Concerning as one of the most salient issues amongst organizations is performance management issue. Increasingly, researches have indicated that many problems have triggered whilst the systems are implemented. The noticeable performance reward issue is the recognition fairness of the performance reward systems. According to CIPD Employee Outlook Survey (2013), employees are experiencing the unfairness every day in the workplace and 20 per cent of this perception emerged from problems related pay which was ranked the first in the survey. The state of feeling of being treated unfairly is corresponding to lowered job performance, withdrawal behaviors, decreased co-operation with co-workers, and reduced work quality (Cropanzano and Greenberg 1997; Folger and Cropanzano 1998). A voluminous body of literature suggests that the perception of fairness, integrity and sensitivity will respond with high engagement, and a increase in productivity (CIPD, 2013). Since 1990s, the recognition of fairness has been brought to the attention of managers and deeply discussed then. Adding value to this concept is the study of Dr.Koonmee, which was conducted in two Thailand parliament secretariat offices in 2011. Notwithstanding its undeniable advantages, the research hardy avoided limitations and drawbacks. Thus, this review will briefly examine and discuss the article from diverse perspectives to gain the whole picture of fairness influencing on incentive satisfaction.

Despite to what extent to which individual workers are motivated by money is still a controversial debate, it is undoubted that using the performance relate pay system is significantly growing. The striking application of performance reward system in order to secure organizations’ objectives has derived from both private sector and public sector (Thorpe & Horman, 2000). Opponents claim that incentive pay brings value to the private organizations rather than the public based on the idea of situational characteristics, limited budget and longevity payment system, for example (Lewin, 2003). Due to the demand of practice performance system raising the supply of performance theories over decade, justice is amongst important issues. The innovation of justice had been taken into account from Adams’ (1963,1965) equity theory in which illustrate people do compare their jobs, their pay with others in the same position and other industries. The two major dimensions of justice within organizations are distributive justice and procedural justice. The former is referred to the outcomes while the latter emphasizes on the processes – the fairness of the means used to attempt the ends (Greenberg 1990).

Koomee’s article: “Fairness in the Workplace: The Relative Effects of Distributive and Procedural Justice on Incentive Satisfaction” in an attempt to resolve the above issues and arguments has contributed further insight. The ultimate purpose of presented article was bound to evaluate the degree to which distributive justice and procedural justice allocates to incentive satisfaction in the case study. The answers proved a positive influence of distributive and procedural justice on workers satisfaction, and distributive justice tends to account for greater part. Some prior published researches on this filed were restricted by the means of using contextual content of practitioner journal, lacking modern reports, textbook (Bretz, Milkovich & Read, 1992). The researcher observed the respondents’ feedback by operating multiple regression analysis. In social sciences fields, it was a prevalent use of multivariate analysis logistic regression to find an effect size of each independent variable to the dependent variables. For example, the use from Lee and Martin (1991) when examined the extent to which internal and external factors moderate pay satisfaction. The linear relationship between independent variables (distributive justice, and procedural justice) and dependent variable (incentive satisfaction) is the foremost reasonable requirement key for methodological design. Additionally, there must be the autonomy relationship between independent variables (Poole & O’Farrel, 1971) unless an error will trigger in results. Employees are well aware of the distinction of unfair actions that occur in process and outcomes (Sheppard & Lewicki, 1987, Thibaut & Walker, 1975; Greenberg, 1986). Nevertheless, Konovsky (2000) argued procedural justice and distributive have the profound interactive effect. Additional early studies have shed light on this phenomenon, the displeased process of justice can be reconciled by the acceptable outcome and the unexpected outcome can be overlooked in the high level of procedural justice (Brockner, Tyler, & Cooper-Schneider, 1992; Konovosky, 2000).

There is a so called “domino effect” that at consider the implicit implementation from the guidance of employee’s perceived fairness then falls to the outcome of performance reward system. Efforts to explain the impact of justice on effective organizational functioning, Sweeney and McFarlin (1993) identified a structural equation model that generated distributive justice correlated with personal references outcomes (pay satisfaction), whilst another indicator governed organizational outcomes such as staff commitment. Otherwise, the vast majority of researches claim both distributive justice and procedural justice shared the position of incentive satisfaction (Lambert, Hogan & Griffin, 2007). More particularly, estimating satisfaction in low tier and high tier employees, inverse results were happened between Martin, Heetderk (1990); McFarlin, Frone (1990) and Cappelli, Sherer (1990). While the former contended low tier employees are more likely dissatisfied with their pay, the latter maintained those people are satisfied more than the remaining group. Properly, an explanation was assumed by Lambert et al (2007) that the conditions within two studies are modifications, the way in which respondents compared their pay is a subject of change either.

The second product from the analysis is procedural justice are less concern in considering justice (β = 0.218, p b 0.01) compare to distributive justice (β = 0.462, p b 0.01). It appeared that people are more focusing on the outcomes (ends), what they gain from their contributions rather than concern about the process itself. Conversely, it was said by Lambert et al (2007) that distributive justice is less concern than process in clarification of satisfaction. Nevertheless, public sector is inadequate conditions to reach the consummation in pay outcome because of typical organization characteristics (limited budget, traditional appraisal system). The importance of perceived fairness in process was admitted by Farmer, Beehr & Love (2003, p. 377):“if employees view procedures as fair, they may view the organization positively (commitment), even if they are currently dissatisfied with such personal outcomes.” For the most part, significantly, theories treated procedural justice as control variable to driving the perception of justice. Greenbergs (1990) indicated that even the development of distributive justice was fully complete and better recognized in organization justice, but in fact, procedural justice was mainly player in the recent decade.

On the other hand, the ignorance of the downside of the research will relate to an incomprehensive understanding about justice, thus face to undesired consequences when applying performance reward systems. Initially, the breakdown of categories was insufficiently given to providing the whole context, appearing as control variables to the satisfaction, but limited information was shown about respondents’ background. A voluminous investigation perceived the noticeable differences in the standard of each gender when comparing pay equity satisfaction (Greenberg, 1990). Such findings suggest men more likely witness dissatisfied with pay rather than women who intuitively compare themselves with their unemployment counterparts (Major & Forcy, 1985). Therefore, the emptiness of respondents’ information might substantially cause to ignorant feeling when implementing the systems in various organizations’ structure. A second issue regards to the accuracy of literature review. The objective of literature review is to show author’s critical discussion on previous research, compare and contrast other authors’ views, underline an issue, thus to get rid of duplication, promising a new approach (Caulley, 1992). It was given a debate about the usefulness of incentive plans within organization, the effectiveness of performance in practice with reference from prior findings. However, there is no existence of argument around justice and fairness, which is the strategic topic in the study. Furthermore, the results came out precisely the same with historical perspective.

A volume of contemporary writing addresses the value of justice to organizations and the notion of organizational justice has transferred from distributive justice to procedural justice over its development. The beginning of fairness perceptions set a new stage in designing performance reward system which its function might enhance employees inputs and ruin the productivity in other side. The major benefits of research are that it magnifies the literature on organizational justice that is mirrored the effective functioning of organizations (Greenberg, 1990). Even with the limitations, the finding expands the material on justice theories that aim to support organizations in practice.