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NECESSARY EVILS, (IN)JUSTICE,

AND RAPPORT MANAGEMENT

Kim Sydow CampbellCharles D. White

University of Alabama

Rita DurantUniversity of South Florida St. Petersburg

Building from K. S. Campbell, White, and Johnsons 2003 model of rapport management, the authors

explain how employee perceptions of justice and emotional responses of anger may result from the

interpersonal communication behavior of organizational leaders. The authors ground the discussion

of theory in the analysis of narratives written by subordinates to recount incidents in which they felt

angry with their manager. Based on these narratives, propositions about the relationship between a

managers acknowledgement or violation of rapport management norms and employee perceptions of

(in)justice are developed. Thus, the authors demonstrate the value of rapport management theory for

explicating the relationship maintenance behaviors that are crucial in the effective performance of

necessary evils by organizational leaders.

Keywords: anger; LMX; linguistic politeness; organizational justice; superior-subordinate commu-

nication; sociolinguistics

Because of their organizational role, managers must sometimes act in

ways that negatively affect their subordinates (e.g., denying a subordi-

nates request for promotion, discussing negative feedback about the sub-

ordinates performance, reprimanding a subordinate about tardiness).

Molinsky and Margolis (2005) called these acts necessary evils and

defined them more specifically as those work-related tasks in which an

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Academy of Management meeting in New

Orleans, LA, August 9, 2004. The authors thank Christian Kiewitz for sharing the narratives used in

this article. Kim Sydow Campbell (PhD, Louisiana State University) is Derrell Thomas Teaching

Excellence Faculty Fellow in the Culverhouse College of Commerce at the University of Alabama.

Charles D. White is a PhD candidate in management at the University of Alabama. Rita Durant (PhD,

University of Alabama) is visiting assistant professor at University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kim Sydow Campbell, Dept. of

Management & Marketing, Box 870225, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0225; e-mail:[email protected].

Journal of Business Communication, Volume 44, Number 2, April 2007 161-185

DOI: 10.1177/0021943606297904

2007 by the Association for Business Communication

distribution. 2007 Association for Business Communication. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized

at UNIV ALABAMA LIBRARY/SERIALS on April 17, 2007http://job.sagepub.comDownloaded from
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individual must, as part of his or her job, perform an act that causes emo-

tional or physical harm to another human being in the service of achiev-

ing some perceived greater good or purpose (p. 247).

These tasks, although unpleasant, are necessary because they are

important components of being a manager. For instance, a manager who

ignores unsatisfactory performance by communicating satisfactory per-

formance ratings will not only reinforce the wrong behavior but will con-

fuse the employee if disciplinary action is eventually taken. On the other

hand, a manager must approach such interpersonal communication tasks

cautiously so as to inflict minimal emotional harm to the subordinate and

to maintain a productive working relationship with the subordinate. Not

surprisingly, prior work in the area of organizational justice clearly docu-ments the importance of a managers interpersonal sensitivity in perform-

ing such necessary evils. Unfortunately, managers lack of success in

managing that subjective experience is well documented. Incivility is still

a common perception in the workplace (Andersson & Pearson, 1999). In

many cases, subordinates subjective response to their managers interper-

sonal actions is anger and a sense of injustice.

According to Folger and Cropanzanos (2001) fairness theory, individ-

uals use a referent standard to gauge justice. That is, individual employ-ees compare their own treatment with the treatment of other employees in

the organization and then form perceptions about the fairness of the treat-

ment (i.e., the equal application of standards; Liu & Buzzanell, 2004).

Because the selection of a referent standard is determined by the

employee and the resulting justice perceptions are controlled by the

employee, organizational justice theory has primarily studied the effects

of various levels of perceived injustice to determine how these perceptions

impact employee attitudes and behaviors. We seek to contribute to anunderstanding of the interpretative schema underlying such standards,

particularly the effects of violation of implicit interpersonal rules involv-

ing managers interactions with subordinates. Our goal in this article is to

determine if rapport management theory may provide a useful tool for

understanding and managing employee perceptions of justice. To this end,

we provide an overview of (in)justice in the workplace, emphasizing the

role that managers play. We then explore the usefulness of the sociolin-

guistic theory of rapport management (Spencer-Oatey, 2000) for explain-

ing perceptions of justice and emotional responses of anger to the

interpersonal communication behavior of organizational leaders, building

from K. S. Campbell, White, and Johnsons (2003) model. We ground our

162 JOURNAL OF BUSINESS COMMUNICATION




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discussion of theory in the analysis of narratives written by subordinates

to recount incidents in which they felt angry with their manager. In this

way, we respond to Molinsky and Margoliss (2005) general suggestion

that research should explore various relationship maintenance behaviors

that can help managers perform necessary evils with minimal harm to

their relationships with subordinates. Furthermore, we respond to Rahim,

Magner, and Shapiros (2000) more specific suggestion that sociolinguis-

tic theory may explain why perceptions regarding the social sensitivity of

interpersonal treatment relate to justice judgments.

Our goal in this article is to determine

if rapport management theory may

provide a useful tool for understanding

and managing employee perceptions of

justice.

