Procedural Fairness scale

Description

This measure (Procedural Fairness) was developed by Scarpello and Jones (1996). The measure was designed to assess employee perceptions about the fairness of the proce­dure used for making pay-related decisions. It uses 15 items to describe the fairness of procedures used for pay determination (six items), such as the methods used for job evaluation and establishing criteria for pay raises; pay communication (three items), including judgments about the fairness of how pay issues are communicated and questions answered; performance appraisal (four items), which includes how performance-related informa­tion is gathered, evaluations are made, and how evaluations are appealed; and appeal (two items), which describes the fairness of mechanism for resolving disagreements about pay decisions.

Reliability

Coefficient alphas for the subscales were as follows: pay determination .88, pay communication .92, performance appraisal .87, and appeal .83. The composite measure obtained by summing the subscales had a coefficient alpha of .93 (Jones, Scarpello, & Bergmann, 1999).

Validity

Factor analysis by Scarpello and Jones (1996) showed that the items loaded on the four factors with no significant cross-loadings. All four procedural fairness subscales (pay determination, communication, performance appraisal, and appeal) were positively intercorrelated. The four subscales all correlated positively with pay outcome fairness, pay satisfaction, supervisor satisfaction, and organizational commitment. Perceptions of the fairness of performance appraisal procedures correlated negatively with job tenure (Jones et al., 1999).

Source

Items

Responses are obtained using a 5-point Likert-type scale where I = very unfair and 5 = very fair.

All items are introduced with “This is how I feel about the fairness of the procedures for … “

Pay determination items:

1. Determining the pay for my job
2. Determining pay raises
3. How my pay raises are determined
4. Determining the pay for my job relative to higher and lower level jobs than mine
5. The way performance is reflected in my pay
6. The frequency of pay raises

Pay communication items:

7. Communicating pay policies and procedures
8. Communicating pay issues of concern to me
9. Answering questions about how my pay is determined

Performance appraisal items:

10. Gathering information used to evaluate my performance
11. Evaluating my performance
12. Appealing performance evaluations
13. Monitoring my supervisor’s pay decisions

Appeal items:

14. Appealing pay decisions
15. Resolving disagreements about my pay