Reaping What Is Sown: the Impact of Perceived Managerial Controls on Subordinates’ Fairness Evaluations

We argue that different types of managerial controls – mechanisms to direct subordinate’s tasks – increase the salience of particular aspects of fairness among subordinates. In a series of survey and scenario studies, we find that subordinates who perceive market controls engage in distributive fairness monitoring, subordinates who recognize bureaucratic controls engage in procedural fairness monitoring, and subordinates who discern clan controls engage in interpersonal fairness monitoring. We also find that managers who promote the type of fairness their subordinates monitor most closely promote higher levels of subordinate job satisfaction than those who do not.