UNDERSTANDING (IN)JUSTICE IN THE WORKPLACE

Research has explored employee perceptions of justice because they

can have serious organizational repercussions, including job satisfaction,

organizational commitment, evaluation of authority, organizational citi-

zenship behavior, withdrawal, and performance (Colquitt, Conlon,

Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001). Scholars now recognize four categories of

organizational justice: distributive, procedural, informational, and inter-

personal (Colquitt et al., 2001). Distributive justice is concerned with

whether outcomes are allocated fairly (e.g., vacation time is distributed

equitably among employees) and has the longest history of scholarship,

extending back to Adams (1965). Procedural justice is concerned with

whether the processes used to make allocations are fair (e.g., procedures

for sanctioning vacation time requests are consistent); scholarship in this

area dates back to the work of Leventhal, Karuza, and Fry (1980).

Informational and interpersonal justice were originally conceived as a sin-gle type of procedural justice called interactional (Bies & Moag, 1986);

however, Greenberg (1990) made clear they constitute distinct types of

Campbell et al. / (IN)JUSTICE & RAPPORT MANAGEMENT 163




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justice. Informational justice is concerned with whether and how people

are given information about procedures (e.g., the manager responds to an

employees vacation request in an appropriate amount of time and pro-

vides an explanation for why the request has been denied). Interpersonal

justice is concerned with whether people are treated with politeness, dig-

nity, and respect (e.g., the manager communicating that a vacation request

has been denied does so in a way that makes the employee feel respected).

Organizational behavior research has emphasized the role of norms in

understanding justice. Cropanzano, Rupp, Mohler, and Schminke (2001)

wrote that employees who perceive injustice in the workplace use a refer-

ent standard as a ruler to gauge the discrepancy between the current state

of affairs and a fair state. In this way, Injustice is not merely a judg-ment, but represents a violation of justice and fairness norms (Bies, 1987,

p. 289). Thus, much research in organizational justice has attempted to

delineate the nature of the norms themselves. For example, Bies and Moag

(1986) described four criteria of fair interactions:

Truthfulness: including deception (feeling misled or lied to) and candidness

(being treated in an open and forthright manner),

Respect: including rudeness (being subject to discourteous or attacking

conduct), Propriety: being asked improper questions (those concerning sex, age, race,

etc.) and being an object of prejudicial statements, and

Justification: the idea that appropriate explanations should accompany

decisions.

From a business communication perspective, the specific behaviors asso-

ciated with such norms as respect and propriety have been documented

within the rapport management model of leader-member interaction

(K. S. Campbell, 2006; K. S. Campbell et al., 2003). Before we turn to thetopic of rapport management, we briefly discuss the study of justice by

communication researchers.

Much of the research in organizational justice treats communication as

information transfer (e.g., Gopinath & Becker, 2000) and therefore sheds

little light on interpersonal justice (or, one could argue, on informational

justice). To date, communication scholars have had relatively little impact

in this area despite our obvious expertise in both how people are given

information (informational justice) and whether people are treated withpoliteness (interpersonal justice). Yamaguchi (2005) is a notable excep-

tion. Following Ambrose and Harland (1995), Yamaguchi (2005) investi-

gated the perceived fairness of three categories of influence tactics (Yukl





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& Falbe, 1990): rational interpersonal communication tactics (e.g., rea-

soning, promise, commitment, question, and self-disclosure), soft inter-

personal communication tactics (e.g., a friendly manner, praise, flattery,

and sympathy), and hard interpersonal communication tactics (e.g., a

high-handed manner, demands/orders, warnings, and threats). That study

found that hard tactics were associated with increased perceptions of

injustice, whereas soft and rational tactics were associated with decreased

perceptions of injustice.

This finding is supported by the power and influence literature that sug-

gests that important employee outcomes are related to the type of power

used by organizational leaders. According to research in the area of power

(Yukl & Falbe, 1991), managers who use personal forms of power (e.g.,expert or referent power) rather than position-based forms of power (e.g.,

legitimate or coercive) have subordinates who are more committed and who

rate managerial effectiveness higher. The effectiveness of a managers influ-

ence tactics is greatly influenced by the power bases that he or she possesses

(Hinkin & Schriesheim, 1990). For example, a manager must possess legit-

imate or coercive power to use hard or pressure tactics and in turn must

have referent or expert power to use the more effective soft or rational tac-

tics. Drawing from the power and influence literature then, managers willbenefit from developing more relationship-based power and using the softer

influence strategies to manage justice issues.

Drawing from the power and

influence literature then, managers will

benefit from developing more

relationship-based power and using thesofter influence strategies in order to

manage justice issues.

Any form of justice in the workplace is the result of organizational

leadership. Another communication researcher studied the impact of

leader-member exchange (LMX) quality on distributive and procedural

justice as well as their impact on cooperative communication within work-

groups (Lee, 2001). That research found that employees with lower qual-

ity LMX relationships with their managers had increased perceptions of





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both distributive and procedural injustice and also experienced less coop-

eration within their workgroup.

