World Social Justice Day – The Justice Equation
20th Feb is celebrated as World Social Justice Day. The words below are dedicated to the guardians of justice in organisations worldwide.
Tropes involving ‘good vs. evil’ often inspire respect as guardians of justice face misery and doubt as battles of professional life. The expected behaviour in a workforce has a purpose although the psychology of the organisation must be sound to build trust.
Organisational psychology is based on two theories-‘Self-categorisation’ and ‘Social identity’. Self-categorisation focuses on ‘individualisation’ where ‘I’ is predominant. Social identity approach deals with ‘We.’ A debate can be constructed that group influences are a source of irrationality, pathology and primitivism. ‘Social identity’ approach rejects this rationalisation as it focuses on a ‘change of self’ not a ‘loss of self’.
A justification of the importance of every profession is essential to the self-categorisation approach. Research establishes that professions which were considered boring was interesting and varied to those who performed it.
Case 1-‘X’ polished shoes for 30 years as a livelihood. He found his job interesting, exciting and full of variance.
Research suggests that people who have jobs which are generally conceived to be more interesting discover that the routine nature of their work is dull.
Case 2-A teacher ‘Y’ finds that the repetitive nature of lessons year after year as dull.
Certain individuals find that solidarity and security in their job role are of higher priority than any other factor.
Discrimination in organisations can be argued to be the impact of perceived social structure. Interactions of a person depend on character and motivations of the individual. Drive and direction are products of evaluation apprehension which matters more than approval or disapproval for facilitation.
An importance of identity based pride and respect results in compliance to norms and regulations. Individuals internalise values and goals by defining them as part of collective self. People want to follow rules and live up to values even when they are not being monitored and reward or punishment is unlikely.
Case 3 – ‘A’ was a self-motivated employee who used to actively participate in his work with passion.‘B’ was a more balanced employee who worked in a moderate fashion. In this case, if an organisation exploits the talent of ‘A’, his exhaustion pattern would be greater than ‘B.’ Work productivity would decrease on an extended period when compared to ‘B.’
Social justice in organisations is a fine line between methods which may result in either motivation or depression. The subjective nature of justice is unique for every individual constituting the organisation as a single entity.
Happy World Social Justice Day!
Reference:-
Haslam, S. (2004). Psychology in Organisations. 2nd ed. SAGE Publications.
