Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Individual Fairness'

Fairness and efficiency are two classical and connected topics in economics. They have become well known, perhaps due to Adam Smith’s two influential works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which highlights a concern for fairness concern as part of morality, and The Wealth of Nations (1776), which underlines a concern for efficiency. However, during the rapid development of economics, fairness has received disproportionately less attention than efficiency. As a result, many people, including some economists, have incorrectly understood that economics as a subject no longer cares about fairness. The primary objective of this thesis is to dispel this misperception. We would argue here that, similar to efficiency, fairness is an important factor for both social and individual decisions, and sometimes its effect can be determined. Written in a three-paper format, this thesis explores fairness from three different angles. These angles cover the broad areas of how theoretical economists model fairness in social choice theory, how the general public perceive distributive fairness, and how people implement their fairness norms in making real-life donations. This multidimensional exploration is believed to be crucial to a comprehensive understanding of fairness.

Wann und warum verhalten sich Menschen ethisch (in-)korrekt? Die vorliegende Dissertation fasst allgemeine Theorien und experimentelle Befunde (nicht-)kooperativen, (un-)fairen und (un-)ehrlichen Verhaltens zusammen. Hierzu führt Kapitel 1 experimentelle Spiele als rigoroses Instrument zur Untersuchung (un-)ethischen Verhaltens ein. Kapitel 2 zeigt, dass sich kleine Veränderungen in der kontextuellen Rahmung von experimentellen Spielen langanhaltend auf die Kooperationsneigung der Teilnehmer auswirken können. Kontextuelle Rahmungen verändern zudem Verhaltenserwartungen sowie Aufteilungen in nicht-strategischen Situationen. Diese Effekte sind durch Theorien sozialer Normen erklärbar. Kapitel 3 ergründet, warum sich Studierende der Wirtschaftswissenschaften teils egoistischer verhalten als ihre Kommilitonen. Theorien sozialer Normen werden hierbei um die Bereitschaft erweitert, Nonkonformität mittels Sanktionen zu erzwingen. Es wird gezeigt, dass sich Studierende der Wirtschaftswissenschaften und anderer Fächer in ihren Aufteilungsentscheidungen ähnlich häufig mit Fairness beschäftigen und zu ähnlichen Einschätzungen kommen, welche Aufteilung als fair gilt. Sie teilen jedoch weniger großzügig und erwarten dies auch von anderen. Zudem sind sie weniger bereit, als unfair angesehene Aufteilungen zu sanktionieren. Es wird argumentiert, dass sich Studierende der Wirtschaftswissenschaften egoistischer verhalten, weil sie nicht daran glauben, dass sich andere an eine grundsätzlich geteilte Fairnessnorm halten. Kapitel 4 zeigt, dass intrinsische Sanktionen (wie Scham und Schuld) ausreichen, damit sich Menschen ethisch korrekt verhalten. Das Kapitel bietet zahlreiche Antworten zu aktuellen Debatten, wer sich unter welchen Umständen (un-)ehrlich verhält. Es wird gezeigt, dass Ehrlichkeit sowohl von situativen Einflüssen (z.B. Anreizen und Externalitäten) wie von persönlichen Aspekten (z.B. Geschlecht und Alter) und letztlich auch vom experimentellen Paradigma abhängt.
When and why do people engage in (un)ethical behavior? This dissertation summarizes general theories and synthesizes experimental findings on (non)cooperation, (un)fairness, and (dis)honesty. To this end, Chapter 1 introduces experimental games as a rigorous tool for studying (un)ethical behavior. Chapter 2 demonstrates that small changes in the framing of context (e.g., referring to a social dilemma as a competition vs. a team endeavor) can have long-lasting effects on the participants’ propensity to cooperate. Context framing also shapes beliefs about the cooperative behavior of interaction partners and donations in non-strategic allocation decisions. Taken together, the results suggest that social norm theories provide a plausible explanation for cooperation, including its sensitivity to context framing. Chapter 3 investigates why experimental games regularly find that economics students behave more selfishly than their peers. The concept of social norms is thereby extended to include the enforcement of compliance per sanctions. The results indicate that economics students and students of other majors are about equally concerned with fairness and they have similar notions of fairness in the situation. However, economics students make lower allocations, expect others to make lower allocations, and are less willing to sanction allocations seen as unfair. Skepticism mediated their lower allocations, suggesting that economics students behave more selfishly because they expect others not to comply with a shared fairness norm. Chapter 4 shows that intrinsic sanctions (e.g., shame and guilt) can be sufficient for ethical behavior to emerge. The chapter provides answers to many of the ongoing debates on who behaves dishonestly and under what circumstances. The findings suggest that dishonest behavior depends on situational factors (e.g., reward magnitude and externalities), personal factors (e.g., gender and age) as well as on the experimental paradigm itself.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior
Para John Rawls, uma sociedade justa Ã, em princÃpio, uma comunidade polÃtica onde prevalecem a cooperaÃÃo, o senso de justiÃa e as virtudes da cidadania. Sua teoria apresenta princÃpios de justiÃa, que servirÃo de fundamento para uma estrutura bÃsica social bem-ordenada, na qual cada cidadÃo age justamente e contribui para a manutenÃÃo de instituiÃÃes justas. Para Robert Nozick, porÃm, um Estado justo em relaÃÃo aos seus cidadÃos nada mais à do que um Estado que respeita a conduta individual. O autor afirma que um Estado nÃo tem o direito de forÃar uma pessoa mais privilegiada a contribuir com um menos favorecido a fim de que este tenha seu bem-estar aumentado. Se vocà for forÃado, seja pelo Estado, seja por alguÃm, a contribuir para o bem-estar de terceiros, seus direitos estarÃo sendo violados. Diante disso, Nozick afirma que o Estado MÃnimo à o mais extenso que se pode justificar. Qualquer outro mais amplo viola os direitos dos cidadÃos.
For John Rawls, a fair society, at first, is a political community where there is the prevalence of cooperation, sense of justice and citizenship virtues. His theory presents the principles of justice, which will be the basis for a well-organized social basic structure in which each citizen acts with justice and contributes for the maintenance of fair institutions. However, for Robert Nozick a fair State with its citizens is a State that respects the individual behavior. The author says that a State does not have right of force a person more privileged to contribute with a less privileged in order to this has increased his well-being. If you are forced, or by State, or by any person, to contribute to well-being of third party, your rights are violated. Like this, Nozick says that the Minimal State is the most extensive that we can justify. Any other wider violate the citizensâ rights.

