Research analyzing fairness perceptions within organizations has gained the attention of cross-cultural theorists as the criteria used to judge fairness varies across cultures. Review of the literature indicates that researchers use translated Western measures of organizational justice on Eastern samples despite evidence of cultural variation in justice criteria. This dissertation addresses some of the gaps in the current research by developing and validating an indigenous measure of Chinese organizational justice perceptions. A preliminary qualitative study revealed numerous justice rules used by Chinese employees to determine whether a workplace decision was fair. The qualitative results were used to develop the Chinese Organizational Justice Scale (COJS). The COJS and various outcome measures were administered to 307 Chinese employees.

The COJS revealed a five-factor model for Chinese organizational justice perceptions with distributive justice breaking into two factors. The five-factor COJS measurement model indicated excellent fit and psychometric properties and included factors of distributive justice west (equity-based distributions), distributive justice east (distributions based on need, guanxi, and nonperformance related equity criteria), procedural justice, informational justice, and interpersonal justice. Unique Chinese justice criteria were identified for distributive justice and procedural justice.

Distributive justice east and west factors were both positively related to pay satisfaction. Exploratory analyses indicated that distributive justice equity criteria commonly assessed in Western measures were dominant in predicting several additional outcomes including perceived organizational support, supervisor support, and altruism. Informational justice was negatively related to role ambiguity and positively related to perceived organizational support. Interpersonal justice was negatively related to perceived organizational support. Procedural justice was not related to any of the measured outcomes. These findings are discussed in relation to previous Chinese organizational justice research and possible shifting values in China that could be linked to competitive industries and a rapidly expanding market economy.