Organizational Justice in International Joint Ventures

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2017 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: 2,0, University of Tubingen (International Business), language: English, abstract: This thesis explores the significance of organizational justice in international joint ventures (IJV), from an organizational as well as a cultural perspective. The majority of studies on organizational justice were conducted within organizations and in a mono-cultural context. However, in the face of increasing globalization and growing popularity of IJV activities, the study of fairness in a cross-cultural context becomes more and more important. Therefore, this thesis seeks to bring organizational justice into relation with culture by using an IJV context, and serve as a starting point for further research in this area. The three dimensions of justice, distributive, procedural, and interactional justice, positively affect IJV performance through their distinct and interactive effects. In this setting, culture has a moderating influence on justice perceptions, which can be assessed though bringing justice perspectives together with Hofstede's cultural dimensions. Effects on fairness perceptions in different cultures can be outlined and contrasted. On this basis, implications for theoretical discussion and managerial practice in cross-cultural joint ventures can be derived. Together with further research, managers could use these findings to develop transcultural justice competencies. To decide which of the new job applicants is the right one for the job vacancy, the human resource manager in figure 1.1 gives everyone the same task to fulfil. Without regard to the personal qualities of the dog, seal, fish, elephant, penguin, monkey and bird, he decides that everyone of them should climb that tree and compete against each other. From his perspective this might be a fair procedure, as he doesn't make exceptions and treats everyone equally. The monkey and bird might also be fine with the task and might not care about an unfair competition. The elephant and fish, however, are very likely to perceive the situation as unjust and might voice complaints against the human resource manager. As this example shows, fairness often lies in the eye of the beholder and depends on everyone's individual perspective.