The “Litigation Mentality” in Organizations: A Test of Alternative Psychological Explanations

A “litigation mentality” increasingly pervades today's workplace, as an ever wider variety of managerial decisions are the target of employee-initiated lawsuits. In this paper we identify different psychological factors that could explain why employees consider suing their employers. One group of factors suggests that employee consideration of litigation is motivated primarily by self-interest, as employers perceive they have more to gain than lose by going to court. A second group of factors suggests that employees' decision to go to court is influenced largely by the perceived fairness of their dealings with the organization. In a survey of 141 currently employed workers, we found that the perceived fairness of organizational rules and procedures was the primary factor influencing whether employees consider a litigious response. In particular, employees were concerned about how the rules and procedures were implemented and the quality of interpersonal treatment received from managers. Job satisfaction also had an impact on employees considering litigation. We argue that while our findings support organizational efforts to create more formalized policies and procedures that emphasize due process or procedural justice, such efforts, in and of themselves, may undermine the intended goal of ensuring fairness and reducing employee litigation. The solution to this dilemma is not in the creation of formal procedures per se, but in the moral and interpersonal conduct of those implementing the procedures. We conclude by identifying directions for future research on employee litigation.