How generalizable are justice effects across cultures?

A three-stage model consisted of justice rules, criteria, and practices is used to organize the cross-cultural literature on organizational justice. Justice rules are abstract principles that guide justice decisions; justice criteria are specifications for implementing justice rules; and justice practices represent the concrete standards, verbal and nonverbal behaviors, and social arrangements for operationalizing justice criteria. A review of the cross-cultural literature shozvs that there are substantial cultural variations in the salience of and preference for justice rules, criteria, and practices. Individualism-collectivism and power distance provide the conceptual basis for organizing and interpreting most of the cross-cultural findings in organizational justice, although some results call for the development of alternative cultural frameworks for their interpretations. Common problems in cross-cultural research in organizational justice, implications of cross-cultural research for theory development, and directions for future research are discussed. © 2005 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.