Obw-Fair Process

Professor Joel Brockner is a Phillip Hettleman Professor, Ph.D in Psychology and now he is teaching in Columbia Business School. He is well known for his research on human resource management field, including many articles on Organizational Behaviour. On March 1, 2006, Brockner's article named "Why it's so hard to be fair" was published in the Harvard Business Review. It is an article analyzing the lack of attention to apply "Proccess Fairness" in many companies and describe how important it is to reduce cost and improve employees.

Initially, we need to take a look into some main points of this article. Starting with the differences between two firms when they had to down-size, Joel Brockner mentioned the effectiveness of process fairness. Then he used the business case based on three drivers to ensure process fairness could give the employee a chance to be heard. Though tangible assistance, such as money, is undeniable in each company, but when the managers use fair process, they can save a lot of money and also get more satisfied employees. Therefore, the firm can not only decrease costs but also prevent employees' absences due to discouragement. However, despite of the advantages process fairness could bring, few of companies want to apply it in reality. Because some managers believe that tangible resources are always more meaningful and the process fairness doesn't have the immediate benefits. Nevertheless, according to the author, it's necessary to apply process fairness as a top priority in every firm because of the moral imperative as well as the responsibility of each manager.

It is indispute that Joel Brockner has a deep knowledge in organizational behaviour field. He is famous for his research about organizational downsizing on the productivity and moral of the survivors, cultural issues in management, leadership and organisational change, so he is an expert and has the comprehensive theory to analyse the problems in this article. Based on three drivers of process fairness:

- How much input employees believe they have in the decision making process?

- How employees believe decisions are made and implemented?

- How managers behave?

Brockner provided the wide perspective for each reader about business case for fair process. In another review named "Fair process: Managing in the knowledge economy" published in Havard Business Review in 2003, the other authors- W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne also mentioned fair process as the process of building belief, building trust between employees and managers. Moreover, Brockner linked the process fairness with attitudes and behaviours which would lead to high performance. It is the relevant point because when the employees feel they are treated fairly, they will have more motivation to do their work, to contribute their skills, talent to the company. He also used the evidences to support his point in effectiveness of applying fair process within company. Such as "how systematically practiced process fairness has helped numerous organization capture" was researched by Michael Beer from Havard Business School and Russell Eisenstat, the president of the