Sport Management Review 16 (2013) 200–210

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Sport Management Review

jo u rn al h om ep age: w ww.els evier .c o m/lo c ate /s mr

Organizational justice in intercollegiate athletics: Perceptions of coaches

Seungmo Kim a, Damon P.S. Andrew b,*a Hong Kong Baptist University, Hong Kongb Troy University, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history:

Received 5 March 2012

Received in revised form 1 August 2012

Accepted 4 August 2012

Keywords:

Distributive justice

Procedural justice

Interactional justice

Intercollegiate athletics

A B S T R A C T

Research indicates sport industry employees encounter organizational justice, or fairness

perceptions, during resource distributions on the basis of what was distributed

(distributive justice), how the distribution decision was reached (procedural justice),

and how the distribution decision was communicated to the employee (interaction

justice). This study’s purpose was to explore coaches’ perceptions of fairness regarding

current resource distribution systems in intercollegiate athletics in terms of types of sport

(high profile sports vs. low profile sports) and participant gender (male participant sports

vs. female participant sports). A total of 260 coaches from National Collegiate Athletic

Association (NCAA) Division I, II, and III institutions in the United States responded

through online surveys assessing three dimensions of organizational justice: distributive,

procedural, and interactional justice. Subsequently, tests for discriminant validity

prompted the consolidation of the procedural and interactional justice dimensions.

MANOVA tests found: (a) no significant main effect nor interaction effect for distributive

justice and (b) main effects of type of sport and participant gender, but no interaction

effect for procedural justice. Practical and broader theoretical implications for these

findings are discussed.

� 2012 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand. Published by

Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Organizational justice

Organizational justice, the perception of fairness of group members or groups in business organizations (Cohen-Charash& Spector, 2001), has become more relevant and important in the context of sports during the last two decades (Mahony,Hums, Andrew, & Dittmore, 2010). As a result, a number of studies have attempted to examine perceptions of fairness invarious sport settings, such as intercollegiate sports (Hums & Chelladurai, 1994a, 1994b; Kim, Andrew, Mahony, & Hums,2008; Mahony, Hums, & Riemer, 2002, 2005; Mahony, Riemer, Breeding, & Hums, 2006), interscholastic sports (Whisenant,2005; Whisenant & Jordan, 2006; Whisenant & Smucker, 2006, 2007), a university recreation department (Jordan, Turner, &DuBord, 2007), a sporting goods company (Mahony et al., 2006), and National Governing Bodies (Dittmore, Mahony, Andrew,& Hums, 2009).

Among the contexts, intercollegiate athletics in the United States have been the most popular domain due to theincreasing interest in fairness between women’s and men’s sports since Title IX of the Education Amendments in 1972(Mahony & Pastore, 1998). Title IX states, ‘‘No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from

* Corresponding author at: College of Health and Human Services, Troy University, 400 Pell Avenue, 153 Collegeview, Troy, AL 36082, United States.

Tel.: +1 334 670 3712, fax: +1 334 670 3743.

E-mail address: dandrew@troy.edu (Damon P.S. Andrew).

1441-3523/$ – see front matter � 2012 Sport Management Association of Australia and New Zealand. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2012.08.001

S. Kim, D.P.S. Andrew / Sport Management Review 16 (2013) 200–210 201

participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activityreceiving Federal financial assistance.’’ Consequently, Title IX was responsible for the increase of female student-athletes inAmerican intercollegiate athletics from 74,239 to 186,460 between 1981 and 2010 (NCAA, 2011). Although opportunities forwomen to participate in collegiate sports have increased, research indicates male student-athletes still receive more funding(Mahony & Pastore, 1998). Moreover, given limited athletic department budgets in trying economic times, resourceallocation decisions made by an athletic director draw even more attention among his/her athletic teams, and the perceivedfairness of these decisions could influence members’ attitudes and behaviors (Colquitt, Conlon, Wesson, Porter, & Ng, 2001).According to a three-dimensional model of organizational justice, members are more likely to employ three barometers indetermining whether they have been fairly treated in an organization. These three internal judgments are (1) distributivejustice, the perceived fairness of group members toward outcome elements (Deutsch, 1975; Homans, 1961), (2) proceduraljustice, the perceived fairness of the process or procedure of outcomes when management makes a decision (Thibaut &Walker, 1975), and (3) interactional justice, the perceived fairness from the methods and attitudes management takestoward recipients when conveying outcomes in the workplace (Bies & Moag, 1986). In the context of intercollegiate athletics,coaches make internal judgments regarding resource allocations based on the actual resources provided by their athleticdepartment (distributive justice), the processes or procedures adopted by their athletic director or department to make thefinal decision (procedural justice) and/or the approach incorporated by the athletic director to inform each team of the finaldecision (interactional justice).

1.1. Distributive justice

Distributive justice can be classified into three principles: (a) equity, (b) equality, and (c) need. Distributive justice wasoriginally conceptualized based on Adams’ equity theory (1965), which posited that resource allocation among employeesshould be consistent with the ratio of each employee’s contribution to an organization. In other words, an individual who hascontributed the most to an organization should receive a greater amount of allocation than others. According to the theory,an employee tends to compare his/her job inputs and outcomes with others and perceives injustice if he/she has not beentreated fairly by the organization based on referent comparisons. Equality refers to the idea that each member should be ableto gain the same distribution (Tornblom & Jonsson, 1985). Equality also consists of three sub-principles: (a) equality ofresults, an equal distribution over the long term, (b) equality of opportunities, an equal chance to receive resources, and (c)equality of treatment, which means that all distributions are equal in a given situation (Tornblom & Jonsson, 1985).According to Tornblom and Jonsson (1985), equality is more commonly adopted when the relationship among members orsubunits is cooperative and the cohesion and a sense of a common fate of the organization is high among them. Finally, needis the notion that an individual who lacks necessary resources needs to receive more of the share of resources than others(Hums & Chelladurai, 1994a). The need principle is more commonly used when the goals of the organizations are personalgrowth of each member and survival of the group (Deutsch, 1975).

