Feelings of injustice after violation of succession rules in simulated organizations

In previous studies (e.g Bruins and Wilke, 1993) it was established that in hierarchically structured groups, power aspirations towards a high power position are stronger for the next most senior person than for lower positioned others, that, is, support was found for Ng's (1977) bureaucratic rule. In the present study the persistence of the bureaucratic rule is demonstrated in simulated organizations with different succession rules. In addition, it appeared that when the least powerful member of the organization was assigned to a vacant high power position, members' feelings of injustice were stronger in conditions in which the succession rule had been violated but interestingly, these feelings were not dependent on members' own positions.