Impact of Covid-19 on procedural justice in MNCs

Abstract

Given the unpredictable nature of the pandemic, global MNCs have had to rethink their decisionmaking when handling certain business activities. Nevertheless, managers have an overall responsibility regarding decision-making. Procedural justice has been studied to contextualize to what extent managers in different subsidiaries in different countries experience fair decisionmaking processes during Covid-19. Procedural justice has continued to be studied to expand a knowledge gap within the international business research field. In previous research, a deficient account is revealed when aspects such as voice, neutrality, respect, and trustworthiness have been used as parameters to measure managers' involvement experiences when HQ assigns mandates. Through a qualitative study, a deductive method has been used to evaluate previous theories on Procedural justice. Hence, nine managers participated in the study from 4 different countries where different degrees of justice were experienced among the managers. Continuing procedural justice during the pandemic has expressed several aspects of decision-making under uncertain environments. Through the empirical collection, the researchers have made it possible to account for the extent to which managers are involved when activities go from decentralization to centralization, where different managers find dichotomous views on fair decision allocations. It has also come to the researchers 'perception that the respondents from the same office generally experience justice similarly. The respondents have also expressed the lessons the managers learned when businesses need to adapt accordingly to the current state of the environment.