1.2. Procedural justice

Organizational justice referred only to distributive justice at the early stage of its theoretical development (Greenberg &Colquitt, 2005). However, several researchers (Blau, 1964; Deutsch, 1975; Leventhal, 1976) had begun to notice thatindividuals could be impacted by other factors, such as procedures or information of allocations rather than only outcomessince the studies based on merely distributive justice were not able to fully explain the perceptions of fairness of therecipients. Thibaut and Walker (1975) compared two legal procedures in order to examine the ability of making a fairdecision between the adversarial system and the inquisitorial system. In the study, they found that participants (disputants)reported more fair perceptions from adversarial procedures limiting a third party’s control and allowing disputants torepresent their opinions. Subsequently, procedural justice was formally introduced to the field of management by Greenbergand Folger in 1983.

1.3. Interactional justice

Bies and Moag (1986) attempted to isolate the human side of organizational practice from procedural justice byintroducing interactional justice. According to Bies and Moag (1986), interactional justice focuses on the importance ofthe quality of interpersonal treatment of the management in progress and procedural justice emphasizes proceduralaspects in making allocation decision in organizations. Therefore, procedural justice should be more associated with theperceiver’s reaction and attitude toward the organization itself, while interactional justice should impact the perceiver’sreaction and attitude toward the supervisor, because it is related to the ways of communication with recipients andmanagement, such as politeness, honesty, and respect (Bies & Moag, 1986; Cropanzano & Prehar, 1999; Tyler & Bies,1990). Even though there have been arguments on the distinction between procedural justice and interactional justice(Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001), many studies have supported the distinction between the two dimensions andemployed three-dimensional models of organizational justice in the literature (Cropanzano, Prehar, & Chen, 2002).Therefore, the researchers also used the three-dimensional model to examine coaches’ perceptions regarding currentresource distribution systems in the current study.

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2. Perceptions of fairness in intercollegiate athletics

Although Title IX in 1972 was originally created in order to provide fair and equal opportunities and outcomes in anyeducation activity or program regardless of gender, it has made a significant impacts on sports in the United States and hasled researchers to pay more attention to fairness issues between women’s and men’s sports (Mahony & Pastore, 1998). TheNational Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) offers 89 championships in 23 sports for over 400,000 student-athletes at1079 (Division I: 335, Division II: 302, and Division III: 442) colleges and universities (NCAA, 2012). Division I is the highestlevel of intercollegiate athletic competition in the NCAA, followed by Division II and Division III, and sports are offered formen and women in all three divisions. Consequently, intercollegiate athletic departments have often been targeted fororganizational justice research because both women’s and men’s sports are often supported from the same budget. In theliterature, several researchers have conducted studies to examine how stakeholders, such as athletic administrators andcoaches (Hums & Chelladurai, 1994a, 1994b), athletic directors and boards (Mahony et al., 2002, 2005), and students (Kimet al., 2008; Mahony et al., 2006) in intercollegiate athletics feel about resource allocation among teams on the basis ofdistributive justice.

Hums and Chelladurai (1994a) applied the concept of organizational justice to the field of sport management for thefirst time by developing a distributive justice scale with 12 hypothetical scenarios based on the conceptual model ofdistributive justice (Tornblom & Jonsson, 1985). The model consists of three principles: equity, equality, and need. Sevensub-principles under the equity (contribution) and equality principles were proposed along with the need principle.Equity was comprised of (a) productivity, (b) spectator appeal, (c) ability, and (d) effort. Equality included the sub-principles of (a) equality of treatment, (b) equality of results, and (c) equality of opportunity. The instrument wascomposed of two sets of six scenarios regarding distribution and retribution of money, facilities and support servicesamong teams in intercollegiate athletics.

Using the created distributive justice scale from their previous study, Hums and Chelladurai (1994b) explored the fairnessof distribution principles of coaches and administrators in Divisions I, II, and III by examining three athletic resources:financial allocations, facility use, and support services. The results indicated that the need and equality principles were mosthighly rated throughout all levels by both males and females. However, male coaches tended to give more weight to theequity principles, while female coaches tended to give more importance to the equality principles. In addition, coaches andathletic administrators at Division I institutions preferred the equity principle based on productivity and spectator appealmore than those at Division II and Division III schools. The results indicated Division I institutions were more likely to careabout winning and revenue generation associated with productivity and spectator appeal. Overall, the most importantfindings of the study were that male and female coaches and athletic administrators at all Division levels viewed equality oftreatment, need, and equality of results as most fair, while equality of opportunity and all sub-principles of contributionwere almost totally rejected by all subjects in terms of gender, division, and position.

