C. (1961). Intergroup
conflict and cooperation: The robbers’ cave experiment. Norman, OK: University of
Oklahoma Press.