Justice in inter-organizational relationships: A literature review and future research agenda

Organizational justice has made contributions to the inter-organizational literature by highlighting the effects of justice perceptions on behavioral, attitudinal, and organizational outcomes. However, research on justice perceptions remains scattered and falls short of addressing key elements of justice, and how these elements interact in an inter-organizational context. The lack of understanding calls for a comprehensive review and synthesis of extant studies. After a careful initial review of 375 papers from 1995 to 2018, this paper consolidates 79 papers on organizational justice at an inter-organizational level with respect to theoretical perspectives, methodologies, contexts, and research findings. The thematic and descriptive analyses offer deeper insights into the varying effects of different organizational justice dimensions, and bring forward limitations of current research including a focus on a: single side of the dyad, static view of justice, and single level of analysis. Consequently, the synthesis section, derived from the thematic analysis, draws out three fruitful key themes including: i) justice asymmetry; ii) justice dynamics; and iii) multilevel view of justice. The study positions fruitful research questions for each theme, before presenting the study's limitations and implications.