Justice versus fairness in the family business workplace: A socioemotional wealth approach

• Published date: 01 April 2019
• Author: Karen Paul,Georges Samara
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/beer.12209
• Date: 01 April 2019

Business Ethics: A Eur Rev. 2019;28:175–184. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/beer  

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© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd

1 | INTRODUCTION

In the business e thics traditi on, fairness is of ten considered an un der-

lying ethical principle no matter what philosophical foundation is being

considered. For e xample, one p opular text book states : “Fairness is the

quality of being just, equitable, and impartial. Fairness clearly overlaps

with the concept s of justice, equi ty, and equality. Ther e are three fun-

damental ele ments that motiv ate people to be fair : equality, recipro c-

ity, and optimizat ion” (Ferrell & Fraedrich , 2016). Van Buren suggests

that, althou gh not always termed “or ganizational jus tice,” the fairnes s

of organizatio ns has been a consisten t concern of manageme nt think-

ers (Van Buren , 2008), showing t hat he considers th e two concepts of

justice and fai rness to be at least h ighly overlappin g and perhaps even

alternative ter ms for the same basic concept .

Yet, these claims abo ut justice and fa irness star t from the as-

sumption that all e mployees have a simil ar frame of referen ce for

judging actio ns, therefore f ailing to consider t he role of pre‐con-

ceived expectations, emotions and family relations affec ting em-

ployees’ ethic al perceptions an d fairness jud gments. Inde ed, while

justice simply r efers to adherence to ru les of conduct, fair ness refers

to subjective p erceptions of whethe r rules of conduct are e thical and

fair (Goldman & C ropanzano, 2015). In this r egard, family busi nesses,

which can constitute up to 90% of enterprises worldwide (Charbel,

Elie, & Georges , 2013; Samara & Arenas, 2017), a re one particular o r-

ganizational f orm where the distin ction between jus tice and fairness

is necessar y. Indeed, family a nd business are t wo interconnec ted

institution s that highly influence how famil y firms are managed and

directed. In f amily firms, co ntrolling owner s pursue both eco nomic

and socioemotional (i.e., family‐centered) go als (Samara, Jam ali,

Sierra, & Par ada 2018; Williams, Pi eper, Kellermanns, & A strachan,

2018). As a corollar y, if rules and regulations are de signed to reward

employees who co ntribute exclusi vely to the family f irm economic

goals, then this c an violate fairness perceptio ns of employees’ that

contribute to the f amily firm socioem otional goals. Hence, how d oes

the pursuit of so cioemotional goa ls in family fir ms affect the i nter-

play between ju stice and fairn ess in the workp lace? And how can

controlling owne rs harmonize justice and f airness in the family bu si-

ness workplace?

In what follows, we in tegrate the orga nizational jus tice liter-

ature and the fam ily business lite rature to provide a f iner‐grained

Received:13Apr il2018 

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  Revised:20Sep tember2018 

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  Accepted:24Septe mber2018

DOI: 10 .1111/bee r.12209

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Justice versus fairness in the family business workplace:

A socioemotional wealth approach

Georges Samara1 | Karen Paul2

1Olayan School o f Business, Ameri can

University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon

2Department of Management and

International Business, Florida International

University, Miami, Florida

Correspondence

Georges Sam ara, Olayan Scho ol of Business,

American University of Beirut, Beirut,

Lebanon.

Email: gs50@aub.edu.lb

Abstract

The organization al justice literature and the f amily business literatur e have developed

independently, which lim its our unders tanding of fairn ess and justice in th e family busi-

ness workplace. So f ar, the concepts of justice and f airness have been use d inter-

changeably in the fa mily business literat ure, as if objective me asures that aim to

increase justice in t he workplace will automatical ly translate into fairness pe rceptions

among family busin ess employees. By integrating the o rganizational justice literatu re

and the family busin ess literature, we first dif ferentiate between the two co ncepts of

justice and fairne ss and argue that a utilitarian co nceptualization of justice may come

into direct conflic t with fairness percep tions in the family busin ess workplace. Second ,

we shed light on the impor tance of incorporating socioemotion al goals, particul arly

those that reveal a brigh t side of socioemotional wealth , into rules and regulations de-

signed to increase jus tice in the workplace, which, we ar gue, contributes to increasin g

fairness percept ions among employees a nd to building and maint aining an ethical

family business wor kplace. Theoreti cal and practi cal contributions a re discussed at

the end of the paper.