Mahony and Pastore (1998) later examined the NCAA revenue and expense reports from 1973 to 1993 to determine howthose distributive justice principles affected the resource allocation decisions made by intercollegiate athleticadministrators during the period. Although Hums and Chelladurai (1994b) found that equality of treatment, need, andequality of results distributive justice principles were highly rated by NCAA administrators and coaches (e.g., gender,division, and position), the actual distributions athletic administrators made were not congruent with perspectives from theHums and Chelladurai (1994b) study. The results by analyzing the actual resource distribution data found that Division Iinstitutions favored revenue sports (men’s basketball and American football, hereafter referred to as ‘‘football’’) whendistributing financial resources, suggesting they use the equity principle (e.g., revenue production and spectator appeal)when deciding where to invest the bulk of the university’s athletic resources.

Given the inconsistency of Hums and Chelladurai’s (1994b) analysis of perspectives of athletic administrators andcoaches toward resource allocations and Mahony and Pastore’s (1998) investigation of actual resource distributions,especially in NCAA Division I, Mahony et al. (2002) then attempted to examine the fairness perspectives of athletic directorsand athletic boards since athletic directors and athletic boards have more impact and power in budgetary decision-makingprocesses in athletic departments than administrators and coaches. The results indicated that the need principle wasconsistently reported to be the most fair principle used in the determination of both the distribution and retributionscenarios, which supported the findings of Hums and Chelladurai’s (1994b) study. Although equality of treatment often wasrated the most fair option, it was comparatively lower than the Hums and Chelladurai (1994b) study. While athletic directorsand boards in Division I schools were more likely to prefer the equity principle over the equality principle, the participants inDivision III schools were more likely to prefer equality of treatment when determining resource distribution. In retributionscenarios, Division I athletic directors showed neutral views for both revenue production and spectator appeal, which wasalso consistent with the previous study.

Both studies (Hums & Chelladurai, 1994b; Mahony et al., 2002) consistently found the need principle was generallyconsidered one of the most important principles in making fair resource distribution decisions. Therefore, Mahony et al.(2005) decided to go on to explore how athletic directors and athletic boards define ‘‘need,’’ and which types of need had thegreatest impact on the decision making process. The results identified three sub-principles of need in intercollegiateathletics: (a) a lack of resources for the sport team, (b) the high costs associated with the sport team, and (c) the level ofresources needed by the sport team to ensure competitive success. Division I respondents were more likely to identify thereasons for a sport having great financial need to be relative to the team’s competitive success, whereas Division III

S. Kim, D.P.S. Andrew / Sport Management Review 16 (2013) 200–210 203

respondents were more likely to identify the high costs related to certain sports teams to be a more effective indicator ofneed. Overall, male teams were considered to have more need than female teams.

The results showed that football was considered to be the team with the greatest financial need among men’s teams byrespondents from both divisions, followed by track. With regard to the perceived needs of women’s sports, basketball, track,and softball were fairly evenly distributed.

After having focused on the perspectives of stakeholders who have influence over resource distributions in each athleticdepartment, researchers attempted to examine the perspectives of students affected by those resource distributiondecisions. First, Mahony et al. (2006) examined the perceptions of two student groups (student-athletes and other students).The results indicated that equality of treatment and need are also rated as the most fair principles for resource allocationsand were most often chosen as the fairest options for all the given scenarios. These findings are consistent with those ofHums and Chelladurai (1994b), but inconsistent with Mahony et al. (2002), because Mahony et al. (2002) found that the needprinciple was rated higher than equality of treatment. Further analysis revealed male students were more likely to prefer theequity principle, particularly in revenue production, while female students generally preferred equality of treatment, whichis consistent with the findings of Hums and Chelladurai (1994b).

All of the studies discussed previously assessed the perspectives of stakeholders in artificial decision-making scenariosfor distribution and retribution in intercollegiate athletics by using Hums and Chelladurai’s (1994a) distributive justice scale,but Kim et al. (2008) were the first to examine the perceptions of student athletes under real situations (i.e., a non-scenario,reality-based setting) in intercollegiate athletics. The purpose of Kim et al.’s study was to examine student athletes’perceived outcome fairness under their athletic department’s current resource distribution system based on gender andsport type (revenue vs. non-revenue sports). The researchers created a Distributive Justice in Intercollegiate Athletics Scaleon the basis of prior work (Mahony et al., 2002, 2006), which consisted of ten sub-principles for the three principles ofdistributive justice. The four sub-principles for equity included (a) revenue generation, (b) effort, (c) productivity, and (d)ability. The three sub-principles for equality included (a) treatment, (b) results, and (c) opportunities. Finally, the three sub-principles for need included (a) lack of resources, (b) high costs, and (c) competitive success.

The results found no significant interaction effects of gender and sport type and no main effects of gender on perceivedoutcome fairness. However, the results indicated significant main effects for type of sport on perceived fairness on the basisof equality and need, but not on the basis of equity. Post hoc analysis of descriptive statistics revealed that student athletesin revenue sports had significantly higher ratings of the principles of equality and need than student athletes in non-revenue sports did. These findings suggested that the differences in fairness perceptions are more likely to be related to thestatus of sport than the gender of the athletes in the sport. This finding is consistent with prior research suggesting thatmale non-revenue athletes are more likely to be treated like women’s sports in the distribution of resources (Mahony &Pastore, 1998) and are more likely to perceive distributive justice in a manner similar to those athletes (Mahony et al.,2006).

