Culture and Procedural Justice: The Influence of Power Distance on Reactions to Voice

A central premise of the procedural justice literature—based on studies conducted mainly in the United States—is that people react unfavorably when they have little voice in a decision-making process. The studies reported here evaluated whether the magnitude of voice effects varies across cultures. As predicted, Studies 1–3 showed that the tendency for people to respond less favorably (i.e., with lower organizational commitment) to lower levels of voice was greater in low power distance cultures (United States and Germany) than in high power distance cultures (People's Republic of China, Mexico, and Hong Kong). And in a single cultural setting, Study 4 found a similar interactive effect of voice and people's power distance beliefs on employees' work attitudes and job performance. Theoretical implications for the justice and cross-cultural literatures are discussed, as are practical implications and suggestions for future research.