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Necessary Evils, (In)Justice, and Rapport Management

University of Alabama

Charles D. White

University of Alabama

Rita Durant

University of South Florida St. Petersburg

Building from K. S. Campbell, White, and Johnson's 2003 model of rapport management, the authors explain how employee perceptions of justice and emotional responses of anger may result from the interpersonal communication behavior of organizational leaders. The authors ground the discussion of theory in the analysis of narratives written by subordinates to recount incidents in which they felt angry with their manager. Based on these narratives, propositions about the relationship between a manager's acknowledgement or violation of rapport management norms and employee perceptions of (in)justice are developed. Thus, the authors demonstrate the value of rapport management theory for explicating the relationship maintenance behaviors that are crucial in the effective performance of necessary evils by organizational leaders.

Key Words: anger • LMX • linguistic politeness • organizational justice • superior-subordinate communication • sociolinguistics

Journal of Business Communication, Vol. 44, No. 2, 161-185 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0021943606297904


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