The purpose of this research project was to explore differences in perceptions of organizational justice and related attitudes. Through the use of a 3 x 2 experimental design, participants were randomly assigned to groups in which they were exposed to a fictitious organization's mock recruitment document publicizing different types of affirmative action programs and varying levels of information regarding the mechanics of such programs. Results did not demonstrate statistically significant differences across groups. Project implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.
M.S.
Masters
Psychology
Sciences
Industrial Organizational Psychology

This paper uses micro-level data from a nationally representative survey of 22,000 individuals in 14 Eastern European countries to investigate the effects of institutional, social, and individual factors on taxpayers' perceptions of power, motivations to comply, and non-compliant behaviors. The results indicate that institutional, social, and individual aspects shape taxpayer behavior: attitudes of peers, individual compliance norms, and the tax burden impact on non-compliance. Moreover, I find several effects of the subjective appraisal of the interaction with tax administrations. Positive experiences strengthen perceptions of power and intrinsic motivations to comply. They also increase the propensity to report non-compliant behavior in the past, suggesting educational effects of taxpayer services and tax audits. (author's abstract)
Series: WU International Taxation Research Paper Series

South Africa has already implemented three tax–amnesty programmes: the Second Small Business Tax Amnesty 10 of 2006, the Exchange Control Amnesty Act 12 of 2003 and the Tax Amnesty Act 19 of 1995. In the 2010 budget announcement the Minister of Finance, Mr. Pravin Gordan, announced that there will be another chance for taxpayers to get their tax affairs in order with the Voluntary Disclosure Programme. The main goal of this study is to determine whether the Voluntary Disclosure Programme will prove to be effective or not. The research method utilised is based on an advanced literature study. The secondary goals are as follows: * to obtain a thorough knowledge regarding the three previous tax–amnesties that was implemented in South Africa. A prediction as to the success of the Voluntary Disclosure Programme can be made when using the total number of applications received and the amount of revenue that was received by the previous amnesties, as a measure of success; * to obtain a thorough knowledge of other countries' amnesty–programs, including the following: Australia, Ireland, Canada and the United Kingdom. Their experience and successes regarding their amnesty–programs will be used to predict the success of the Voluntary Disclosure Programme; an * to determine whether the Voluntary Disclosure Programme can be declared as fair. This study indicated that the Voluntary Disclosure Programme may not be effective and that it may have a negative impact on the tax compliance of taxpayers. A recommendation from this study is that the government should win the trust of taxpayers, which will lead to an automatic improvement in tax compliance. This study indicated that the tax amnesty programs should not be used as a mechanism to enhance tax compliance. An issue that needs further exploration is the impact that the Voluntary Disclosure Programme will have in the long–term on tax compliance in South Africa.
Thesis (M.Com. (Tax))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Background This thesis explores the relationship between individuals’ subjective experiences and the welfare state setting. The research questions in focus deal with the outcomes of women’s and men’s increasing dual roles in work and family in contemporary welfare states. The studies analyse women’s and men’s subjective experiences of combining work and family, and their perceptions of fairness in the division of household work. Methods The thesis applies a comparative perspective where the unit of analysis is country and/or family policy model. A broad perspective with the aim to capture general patterns across a broad range of welfare states is combined with a narrower case-oriented approach. Multilevel analysis is used to analyse patterns at national as well as individual levels in the same model. Latent Class Analysis is used to capture patterns of latent dimensions with regard to the central concept of subject experiences. Results The results indicate that the introduction of policies aiming to promote dual roles among women and men and the articulation of gender equality can