Although the aforementioned research has attempted to examine the fairness issues among teams in terms of genderand type of sport in intercollegiate athletics, this body of research has numerous limitations. First, the research hasbeen primarily limited to the examination of distributive justice, and there is a strong need to investigate otherdimensions (procedural justice and interactional justice) of the concept. It is because distributive justice as one of threedimensions of organizational justice is not able to fully explain the perceptions of fairness of the recipients towardathletic resource allocations among teams (Blau, 1964; Deutsch, 1975; Leventhal, 1976). Second, the majority of theprevious studies, except Kim et al. (2008), have used hypothetical scenarios regarding resource distributionsamong teams, so the findings could be more closely related to the preferred principles of the stakeholders in distributingresources from the distributor’s point of view than the real perceptions of them. Finally, although coaches are oneof the most influenced stakeholders by decisions regarding resource distributions among teams, no study hasexclusively examined coaches’ perspectives regarding the current resource distribution system that impacts theirrespective teams. Based on the limitations of organizational justice studies in the context of intercollegiate athletics, thepurpose of this study was to explore coaches’ perceptions of fairness on the basis of distributive justice, proceduraljustice, and interactional justice regarding current resource distribution systems in intercollegiate athletics in terms oftype of sport (high profile sport vs. non-high profile sport) and participant gender (male participant sport vs. femaleparticipant sport).

In this study, two demographic variables (participant gender and type of sport) were used to examine differences amongdifferent groups. According to Kulik, Lind, Ambrose, and MacCoun (1996), demographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender,race, or education) should influence the development of each person’s perception of fairness toward outcomes or treatmentsvia his or her own self-interest or different emphases. In addition, past research has investigated differences in terms ofgender (Hums & Chelladurai, 1994b; Mahony et al., 2006) and revenue vs. non-revenue sports (Kim et al., 2008; Mahony &Pastore, 1998) for their distributive justice studies. In classifying the type of sport, this study used the terms ‘‘high profilesports’’ for football, men’s and women’s basketball and ‘‘non-high profile sports’’ for other sports instead of ‘‘revenue sports’’and ‘‘non-revenue sports’’ even though there is no difference between two classification methods. The rationale for usinghigh profile and non-high profile sports instead of revenue and non-revenue sports from the previous studies is that not all offootball and men’s and women’s basketball teams operate with profit in NCAA Division I, II and III. However, those sports arethe most often exposed to the public by media and become the center of public interest compared to other sports. In turn, theamount of resource allocations for each of these three teams is traditionally larger than those of other sports. In this study, it

S. Kim, D.P.S. Andrew / Sport Management Review 16 (2013) 200–210204

is anticipated that intercollegiate athletics coaches will show differences of internal perceptions of resource distributionfairness according to the type of sport and participant gender. Specifically, the following hypotheses are proposed.

H1. Coaches of male participant sports will report significantly higher levels of organizational justice [distributive justice(H1a), procedural justice (H1b), or interactional justice (H1c)] than coaches of female participant sports based on theircurrent resource distribution system in collegiate athletics.

H2. Coaches of high profile sports will report significantly higher levels of organizational justice [distributive justice (H2a),procedural justice (H2b), or interactional justice (H2c)] than coaches of non-high profile sports based on their currentresource distribution system in collegiate athletics.

3. Method

3.1. Participants and survey procedure

The population of the current study included head and assistant coaches employed at NCAA Divisions I, II, and IIIinstitutions that participate in the sports of football, men’s basketball, and women’s basketball. A stratified sampling methodwas utilized to select samples of equal size in terms of level of division, participant gender, and type of sport. Coaches whowere in charge of two or more sports or both men’s and women’s teams for a certain sport, and also served as an athleticdirector were excluded in the current study. Therefore, 1200 subjects were selected to represent variety in participantgender, NCAA division, and type of sport.

Internet survey methodologies were incorporated to collect data in this study. A total of 1200 coaches’ addresses wereobtained through their institutions’ Web sites. One week prior to the date of the survey, pre-notification emails (Kent &Turner, 2002) were sent to the selected coaches in order to notify them of the forthcoming research. One week after the pre-notification, e-mails containing a link to the online survey along with related instructions were sent to the coaches. Threereminders were sent, seven days apart, to the selected subjects.

3.2. Measures

The questionnaire for the current study consisted of 25 items, including demographics and organizational justiceprinciples (distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice). Demographic information collected includedthe sport coached by the respondent, participant gender, gender of coach, level of NCAA division, coaching experience,coaching role (a head coach or assistant coach), ethnicity, and nationality.

A new organizational justice scale with a total of 17 items assessing three dimensions of organizational justice in thecontext of intercollegiate athletics was created based on Colquitt’s (2001) scale. Colquitt’s original scale consisted of 20 itemsfor four dimensions of organizational justice, since he dichotomized interactional justice into interpersonal justice andinformational justice. In his study, the reported Cronbach alphas (a) for distributive, procedural, interpersonal, andinformational justice were .93, .93, .92, and .90, respectively. However, the current study combined interpersonal andinformational justice to examine interactional justice. Table 1 shows the original 20 items from Colquitt’s (2001) scale andthe 17 items of the newly created scale. The scale of the current study for the context of intercollegiate athletics included fouritems for distributive justice, seven items for procedural justice, and six items for interactional justice. The new scale wasdesigned to examine coaches’ perceptions toward athletic funds for their teams, while Colquitt’s (2001) scale was to measureemployees’ perceptions toward individual outcomes. Therefore, items such as ‘‘Is your (outcome) appropriate for the workyou have completed?’’ and ‘‘Has he/she seemed to tailor his/her communication to individual’s specific needs?’’ weredropped from Colquitt’s (2001) scale to fit the current study’s context. In addition, three items from interpersonal justicewere combined in the new scale with the item ‘‘I was treated in an appropriate manner by my athletic director’’. The itemswere measured with seven-point Likert scales anchored by Strongly Disagree (1) and Strongly Agree (7).

