Final answer:
The controversy in Jason's company is an example of procedural justice, which is about the fairness in the processes leading to decisions. It differs from distributive justice, which is the fairness of outcomes, and from interactional justice that concerns individual treatment.
Step-by-step explanation:
Understanding the Types of Justice in the Workplace
Regarding the situation where employees complained about the unfair process of awarding pay increases, we are looking at an issue of procedural justice. Procedural justice concerns the fairness and transparency of the processes that lead to decisions. In the case described, the uproar was not necessarily about the outcome (the pay increase itself), which would have been a matter of distributive justice, but about the process by which the pay increases were awarded. This concept is essential in organizations as procedures and processes play a critical role in employee perception of fairness and can impact morale, productivity, and potentially trigger workplace unrest, as highlighted by Greenberg's experiment in 1993.
Distributive justice, on the other hand, refers to the fairness in how rewards and resources are distributed among members of an organization. It's deeply rooted in moral philosophy and is outlined by theorists such as John Rawls, with various principles such as strict egalitarianism and libertarian principles offering differing perspectives on how distributions should be made for a just society. Finally, interactional justice relates to the treatment of individuals within the process, considering respect and dignity, but is not directly relevant to the situation Jason is facing, which is squarely focused on procedural fairness.