Process Perspective

process perspectives: concerned with the thought processes by which people decide how to act
- how employees choose behavior to meet their needs
process theories:
- equity or justice theory
- expectancy theory
- goal-setting theory

equity theory: a model of motivation that explains how people drive for fairness and justice in social exchanges or give-and-take relationships
- employees are motivated to seek fairness in the rewards they expect for task performance and are motivated to resolve feelings of injustice
- based on cognitive dissonance
“equity” is not the same as “equality of outcome”
pioneered by psychologist J. Stacey Adams

they will reduce their inputs
- they will do less work, take long breaks, etc.
they will try to change the outputs or rewards they receive
- they will lobby the boss for a raise
they will distort the inequity
- they will exaggerate how hard they work so they can complain they’re not paid what they’re worth
they will change the object of comparison
- they may compare themselves with another person instead of the original one
they will leave the situation
- they will quit, transfer, or shift to another reference group

equity theory later expanded into an area called organizational justice made up of 3 components:
1. distributive justice - “How fairly are rewards being given out?”
2. procedural justice - “How fair is the process for handing out rewards?”
3. interactional justice - “How fairly am I being treated when rewards are given out?”
  1. requires managers to communicate truthfully and treat others with dignity and respect
organizational justice: concerned with the extent to which people perceive they are treated fairly at work