3.3. Data analysis

The data were analyzed using SPSS version 18.0 for descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA)and AMOS 18.0 for a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). First, given the existing theoretical underpinnings for the variousdimensions of organizational justice, a CFA was performed to examine validity of the scale since the instrument fororganizational justice was modified and adapted for the intercollegiate athletic setting. As noted by Andrew, Pedersen, andMcEvoy (2011), a ‘‘CFA allows the researcher to confirm the fit of the data with a predetermined model that is typically basedon past research (p. 207)’’, thus making the CFA an ideal tool for theory testing. Global fit indexes such as the chi-square perdegree of freedom ratio (x2/df), the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA), and the Comparative Fit Index (CFI)were employed to examine model fit. Second, descriptive statistics (e.g., means and standardized deviation) and Cronbachalpha coefficients (a) of each dimension of organizational justice were calculated to verify internal consistency. Finally,MANOVA analyses were utilized to explore potential differences of organizational justice perceptions in terms of participantgender and type of sport.

Table 1

Comparison of organizational justice items.

Colquitt (2001) Current study

Distributive justice Distributive justice

� Does your (outcome) reflect the effort you have put into your work? � My team’s budget is consistent with the effort we put forth.

� Does your (outcome) reflect what you have contributed to organization? � My team’s budget reflects what my team contributed to

the school.

� Is your (outcome) justified, given your performance? � Given my team’s record, my team’s budget is justified.

� Is your (outcome) appropriate for the work you have completed? � My team’s budget is sufficient for what we need to do.

Procedural justice Procedural justice

� Have you been able to express your views and feelings during those processes? � I feel free to express my opinions regarding resource

allocation.

� Have you had influence over the (outcome) arrived at by those procedures? � I can influence how the resource distribution is

determined.

� Have those procedures been applied consistently? � Resource allocation procedures are applied consistently

across all sports.

� Have those procedures been based on accurate information? � Recent resource allocation procedures were based on

accurate information.

� Have those procedures been free of bias? � Resource allocation procedures are free of bias across

all sports.

� Have you been able to appeal the (outcome) arrived by those procedures? � Coaches can appeal an allocation decision.

� Have those procedures upheld ethical and moral standards? � Our procedures uphold ethical and moral standards.

Informational justice Interactional justice

� Has he/she been candid in his/her communication with you? � My athletic director was candid in communicating all

resource allocation information.

� Has he/she explained the procedures thoroughly? � My athletic director explained how the resource

allocation decisions were made.

� Were his/her explanations regarding the procedures reasonable? � The explanation provided by my athletic director

concerning how resource allocation decisions were

made was reasonable.

� Has he/she communicated details in a timely manner? � The information and decisions regarding the resource

allocations were delivered in a timely manner.

� Has he/she seemed to tailor his/her communication to individual’ specific needs? � I feel my athletic director and I communicate well with

each other.

Interpersonal justice

� Has he/she treated you in a polite manner? � I was treated in an appropriate manner by my athletic

director.

� Has he/she treated you with dignity?

� Has he/she treated you with respect?

� Has he/she refrained from improper remarks or comments?

S. Kim, D.P.S. Andrew / Sport Management Review 16 (2013) 200–210 205

4. Results

4.1. Demographics of coaches

Among 1200 distributed questionnaires to coaches, 270 coaches completed the questionnaires, and 28 coaches declinedto participate in the survey (23% response rate). Among the 270 returned questionnaires, 260 were usable for the study. Themajority of participants were from Division III institutions (n = 113; 43.5%), female participant sports (n = 153; 58.8%), low-profile sports (n = 166; 63.8%), and Caucasian (n = 222; 85.4%). Table 2 denotes the frequencies and percentages of theparticipants according to the type of sport.

4.2. Psychometric assessment of the scale

The CFA results of the original scale with three dimensions of organizational justice indicated the data did not fit themeasurement model adequately. All three global fit indexes, the chi-square per degree of freedom ratio (x2/df = 553.9/116 = 4.775), the Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA, ea = 1.21) and Comparative Fit Index (CFI = .853)indicated marginally poor fit. Although the CFA results of the revised model indicated good model fit (x2/df = 142.704/50 = 2.854, RMSEA ea = .085, and CFI = .959), the results showed no support for discriminant validity between proceduraljustice and interactional justice since the correlation between two dimensions was extremely high (r = .926). Thecorrelation was higher than r = .85 (a rule-of-thumb) for discriminant validity (Kline, 2005). In addition, the square of thecorrelation (.857) between the procedural justice and interactional justice was larger than the Average Variance Extracted(AVE) values of procedural justice (.581) and interactional justice (.694), indicating poor discriminant validity (Fornell &Larcker, 1981).

Therefore, a two-dimensional model was applied rather than the three-dimensional model in subsequent analyses. Indeveloping the two-dimensional model, procedural justice and interactional justice were combined and the combineddimension was named ‘‘procedural justice’’ to be consistent with the theoretical underpinnings of this study. Consequently,

Table 2

Frequency and percentage of participants by type of sports.