In this article, we want to build on these research efforts by exploring

the usefulness of rapport management theory, which has been connected

to the development of LMX (K. S. Campbell, 2006). We also address

K. S. Campbell et al.s (2003) suggestion that The choice of rapport man-

agement strategies by leaders should influence member perceptions of inter-

actional justice (p. 190) and that future research should investigate the

connection between rapport management and influence tactics (p. 191).

RAPPORT MANAGMENT BEHAVIOR

In their review of prior research on rapport within a variety of disci-

plines, Gremler and Gwinner (2000) noted that a common theme is that

rapport is characterized by an enjoyable interaction in which participants

connect on some level (p. 90). Rapport management (Spencer-Oatey,

2000) refers to the use of language to manage social relations by attend-

ing to our fellow interactants desires and rights (Brown & Levinson,

1987; Goffman, 1967). Spencer-Oatey (2000) identified two universaldesires (quality face wants and social identity face wants) and two uni-

versal rights (autonomy rights and association rights). Definitions and

examples of how these desires/rights are either supported (tended) or

undermined (threatened) by managers are provided in Table 1.

The framework in Table 1 is useful for helping managers understand the

fundamental, universal, yet unspoken expectations that subordinates bring

to any interaction (K. S. Campbell et al., 2003): Subordinates find those

interactions in which their desires/rights are tended by managers most

enjoyable and feel the greatest connection with those managers who tend

their desires/rights. For instance, the manager who grants a vacation request

tends the autonomy rights of the subordinate, thereby influencing the sub-

ordinate to feel positively about this specific interaction and his or her rela-

tionship with the manager. Conversely, subordinates find those interactions

in which their desires/rights are threatened by managers least enjoyable and

feel the least connection with those managers who threaten their

desires/rights. In this case, the manager who denies a vacation request

threatens the autonomy rights of the subordinate. If that manager commu-nicates the denial by prefacing it with an apology (tending autonomy

rights), the subordinate will feel more positively about this specific interac-

tion and his or her relationship with the manager.





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167

Table1.

RapportManagementTheoryandCommunicationBehaviors

ThreateningFace

TendingFace

ThreateningSociality

TendingSociality

Individual-level

Qualityfacewants:

Qualityandsocialident

ity

Autonomyrights:Interfere

Autonomyrights:Hedge,

concerns

Blame,criticize,

facewants:Seek

withorimposeonan

bepessimistic,

impersonalize,

disagree,

disresp

ect

agreement,show

interest

individualsfreedom

minimize,

bedeferential,

theindividual

inindividualorgroup

,

toact

apologize,

incuradeb

t

usein-groupidentity

markerstoestablish

intimacy

Group-level

Socialidentity

Associationrights:

Associationrights:Seek

concerns

facewants:Blam

e,

Excludefroma

ctivities

interaction,actively

criticize,

disagree,

relatedtoagroup

listen

disrespectagrou

p

withwhichan

withwhichan

individualidentifies

individualidentifies




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In rapport management terms, necessary evils threaten subordinates

desires/rights. The aim of this article is to determine if rapport management

theory may provide a useful tool for understanding and managing employee

perceptions of justice related to the performance of necessary evils. The

connection between (in)justice and each of the four desires/rights from

Table 1 will be discussed in detail after we present our method for collect-

ing and analyzing narrative data in the following section.

METHOD

Several professional communication researchers have encouraged theuse of narratives (e.g., Jameson, 2001; Suchan, 2004). In this article, we

adopt Jamesons (2001) definition of narrative:

A pattern used in speech, writing, or even visual communication . . .

whose hallmark is an explicit or implicit time sequence of events. An event

is something that happens, not just something that exists; language about

something that merely exists is descriptive, not narrative. (p. 477)

A select number of management researchers have also noted the value ofnarrative: As Bies (2001) put it, Researchers can gain a deeper insight into

justice by listening to and analyzing peoples narratives of injustice (p. 90).

Thus, we use narratives of injustice in the research reported here. Because

our goal is to determine if rapport management theory may provide a use-

ful tool for managers attempting to understand and manage employee per-

ceptions of justice, our focus is on the narratives of subordinates.

Participants

Our sample was culled from 232 handwritten narratives that had been

gathered for a study involving anger and justice (Kiewitz, 2000). In that

study, participants were asked to describe in their own words an incident

at work that made them angry.1 The participants in that study represented

each gender equally (51.8% women) and were well educated (61.3% had

earned a college degree), married (66.8%), and primarily Caucasian

(80.1%). Participants reported a mean age of 40.47 years and averaged

9.94 years working for their current employer.





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Coding Procedures

Because the narrative prompt was very general,2 we were able to review

a wide variety of incidents. Of the 232 narratives, 109 (47%) involved a

subordinates anger toward an event involving their manager, defined assomeone in the position of power over the person experiencing the injus-

tice (French & Raven, 1959). Because we suspected that distributive and

procedural as well as interpersonal or informational justice might be

related to failures to manage rapport, four coders were trained to identify

justice issues in those 109 written narratives. Each coder was a student

who had studied organizational justice in his or her recent coursework.