matter for individuals’ subjective experiences of work-family conflict. In dual-earner countries, the probability that a high level of conflict is counterbalanced by feelings of life satisfaction is higher than in other policy models. A class asymmetry is found when it comes to effects of policy on men’s and women’s levels of work-family conflict and work-family satisfaction; women in the working class and the salaried class are more similar when it comes to experiences of work-family conflict and satisfaction in Sweden than in Germany and the UK. The analysis also shows that perceptions of fairness in the division of housework are moderated by the institutional and normative context. The politicisation of gender equality increases the correspondence between actual share of housework performed and the perceptions of fairness in the division of housework. The effect of politicisation is more important for men’s perceptions than for women’s. Conclusion The thesis contributes to a deepened understanding of the relationship between policy and work-family conflict and the integration of the perspectives of role conflict and role expansion; knowledge about the ways in which both class and gender relations are structured concerning the patterns of work-family conflict and satisfaction in different policy contexts; and new knowledge about the relationship between policy and men’s – and not only women’s – perceptions of fairness in the division of household work.

Most studies on organizational justice have focused on individuals' reactions to justice. As such, a key question has been left largely unanswered: Why do individuals act fairly or unfairly? The present research adopted a person-situation interactionist approach (Trevino, 1986) to examine psychological and situational antecedents of individuals' fair behavior. The social identity model of deindividuation (SIDE; Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995) and side-bet theory of continuance commitment (Becker, 1960) was used to examine how organizational identification and continuance commitment might influence employees' fair or unfair behavior depending on an organization's justice climate. Based on SIDE, it was hypothesized that organizational identification relates positively to employees' feelings of deindividuation. Based on side-bet theory, it was further hypothesized that employees' continuance commitment relates positively to their adoption of a subordinate role. Both deindividuation and adoption of a subordinate role were argued to make employees more susceptible to external influences and, therefore, make individuals more likely to behave in ways that are normative in a given context. Individuals who have higher levels of continuance commitment and organizational identification were, therefore, argued to engage in fair or unfair behavior depending on the level of the justice climate and the strength of the justice climate of their workgroup. The results of three studies provided support for the majority of hypotheses. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.
ID: 031001298; System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader.; Mode of access: World Wide Web.; Adviser: Robert Folger.; Title from PDF title page (viewed March 8, 2013).; Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Central Florida, 2012.; Includes bibliographical references (p. 127-147).
Ph.D.
Doctorate
Business Administration
Business Administration; Management

Hao, Jianye.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 216-228).
Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web.
Abstract also in Chinese.

No
We use the method of policy capturing to address three open-ended questions regarding how people judge the fairness of events. First, do people differ in how they judge whether a situation is fair or unfair; second, are fairness judgments stable within-person; and, third, how much insight do people have into how they make fairness judgments? To investigate these questions, we used the method of policy capturing and a representative design that samples situations as well as participants. Forty-nine employees rated the global fairness of 56 performance appraisals sampled from their own organization (N = 2,744 situations), and regression methods were used to infer their judgment policy from their choices. We found that people differed greatly in how they judged fairness but used quite consistent policies across similar situations. Participants also provided self-reports of their judgment policies, and comparisons of these self-reports with actual policies revealed limited levels of self-insight.