Frequency Percent

Basketball 70 26.90

Soccer 36 13.90

Volleyball 31 11.90

Football 24 9.20

Baseball 23 8.90

Softball 21 8.10

Tennis 13 5.00

Lacrosse 11 4.20

Field hockey 10 3.90

Hockey 9 3.50

Wrestling 6 2.30

Gymnastics 3 1.20

Golf 2 .80

Swimming 1 .40

S. Kim, D.P.S. Andrew / Sport Management Review 16 (2013) 200–210206

it is important to note that the procedural justice construct in the current study encompasses interactional justice as well. Inthe literature, a two-dimensional conceptualization of organizational justice incorporating distributive justice andprocedural justice has been used as arguments regarding the distinction between procedural justice and interactional justicehave surfaced (Greenberg & Colquitt, 2005). In the process to revise the original scale, five items were eliminated due to lowfactor loadings (below .7) as recommended by Fornell, Tellis, and Zinkhan (1982). The dropped items were ‘‘I feel free toexpress my opinions regarding resource allocation’’, ‘‘I can influence how the resource distribution is determined’’, ‘‘Resourceallocation procedures are free of bias across all sports’’, and ‘‘Coaches can appeal an allocation decision’’ from proceduraljustice, and ‘‘I was treated in an appropriate manner by my athletic director’’ from interactional justice. The results of therevised two dimensional model (x2/df = 142.087/52 = 2.732, RMSEA = .82, and CFI = .958) indicated moderate fit.

As shown in Table 3, all AVE values for the two dimensions exceeded .50, which indicated that the items represented theconstructs well (Fornell & Larcker, 1981; Hair, Anderson, Tatham, & Black, 1998). Discriminant validity between distributivejustice and procedural justice was supported by a correlation (r = .57; p < .01) smaller than .85, and, additionally, the squareof the correlation between the two dimensions (.324) was smaller than the AVE values of distributive justice (.667) andprocedural justice (.610) (Fornell & Larcker, 1981). The internal consistency values were a = .888 for distributive justice anda = .925 for procedural justice, which exceeded the recommended benchmark of .70 (Nunnally & Bernstein, 1994).

4.3. Descriptive statistics

Table 4 shows the means and standard deviations of the two dimensions of organizational justice in terms of type of sport,participant gender, and the sample as a whole. For the entire sample, the means for the two dimensions of organizationaljustice were 3.64 (distributive justice) and 4.45 (procedural justice). According to these data, the mean for procedural justicewas above the mid-point of the scale (4.00), while the mean for distributive justice was not. Interestingly, in terms ofdistributive justice, all of the means from every group based on type of sport and participant gender were below the middleof the scale.

Table 3

Factor loadings (b), Cronbach alpha (a), and average variance explained values (AVE) for the organizational justice scale.

Dimension Factor loading (b) Cronbach alpha (a) AVE

Distributive justice .888 .667

My team’s budget is consistent with the effort we put forth. .836

My team’s budget is sufficient for what we need to do. .821

Given my team’s record, my team’s budget is justified. .816

My team’s budget reflects what my team contributed to the school. .794

Procedural justice + interactional justice .925 .610

Resource allocation procedures are applied consistently across all sports. .717

Recent resource allocation procedures were based on accurate information. .834

Our procedures uphold ethical and moral standards. .755

I feel my athletic director and I communicate well with each other. .708

My athletic director explained how the resource allocation decisions were made. .791

The explanation provided by my athletic director concerning how resource allocation

decisions were made was reasonable.

.857

My athletic director was candid in communicating all resource allocation information. .846

The information and decisions regarding the resource allocations were delivered in a

timely manner.

.725

Table 4

Means and standard deviations of organizational justice by type of sport and participant gender.

Type of sport Participant gender

Total High profile Low profile Male Female

M SE M SE M SE M SE M SE

Distributive justice 3.64 1.63 3.74 1.70 3.58 1.60 3.57 1.69 3.68 1.60

Procedural justice 4.45 1.42 4.77 1.42 4.27 1.40 4.67 1.29 4.30 1.49

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4.4. 2 � 2 (type of sport vs. participant gender) MANOVA

The results of Multivariate Tests indicated significant main effects for type of sport [Wilks’ Lambda = .966, F(2,255) = 4.488, p < .01], participant gender [Wilks’ Lambda = .961, F(2, 255) = 5.141, p < .05], and no significant interactionbetween type of sport and participant gender [Wilks’ Lambda = .986, F(2, 255) = 1.816, p = .165] on the two dimensions oforganizational justice. Therefore, tests of between subject effects were conducted to examine differences separately. Theresults of the univariate tests indicated no significant main effects for type of sport [F(1, 256) = .394, p = .531], participantgender [F(1, 256) = .547, p = .460] or interaction [F(1, 256) = .510, p = .476] for distributive justice. Therefore, H1a and H2awere not supported. For procedural justice, only significant main effects for type of sport [F(1, 256) = 7.957, p < .01] andparticipant gender [F(1, 256) = 5.097, p < .05] were uncovered, while the interaction was not significant [F(1, 256) = 1.259,p = 263]. Therefore, hypotheses H1b and H2b were supported. Since procedural justice in this study encompassesinteractional justice as well, H1c and H2c were also supported.

5. Discussion

This study examined intercollegiate athletics coaches’ perceived fairness of their current resource allocation system inthe United States. Previous research has primarily examined distributive justice, the perceived fairness toward athleticfunding of stakeholders such as athletic directors, administrators, or students, but coaches have not been exclusively studiedin the context of intercollegiate athletics, although they are important stakeholders (Mahony, Hums, Andrew, & Dittmore,2010). Therefore, the results of this study yielded insight into the perceptions of fairness of the coaches toward their currentresource distribution systems among athletic teams in intercollegiate athletics and also provided important implications forathletic departments.