Coders were given a set of written instructions that included definitions

and examples of the four types of justice (Table 2).Multiple codes were possible for each described incident or narrative (i.e.,

a single incident might involve no justice issues, a single justice issue, or some

combination). All of the 109 incidents were coded with at least one type of

organizational (in)justice, although agreement on the specific category was

low (58% agreement for all categories and Cohens [1960] kappa of .134 for

distributive, .151 for procedural, and .293 for interpersonal/informational).

Nevertheless, we are confident that all 109 stories describe incidents in which

some type of organizational (in)justice was involved.

To assess the value of rapport management theory for explaining sub-ordinates perceptions of organizational (in)justice involving their man-

agers, the three researchers independently assigned Spencer-Oateys


Table 2. Definitions and Examples for Coding Violations of

Organizational Justice

Coding Category Definition

Distributive injustice Unfairness of decision outcome. For example, the writer

says an undeserving employee got a raise. Other

resources besides money might be involved.

Procedural injustice Unfairness of the process by which a decision was made.

For example, the writer says she was fired without being

given three warnings as outlined in the company policies.

Informational injustice Unfairness of the availability of information about

procedures. For example, the writer says he received no

explanation when he did not get promoted.

Interpersonal injustice Unfairness of interpersonal treatment. For example, the

writer says he was yelled at in front of other employees.




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(2000) categories of rapport management violations (i.e., threats to qual-

ity face wants, social identity face wants, autonomy rights, and association

rights) to the 109 written narratives involving injustice perpetrated by

managers. Once again, a set of written instructions including definitions

and examples of the four types of justice was created (Table 3).

Likewise, coding allowed for multiple responses per described incident

(i.e., a single story might involve no violation of rapport management,

violation of a single rapport management category, or violation of some

combination of the four categories).Only 1 of the 109 stories was coded with no violations in rapport

management:

Narrative 131: The only time I can remember being angry at work was

when we had an exempt position become available at work and it did not

go to the person most qualified for the job, but to a friend of the manager

of our department.

Although coders agreed that distributive injustice was an issue in this nar-

rative, no coder assigned any rapport management issues involving subor-

dinates desires/rights.


Table 3. Definitions and Examples for Coding Threats to

Rapport Management

Coding Category Definition

Quality face wants Threatens face of the writer of the event

(i.e., Brown & Levinsons [1987] positive face;

personal self-image projected to world);

for example, criticismstronger if in front of

others; disagreeing.

Social identity face wants Threatens face of the writer of the event (i.e., Brown &

Levinsons positive face applied to social role

rather than individual); for example, criticism

stronger if in front of others; disagreeing.

Autonomy rights Threatens rights of the writer of the event

(i.e., Brown & Levinsons negative face plus

recognition that individuals sometimes want to be

imposed upon if benefit is great enough); ordering

or requesting.

Association rights Threatens rights of the writer of the event; based on

social role, individuals have rights to time/attention

of others; not listening.




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Of the remaining 108 narratives, all three coders agreed on all four cat-

egories of rapport management codes for 64 (59%) incidents; two of three

coders agreed for an additional 42 (39%) incidents for an average per-

centage agreement for all rapport management coding of 79.8%. Interrater

reliability calculated using Cohens (1960) kappa was high (.774) for

quality face wants, moderate (.514) for social identity face wants and

(.548) for autonomy rights, and low (.274) for association rights. This sug-

gested that sociolinguistic theory was worth exploring as an interpretive

schema revealing norms by which subordinates judge the interpersonal

sensitivity of managers. In all cases, the managers failed to demonstrate

interpersonal sensitivity in their interaction with subordinates.

INTERPRETATIONS OF RAPPORT

MANAGEMENT AND (IN)JUSTICE

To illustrate how rapport management can help us develop propositions

about the organizational justice norms that may be violated by managers

when interacting with subordinates, we take a close look at representative

narratives in the remainder of this section of the article. (Only stories in

which all coders agreed on the specific type of desire/right under discus-

sion are presented.) The narratives have not been edited and are presented

as originally written by participants.

Quality Face Wants and Injustice

In 38 (35%) of the108 narratives describing anger-inducing interactions

that involved a manager, we found evidence of violations of quality face

wants, which primarily included stories about managers who criticizedsubordinates unfairly. In such interactions, the subordinates anger (and

perception of injustice) was motivated by a sense of loss to his or her

worth, credibility, dignity, honor, reputation, or competence based on the

managers interpersonal communication behavior toward him or her. One

of those narratives is as follows:

Narrative 137: I came in at least 20 min early every morning. One morning

I came at 8:05 and the bitch just started in about being late. She was all

over me about being to work on time, and I just ate it up. It pissed me off

to no end that it didnt matter about how early I came in, but it did matter

when I came in late. So, I just kept coming in late.





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The managers goal of influencing consistent standards for attendance can

be considered a necessary evil, an action performed to achieve an impor-

tant organizational purpose despite its negative impact on the subordinate.

The subordinates narrative makes it clear that his or her anger and sense

of injustice was prompted by the fact that the manager criticized (threat-

ened quality face wants) without praising (tending quality face wants). In

this case, the way the manager communicated her goal seems to have been

the salient issue to which the subordinate responded with anger, percep-

tions of injustice, and later retaliation. Our coders saw procedural and

interpersonal injustice in this narrative.

