A Habermasian approach to justice in organizational change: Synthesizing the technical and philosophical perspectives
Journal of Organizational Change Management
ISSN: 0953-4814
Article publication date: 1 February 1999
Abstract
Organizational development has begun to incorporate research findings from organizational justice into its own intervention technology. Because perceptions of fairness can facilitate change success, it is quite natural to do so. Business ethicists are concerned, however, that such technology is aimed more at making change “look fair” than being fair. We label these two perspectives the “technical” and “philosophical” perspectives respectively. Proponents of the technical perspective argue that achieving justice will always be a struggle in the concrete world of organizational change. Critical ethicists question whether a technical approach to justice in change can ever really achieve it. The article presents these two positions more fully and goes on to develop a synthesis of them. Relying on Habermas and others, it presents how technical and philosophical perspectives can complement one another to achieve justice in organizational change.
Keywords
Citation
Underwood Stephens, C. and Cobb, A.T. (1999), "A Habermasian approach to justice in organizational change: Synthesizing the technical and philosophical perspectives", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 12 No. 1, pp. 21-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/09534819910255298
Publisher
:MCB UP Ltd
Copyright © 1999, MCB UP Limited