The results of this study’s descriptive statistics indicated that the coaches perceived their outcome levels of athletic fundsto be slightly unfair, as illustrated by their reporting of fairness perceptions below the mid-point of the scale (distributivejustice: 3.64/7). In fact, all of the means for distributive justice for each group based on type of sport and participant genderwere below the scale’s mid-point. The results could be explained somehow by the fact that collegiate sports have beeninfluenced by a recent economic downturn in the United States (Carey, 2009). Many schools have been forced to makebudget cuts to their athletic departments as a result of this severe economic recession (Ratcliffe, 2009). All sport teams,including revenue-generating sports such as football and men’s basketball, have explored ways to reduce expenses. Forexample, the University of Miami (Florida) made a 3.5% budget cut for every sport, and its football team planned to use busesfor away games to the University of South Florida and the University of Central Florida in 2009 instead of airplanes, which hasbeen the only mode of transportation for its football team over the past ten years (CBS, 2009). The efforts to reduce expensesfor athletic departments have occurred not only at the University of Miami, but also at most institutions across the nation.Most sport teams have not received the same level of funding they received in the immediate past and these reductions mayhave impacted their need to be competitively successful. In turn, coaches may have perceived unfairness regarding theirteam’s resource allocations.

The results showed that the coaches did not distinguish procedural justice from interactional justice in the current studysince there was no discriminant validity between the two dimensions. Although many organizational justice researchersargue that interactional justice should be separated from procedural justice as an independent dimension, there are alsoresearchers who are not supportive of the distinction (Greenberg & Colquitt, 2005). Cropanzano and Greenberg (1997)argued that interactional justice ‘‘became increasingly difficult to distinguish from structural procedural justice. For onething, both the formal procedures and the interpersonal interactions jointly comprise the process that leads to an allocationdecision. Additionally, interactional and structural procedural justice had similar consequences and correlates . . . [and were]highly related to one another’’ (p. 330). With regard to procedural justice based on the two dimensional model, coachesgenerally perceived the processes used to determine their teams’ financial resources and their personal treatment when theywere informed of the decision by their athletic directors (4.45/7) to be moderately fair, as evidenced by mean fairnessperception values over the mid-point of the scale. In fact, all coaches from each group based on sport type and participantgender perceived moderate fairness by reporting above the mid-point of the scale for procedural justice for each group. Thisindicated athletic departments have developed relatively fair processes to assign resource allocations among teams, andathletic directors also have used relatively fair manners to inform the final decisions to each team. However, the results alsorevealed that athletic departments still have room to improve their coaches’ perceptions of fairness in both dimensions of

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organizational justice. Athletic departments should put more effort into ensuring that each team experiences fair treatmentduring the resource distribution process and thereby increase the levels of perceived fairness, which will eventually improveorganizational performance.

It was expected that coaches in male participant sports (H1) and high profile sports (H2) would show higher levels oforganizational justice because revenue sports (e.g., football and men’s basketball) typically receive more financial supportthan non-revenue sports in the typical resource distribution system (Mahony & Pastore, 1998). In terms of distributivejustice, the results revealed no significant main and interactional effects of participant gender (H1a) and sport type (H2a) inthe category of distributive justice. This finding shows that no matter the sports with which the coaches are associated, thecoaches perceived their levels of athletic funding to be equally unfair.

Adams’ equity theory (1965) might explain why the results of this study showed all groups reporting below the scalemidpoints for distributive justice and found no differences among the groups in distributive justice. The theory suggests anemployee in an organization compares his/her job inputs and outcomes with others, thus making internal judgments as towhether or not the employee has been treated fairly by the organization. If he/she perceives inequity, he/she tries to correctthe situation by adopting one of the six following alterations: (a) change inputs; (b) change outcomes; (c) distort perceptionsof self; (d) distort perceptions of others; (e) choose a different referent; or (f) leave the field. In the process of making internaljudgments, the employee may use four different referents: (a) self-inside, the employee’s experiences in a different positioninside the same organization; (b) self-outside, the employee’s experiences in a position at a different organization; (c) other-

inside, the employee’s perception of other workers inside the same organization; and (d) other-outside, the employee’sperception of others from a different organization (Smucker & Kent, 2004a, 2004b).

In the context of intercollegiate athletics, other-inside, self-outside, and other-outside can be mostly used by coacheswhen comparing their input–output ratios to those of other coaches. In terms of other-inside comparisons, coaches couldcompare their teams’ input–output ratios with other teams within their own university. For example, coaches of revenuegenerating sports may perceive their level of athletic funding to be unfair if they felt they did not receive enough athleticfunding in comparison to the revenues they generated to their schools. In other words, coaches of revenue generating sportsmay perceive their resource allocations to be unfair because they share their generated revenue with other non-revenuegenerating sport teams.