In some cases, the subordinates anger was clearly directed at the way

in which criticism from the manager was delivered (interpersonal injus-tice) rather than the act of criticism itself:

Narrative 139: I became angry when I was working as an associate at a

local jewelry store. My boss decided that she could yell at me in front of

the other associates and while it angered me, it really hurt my feelings. Ive

moved on since then and have found a much better place to work but I could

not believe the way she treated her employees and believed that she

deserved respect.

In other cases, the salient issue to which the subordinate responded with

anger was the lack of an apology from the manager for wrongly criticiz-

ing the subordinate:

Narrative 135: Being chewed out by a supervisor for something I didnt do

and then when he found out he was wrong, he offered no apology.

Managers mitigate threats to a subordinates face wants when apologizingbecause an apology communicates self-criticism, hence constituting a

threat to the managers face wants. In other words, the subordinates face

wants are elevated when the manager lowers his or her own (Brown &

Levinson, 1987). The relative raising or lowering of face to manage rap-

port appears to be related to Lind and Tylers (1988) concept of standing.

Again, our coders saw interpersonal injustice as an issue in this narrative.

Threats to the subordinates quality face wants in all of these narratives

involved interpersonal injustice based on lack of respect (Bies & Moag,

1986). Although most managers would probably agree that a common

requirement of their organizational role involves the necessary evil of crit-

icizing subordinates, they may fail to realize the impact such actions have





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on their relationship with those subordinates. The subordinates in the

previous narratives were left feeling devalued and disrespected after inter-

acting with their managers. The managers in Narratives 135, 137, and 139

appeared to use hard interpersonal influence tactics with their subordi-

nates (Yamaguchi, 2005; Yukl & Falbe, 1990). Consequently, the subordi-

nates perceived their managers actions as unfair, and the relationship

between managers and subordinates was negatively affected.

Linking rapport management and organizational justice theory, we

advance the following propositions:

Proposition 1a: Managers who threaten a subordinates quality face wants

will increase subordinate perceptions of interpersonal injustice.

Proposition 1b: Managers use of rapport management behaviors that tend

quality face wants (e.g., praising the subordinate) will moderate the rela-

tionship between quality face threatening actions (including necessary

evils) and subordinate perceptions of interpersonal injustice.

Social Identity Face Wants and Injustice

In 9 (8%) of the 108 narratives, like the following one, we found vio-

lations of social identity face wants:

Narrative 148: A time when I feel angry at work is more or less every day.

The head of my department that ironically knows the very least about my

job or anyone elses in the department telling us as a whole we arent doing

things right or up to par so to speak. If we have problems or questions and

we take them to him, he usually looks dumbfounded and cannot provide an

answer. He also makes derogatory remarks towards females in the office

and their work apparel.

Once again, we see that although criticizing subordinate performance may

be a necessary evil, the way in which managers communicate that criti-

cism is key to understanding interpersonal injustice. In this narrative, the

subordinates anger is prompted by the managers treatment of the entire

workgroup, especially other women. Because the subordinate identifies

with these groups, her social identity face wants were threatened. The

managers inappropriate remarks about women promote the perception of

interpersonal injustice related to propriety (Bies & Moag, 1986).

Interestingly, we found that five of the identified social identity face

wants violations (more than half) co-occurred with violations of quality

face wants, suggesting that subordinates anger about treatment of a group

is often personalized. One of these narratives is as follows:





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Narrative 141: I work for a small business firm. Our performances have not

been great for about 2 years. It has been frustrating for me and my cowork-

ers. Our boss is obviously frustrated and looking for answers. Needless to

say pressure is always on us and stress. At one of our meetings our bosspicked me and two of my closer teammates out and basically criticized our

performances in front of everyone. I was so embarrassed and pissed. Its not

like we have a big team, and the ones that my boss thinks work really hard,

hate him and constantly bash his managerial style. I was so angry and even

hurt! I felt rather betrayed!

This narrative describes the subordinates anger toward a manager who

threatened the face wants of both the individual subordinate and also of

the subordinates coworkers by criticizing them in front of others.

Drawing on narratives like those previously reported, we propose the

following:

Proposition 2a: Managers who threaten a subordinates social identity face

wants will increase subordinate perceptions of interpersonal injustice.


social identity face wants (e.g., praising the university from which the

subordinate graduated) will moderate the relationship between social

identity face threatening actions (including necessary evils) and subor-dinate perceptions of interpersonal injustice.

Autonomy Rights and Injustice

In 33 (31%) of the 108 narratives, we found autonomy rights violations,

like the following one:

Narrative 230: Once my boss called me on a Sunday afternoon. He asked

me to come work for a few hours. To me, Sundays are for relaxation. I had

no plans for the afternoon and I was just relaxing in shorts and a t-shirt. He

called without any prior notice and asked me to come to work. I cant really

say no to the boss because then Im afraid he would hold it against me. I

was really frustrated and mad because he had complete control over my day

at that point.

