Three Paths to Feeling Just: How Managers Grapple with Justice Conundrums During Organizational Change

Abstract Managers tasked with organizational change often face irreconcilable demands on how to enact justice—situations we call justice conundrums . Drawing interviews held managers before and after a planned large-scale change, identify specific illustrate grapple these through three prototypical paths. Among our participants, the paths increasingly diverged over time, culminating in distinct career decisions. Based findings, develop an integrative process model that illustrates conundrums. Our contributions are threefold. First, elucidate types of may encounter when enacting context (the intention-action gap, competing expectations, care vs. managerial-strategic justice) show handle them differently. Second, drawing motivated cognition moral disengagement literature, cognitive mechanisms coalesce allow soothe their (self-) concerns grappling Third, intentions ensuing from motives, emotions, circles regard predict they take them.