Coaches could compare their input–output ratio not only with ratios of other teams in their own athletic departments(other-inside), but also with their previous experiences (self-outside) and the ratios of other sport teams (other-outside) indifferent universities. Among those three comparisons, past research suggests the ratio of other sport teams (other-outside)in different universities will be the most important factor in determining their perception of fairness. Previous studies(Capelli & Sherer, 1988; Ronen, 1986) indicated people would seek external referents rather than internal referents for theirfinancial outcomes (e.g., pay). In other words, people are more likely to compare their situation with others outside of theirorganizations rather than with others within their organizations. Therefore, the coaches of football and men’s basketballteams look for external referents and compare their situations with football and men’s basketball teams at other universities(rather than comparing themselves with the women’s softball teams at their own universities). If the teams at otherinstitutions receive more support than their own teams, the coaches are likely to perceive inequity even if their teams receivemore support in their own institutions than any of those institutions’ other teams. For instance, football coaches at theUniversity of Miami might perceive inequity if they found football teams at other institutions still use flights for all awaygames even though the football team at the University of Miami received more support than any other teams at theirinstitution.

Athletic departments should understand what each team wants in order to increase the levels of the perceived fairness.For example, Mahony et al. (2005) identified three types of need found in athletic teams. According to Mahony et al. (2005),teams felt that need existed when they lacked resources, had high program costs, and required additional resources to build acompetitively successful team. Athletic departments should identify the needs of each team and be able to meet those needsin order to increase positive perceptions of distributive justice.

In terms of procedural justice, it was expected that procedural justice would have main and/or interactional effectsconcerning participant gender (H1b and c) and sport type (H2b and c). MANOVA results revealed significant main effects ofsport type and participant gender for procedural justice. As hypothesized, the mean of procedural justice perceptions forcoaches of male sports was higher than the mean of procedural justice perceptions for coaches of female sports. The findingindicates football and men’s basketball, which usually have more financial support than other teams, showed higher levels offairness perceptions toward the procedures athletic departments followed to make final decisions regarding resourceallocations among sports teams.

Mahony and Pastore (1998) examined resource distribution data of NCAA programs from 1973 to 1993, and foundrevenue generating sports, such as men’s basketball and football, had been more favorably supported by athleticdepartments than non-revenue generating sports. Mahony and Pastore also predicted this situation would continue. Eventhough distributive justice can be perceived using different referents, perceptions of procedural justice are more likely tostimulate referents internal to the organization (Folger & Konovsky, 1989). In fact, the items used to measure proceduraljustice (e.g., that resource allocation procedures are based on accurate information and that the outcome arrived at by theresource allocation process is appealable) allow coaches to focus on whether the information and the process for resourceallocation are internally fair or not. Given modern resource distribution systems, where the lion’s share of athleticdepartment funding is directed to football and men’s basketball, it is not surprising to see that coaches of high profile, male

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participant sports showed higher levels of perceived procedural justice than any other group, since the coaches probablycompared their resource allotment to other teams within their institutions. Although there were differing perceptions offairness toward the process used to make resource allocations among groups, and the current allocation pattern is expectedto continue in the future, the findings of descriptive statistics showed athletic departments have actively worked towardpromoting fairness because the coaches in all groups generally perceived the process of resource allocation among athleticteams as a fair process. However, there was also room for improvement for teams, especially in non-revenue sports.

Since procedural justice is considered the most important dimension of organizational justice in influencing members’attitudinal outcomes like job satisfaction, which may eventually have impact on performance of coaches (Colquitt et al.,2001; Lind & Tyler, 1988), it is very critical for athletic departments to remain fair in dealing with resource allocations amongteams. Athletic departments can increase their coaches’ perceived level of justice by utilizing Leventhal’s six rules todetermine resource allocation among teams. Leventhal (1980) proposed six rules to ensure optimal procedural justiceperceptions in an organization. The six rules stated that procedures should: (a) be consistent across person and time; (b) bekept separate from a decision maker’s personal interests or preferences; (c) ensure accurate information when makingdecisions; (d) have a formulated system to correct or change any flaws; (e) ensure that the needs and opinions of all parties ormembers affected by the decision are met and heard; and (f) consider the fundamental morality and ethics of the members.

5.1. Future directions for organizational justice studies in sport management

As mentioned earlier, organizational justice research has begun to explore different sport settings; however, there is astrong need to continue with such research in under-researched settings such as professional sport organizations,Paralympic organizations, and Olympic organizations. For example, Mizak and Anthony (2004) found a strong relationshipbetween payroll disparity and team’s performance in Major League Baseball dating back to the 1990s. Consequently, it ispossible that an athlete’s fairness perceptions toward existing payroll disparity in a professional sport team could influenceindividual (and, ultimately, team performance) due to critical impacts of organizational justice on work attitudes andperformance (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001). Therefore, there is a need to examine this relationship by assessing the extentto which athletes’ psychological attitudes and behavioral outcomes might be influenced by their perceived fairness of thedisparity.

In addition, more research is needed to develop organizational justice instruments for sport organizations. Mostorganizational justice studies, including the current study, have adopted instruments from other business settings withsome modifications. It is necessary, however, to create sport organization-specific measurements. At this point, Kim et al.’s(2008) distributive justice scale for American intercollegiate athletics represents the only published sport organization-specific scale, but this scale may not be applicable to other sport organizations in different cultural contexts, and it does notincorporate other known facets of organizational justice. Although this study was originally designed based on the threedimensions of organizational justice, procedural justice and interactional justice had to be combined due to lack ofdiscriminant validity. Therefore, future studies might explore whether all three organizational justice dimensions arerelevant in other contexts. Furthermore, future studies should examine the effects of organizational justice on attitudinal orbehavioral outcomes (e.g., satisfaction, commitment, organizational citizenship behavior) in the context of sports, especiallyin intercollegiate athletics since organizational justice is considered one of critical factors which influence members’ workattitudes and performances (Cohen-Charash & Spector, 2001).

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