The managers goal of maximizing output by directing the behavior of

subordinates can be considered a necessary evil, an action performed toachieve an important organizational purpose despite its negative impact on

the subordinate. The subordinates narrative makes it clear that his or her

anger and sense of injustice in this case were prompted by the fact that the





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manager imposed on the subordinates personal time (threatening auton-

omy rights) without offering the subordinate any real opportunity to

refuse (tending autonomy rights) or a sufficient benefit for complying

(tending quality face wants). In Narrative 230, the choice to communicate

a request rather than the way in which the manager communicated it

seems to us to be the salient issue to which the subordinate responded.

Thus, perceptions of injustice are influenced by the content and underly-

ing purpose (i.e., speech act; K. S. Campbell, 1990) conveyed by a man-

agers message, not simply by the messages style. It is not clear from

the narrative what influence tactic was used by the managerexcept that

he or she asked the subordinate to come to work.

Other examples of autonomy rights violations while performing neces-sary evils in the workplace include a subordinates rights to dress accord-

ing to his or her interpretation of the rules.

Narrative 144: I was sent home to change pants. We have a dress code at

workno denim except once a month on a Fri. I had on a pair of linen car-

penter pants that I had worn 2 times before. I was asked to go home and

change by my supervisor and office manager.

Although the goal of enforcing consistent standards may be a necessary

evil, the managers in this case appear to have used the hard influence tac-

tic of issuing an order (Yamaguchi, 2005; Yukl & Falbe, 1990), which was

perceived as unfair and prompted the subordinates perception of injus-

tice. As in the previous example, the speech act itself (i.e., the request)

rather than the style of the message seems to be the salient issue. Thus,

three of four coders categorized the issue as distributive injustice in this

narrative.

In the following narrative, the subordinate perceived injustice when themanager assigned a heavier workload to the subordinate compared to his

or her coworkers workload:

Narrative 164: Several times I have felt angry at work when my workload

seemed much greater than someone else who was not as dedicated as I am

and made a lot more money than I earned.

The subordinate linked his or her anger and sense of injustice to the fact

that the manager imposed on the subordinates work time (threatening

autonomy rights) without offering the subordinate any real opportunity to

refuse (tending autonomy rights) or a sufficient benefit for complying





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(tending quality face wants). All four coders saw procedural injustice

issues in this narrative.

Restricting the employees workplace autonomy is often considered to

be the primary function of managers. A fundamental organizational con-

flict is that between justice and liberty . . . because managers desire

obedience and employees desire free choice (Konovsky, 2000, p. 491).

Although many modern organizations talk of empowering employees

and much research has looked at the positive effects of employee empow-

erment (e.g., D. J. Campbell, 2000; Gomez & Rosen, 2001; Liden,

Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000), the daily interpersonal behaviors of authori-

tarian managers can quickly subvert any organizational initiatives focused

on empowerment. The empowerment of employees is borne out ofMcGregors (1996) Theory Y perspective of management, based on the

assumptions that employees desire to do a good job and that their perfor-

mance and creativity will be enhanced when managers avoid attempts to

control. Many managers may be surprised to discover however that their

communication behavior still reeks of Theory X authoritarianism.

Combining rapport management and organizational justice theory, we

make the following propositions:

Proposition 3a: Managers who threaten a subordinates autonomy rights

will increase subordinate perceptions of distributive, procedural, or

interpersonal injustice.


autonomy rights (e.g., acknowledging the subordinates right to refuse)

will moderate the relationship between autonomy threatening actions

(including necessary evils) and subordinate perceptions of distributive,

procedural, or interpersonal injustice.

Based on the narratives we analyzed, we speculate that at least three differ-

ent types of injustice may be prompted when a manager violates a subordi-

nates autonomy rights.

Association Rights and Injustice

In 14 (13%) of the 108 narratives, we found association rights viola-

tions, which reflect our sense of entitlement to be included (Spencer-

Oatey, 2000) in the activities of the groups with which we identify,including conversations and discussions about issues that concern us.

Some narratives mention a lack of listening, as in the following example:





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Narrative 172: I usually get mad at work when I am not listened to. It hap-

pens a lot when my views are overlooked and no one pays attention to my

views. Other than that I love my job.

The subordinates anger and sense of injustice in this case were prompted

by the fact that everyone (including, we presume, the writers supervisor)

ignored the subordinates opinion (threatening association rights). As

decision makers, managers must determine which subordinates should

share in the decision-making process and how much weight their opinions

should be afforded (Mintzberg, 1975). Thus, managers must sometimes

perform the necessary evil of denying or dismissing subordinate input. As

Narrative 172 makes clear however, managers must communicate to sub-ordinates that their concerns are heard and understood (tending associa-

tion rights) even when their opinions do not influence decisions. Three of

four coders saw interpersonal injustice in this narrative, but an additional

coder saw the injustice issue as distributive.

Other ways in which subordinates association rights can be threatened

include broken promises or commitments from their manager:

Narrative 175: Im responsible for selling advertising. One of my accounts

had failed to sign an annual contract. The advertising director (my direct

supervisor) had indicated that he would handle the problem with the

account. Several weeks passed and he didnt contact the account. I gave him

a note reminding him that I didnt have a contract. He came to my desk and

threw the note on my desk and said he didnt have to be reminded that he

would handle it when he got ready.

