Examining retaliatory responses to justice violations and recovery attempts in teams

Abstract

We examine the effect of supervisor injustice directed toward 1 team member and argue not only that the violated member will retaliate against the supervisor but that team members will band together as a collective in order to retaliate. However, we argue that effects depend on which member is violated, such that violating a strategic core member will result in greater retaliation. We then test the effect of a supervisor recovery attempt, hypothesizing that a recovery will negatively impact retaliation and that the coreness of the violated member moderates this effect, such that it is more important to recover a core member. We test our hypotheses utilizing 64 teams engaged in a command-and-control simulation. Results generally support our hypotheses for retaliation in the form of fewer supervisor-directed organizational citizenship behaviors but are less supportive for retaliation in the form of lower supervisor performance evaluations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)