Social Exchange: Equity and Justice in Service

Social exchange relationships develop between two parties through a series of mutual, although not necessarily simultaneous, exchanges that yield a pattern of reciprocal obligation by each party1 (Blau, 1964). One party makes a contribution or provides a service to the other, and in so doing develops an expectation of a return at a future time. The other party, having received something of value, develops a sense of obligation to reciprocate. Social exchange relationships are different from those based on a purely economic exchange, in that the obligations of the parties in a social exchange with one another are often unspecified and the standards for measuring contributions are often unclear.2 The evaluation of the social exchange process is largely determined by perceived justice. A recent multifocal approach to this evaluation3,4,5 posits that the source of perceived injustice, namely the perpetrator of the potentially fair/unfair treatment, might not be solely the employee’s relationship with the organization, supervisor and colleagues, as most previous research has indicated. An additional source of perceived justice is the customer. Thus, in the context of service, service providers maintain two distinct systems of social exchange, one with the organization and the other with the customers.6 The first part of this chapter presents studies that focus on the service provider-customer social exchange while the second part explores the exchange with the organization.