The subordinate linked his or her anger and sense of injustice to the fact

that the manager broke a commitment to help the subordinate completehis or her work task (threatening association rights). In addition, the sub-

ordinates narrative recounts the unacceptable way in which the manager

responded to his or her request that he honor his commitment. The man-

ager appears to have used the hard influence tactic of issuing an order

(Yamaguchi, 2005; Yukl & Falbe, 1990), which was perceived as unfair

and prompted the subordinates perception of injustice. As in the previous

example, the content of the speech act itself (i.e., the request) rather than

the way in which the manager communicated it seems to be the salient

issue; three of four coders saw interpersonal and informational injustice

issues in this narrative.





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We include one final example of a situation in which a manager threat-

ens the subordinates association rights:

Narrative 196: A new program was set up at the high school where I teach. Itwas called Operation On Time and all the teachers who were on their plan-

ning period were to help gather the tardy students and take them to the gym.

One male student absolutely refused to go to the gym. The assistant principal

and the principal were both called into the situation. Instead of backing the

teacher and suspending or punishing the student in some way the principal

babied the student to the gym. Had this occurred with a first time offense

for the student the resulting feelings would have been different but this stu-

dent was a repeat offender and eventually was suspended for fighting before

the end of the term. I felt very angry because the principal did not back theteacher. He had to make himself look good in the eyes of the student. He has

always and still is on the buddy system with the students.

As evidenced by the aforementioned interaction, a subordinates perception

of injustice was motivated by a sense of lack of fairness or consideration for

his or her right to the managers support or inclusion within the group. (The

group to which the subordinate deserves access may be the leader-member

dyad, the subordinates functional area, a group of employees with concerns

related to the subordinates, or customer/suppliers.) In any case, the fact that

the subordinate is a member of a group entitles him or her access to the

other members of the group. Association rights often relate to distributive

norms of fair allocation of a managers time and attention. Three of four

coders saw distributive, procedural, and interpersonal injustice in this story.

Unfortunately, even when managers invite subordinates to attend meet-

ings or consult them before making decisions, they may not truly support

association rights. For instance, although active listening skillssometimes

called attending skills (Egan, 1998)seem simple enough (e.g., make eyecontact with the subordinate, summarize what you heard the subordinate

say), for todays information-ridden, overworked managers, taking the time

necessary to attend to the concerns of subordinates may be viewed as an

expendable or even superfluous task. As much of the justice literature would

suggest however, having a voice with management is crucial for subordi-

nates (Folger, 1977; Folger, Rosenfield, Grove, & Corkran, 1979; Lind,

Kanfer, & Earley, 1990; Tyler, Rasinski, & Spodick, 1985).

Linking rapport management and organizational justice theory, we pro-pose the following:

Proposition 4a: Managers who threaten a subordinates association rights

will increase subordinate perceptions of distributive, procedural, inter-

personal, or informational injustice.





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association rights (e.g., active listening) will moderate the relationship

between association threatening actions (including necessary evils) and

subordinate perceptions of distributive, procedural, interpersonal, orinformational injustice.

CONCLUSIONS

Like Rahim et al. (2000), we believe sociolinguistic theory can explain

why perceptions regarding the social sensitivity of interpersonal treatment

relate to justice judgments. Thus, we attempted to demonstrate the valueof rapport management theory for explicating the relationship mainte-

nance behaviors that are crucial in the effective performance of necessary

evils (Molinsky & Margolis, 2005). By linking rapport management and

organizational justice theory, we advanced eight propositions about the

role of rapport management in managers interpersonal communication

behavior toward subordinates that might guide future research. In the final

section of our article, we discuss the limitations of our research and then

highlight several implications.

Limitations

There are several limitations to the research we have reported in this arti-

cle. First, the narratives are retrospective accounts of interactions between

the narrator and his or her manager. However, as Liu and Buzanell (2004)

noted in evaluating the value of retrospective data, our participants were

able to provide specific details of their interactions with managers. In addi-

tion, although observation and recording of actual interactions would over-come the disadvantages of retrospective accounts and result in greater face

validity, the increased time and effort required for collection would mean

they would also decrease external validity (i.e., generalizability) because far

fewer narratives would have been available for analysis.

Second, the narratives represent only the employees perspective of the

interaction and ignore the managers perspective. Although a comparison

of the perspectives might be illuminating in a variety of ways, there is no

doubt that the employees perspective is the crucial one for understanding

and managing employee perceptions of (in)justice.

Most important, we want to acknowledge what we see as the main lim-

itation of our analysis in this article. First, the lack of agreement among

coders on the specific category of (in)justice (i.e., distributive, procedural,





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informational, or interpersonal) means that our propositions about the rela-

tionship between rapport management categories and specific justice cate-

gories are truly exploratory. For instance, following Proposition 1a linking

threats to quality face wants to interpersonal injustice, we would like to con-

clude that interpersonal injustice is always linked to face threats. However,

a few narratives were coded positively for interpersonal injustice and nega-

tively for threats to face wants. For instance, in Narrative 175 discussed ear-

lier, a threat to association rights was linked to interpersonal and

informational injustice. Here is an excerpt from another example:

Narrative 130: Every day, with my job being an automotive electronics

tech, with management stopping my train of thought, customers who dontunderstand the complexity of my work.

