How can managers deliver bad news with greater interactional justice? We propose a novel cognitive pathway: Construing the activity at a higher (vs. lower) level increases actors' other-oriented perspective taking, which in turn promotes the enactment of interactional justice. Three studies provide support. Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated a beneficial effect of construal level on interactional justice enactment when explaining a hypothetical bad news decision. Study 2 also showed that other-oriented perspective taking is the mechanism through which construal level promotes interactional justice enactment. Study 3 replicated and extended these findings with a different paradigm and the addition of a moderator variable (trait perspective taking), providing a converging test of the proposed mechanism. Overall, the present research suggests that how managers think about delivering bad news—whether at higher or lower levels of construal—affects the extent to which they think from the recipient's perspective, and in turn how they communicate the news. Our research generates novel avenues for future research on justice enactment, construal level theory, and perspective taking. It may also have implications for better understanding downstream consequences of interactional justice enactment for bad news deliverers themselves.

中文翻译：

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公平地传递坏消息：更高的解释水平通过观点采择促进互动正义的制定

管理者如何才能以更大的互动公正来传达坏消息？我们提出了一种新的认知途径：在较高（相对于较低）水平上解释活动会增加行动者的其他导向的观点，这反过来又促进了互动正义的制定。三项研究提供了支持。研究 1 和 2 在解释假设的坏消息决定时证明了解释水平对互动正义制定的有益影响。研究2还表明，他者取向的视角采择是解释层面促进互动正义制定的机制。研究 3 使用不同的范式和添加调节变量（特质观点采纳），提供了对所提出机制的收敛测试。总体而言，目前的研究表明，管理者如何考虑传递坏消息——无论是在较高还是较低的解释水平上——会影响他们从接收者的角度思考的程度，进而影响他们传达消息的方式。我们的研究为未来关于正义制定、解释水平理论和观点采择的研究开辟了新的途径。它也可能对更好地理解坏消息传递者本身的互动正义颁布的下游后果产生影响。