For this narrative, all four coders saw interpersonal injustice issues, but

none of the coders categorized rapport management problems as related to

face wants. Rather, interpersonal injustice was linked to a threat to auton-

omy rights in this story.

Despite our inability to draw definitive conclusions about the relation-

ship between rapport management issues and categories of justice, coders

did identify both injustice and rapport management violations in 108

(99%) of the 109 narratives involving a subordinates anger toward a

manager. Although reliability made inferential statistical analysis inap-

propriate, the richness and emotional quality of the narratives themselves

support the usefulness of rapport management theory for interpreting

subordinates subjective experience of (in)justice at work. Thus, we feel

confident that, in general, injustice is related to rapport management

violations by managers.

Implications

The ineffectiveness of hard interpersonal influence tactics such as a high-

handed manner, demands/orders, warnings, and threats (Yamaguchi, 2005;

Yukl & Falbe, 1990) appears to be explained by their concomitant violation

of rapport management norms. Such tactics violate autonomy rights. On the

other hand, the relative effectiveness of soft interpersonal influence tactics,

such as a friendly manner, praise, flattery, and sympathy (Yamaguchi, 2005;Yukl & Falbe, 1990), appears to be explained by their positive effect on the

management of rapport. Such tactics tend face wants. In contrast, the rela-

tionship between rational interpersonal influence tactics, such as reasoning,





21/25

promise, commitment, question, and self-disclosure (Yamaguchi, 2005;

Yukl & Falbe, 1990), and rapport management is less clear. Future

research might concentrate specifically on the connection between influ-

ence tactics and rapport management theory.

Another area of research we intend to explore is the development and

validation of a survey instrument for measuring rapport management

behavior. Such a measure is essential within a research context to test

whether the use of rapport management behavior is statistically related to

the quality of the leader-member relationship and organizational justice. It

is likely that the quality of rapport between a manager and a subordinate

will also be related to a number of other variables that have already been

studied (i.e., trust, commitment, etc.). A measure of leader rapport man-agement behavior will provide the necessary tool to assess the usefulness

of sociolinguistic theory in explaining additional variation in the quality

of manager-subordinate relationships and therefore in individual and/or

unit performance. Also, a measure of leader rapport management behav-

ior would be useful in an applied context to help managers better under-

stand specific behaviors that might be constructive or destructive to his or

her relationships with subordinates.

A measure of leader rapport manage-

ment behavior will provide the neces-

sary tool to assess the usefulness of

sociolinguistic theory in explaining addi-

tional variation in the quality of man-

ager-subordinate relationships and

therefore in individual and/or unitperformance.

The final area of research we want to mention should explore the rela-

tionship between a managers use of rapport management and the devel-

opment of trust toward that manager. Rapport management behaviors may

offer subordinates clues regarding the degree to which managers are con-

cerned with their interests and, therefore, whether they could be trusted to

behave in a way that is beneficial to subordinates. These behaviors may

lead to increased trust toward the manager. Whitener, Brodt, Korsgaard,





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and Werner (1998) proposed that five categories of supervisory behavior

influence employeesperceptions of trustworthiness: (a) behavioral consis-

tency, (b) behavioral integrity, (c) sharing and delegation of control (cf.

autonomy in rapport management), (d) communication (e.g., accuracy,

explanations, and openness; cf. association in rapport management), and

(e) demonstration of concern (cf. face in rapport management). Over time,

use of rapport management strategies by a manager may provide evidence

of trustworthiness within the consistency, control, communication, and

concern categories outlined by Whitener et al. and therefore may lead to

increased trust toward the manager.

Organizational managers cannot avoid performing necessary evils.

Instead, they must demonstrate interpersonal sensitivity while performingsuch tasks to manage subordinate perceptions of (in)justice. We hope

readers will agree that rapport management behavior appropriately

describes the interpersonal norms managers must strive to uphold to per-

form their organizational role effectively with their subordinates.

NOTES

1. Organizational justice has been linked to emotion in general and anger in particular.

Cahns (1949) definition of the sense of injustice includes anger, along with outrage, horror,

shock, and resentment, as the sympathetic reaction to an attack: Nature has thus equipped

all men to regard injustice to another as personal aggression (p. 24). More recently, Mikula

(1986) reported that 68% of participants recounting unjust events reported emotional

responses like anger, rage, and indignation. In general, When organizational decisions and

managerial actions are deemed unfair, the affected employees experience feelings of anger,

outrage, and a desire for retribution (Folger & Skarlicki, 1999, p. 35).

2. The prompt was as follows: Remember a time when you felt angry at work. Please

describe the incident that made you angry. Specifically, please tell us the situation, whatled up to it, who was involved, and how angry it made you.

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