Worker well-being and perceived fairness: Survey-based findings from Italy

Based on a survey of 1958 employees in 228 Italian social service organizations under public and private ownership, this paper shows that worker well-being is crucially influenced by fairness concerns. The positive effect is strongest for procedural fairness, which is interpreted as a crucial emerging property of the organizational setting. The influence of the disutility of effort and of the wage is much weaker, but still coherent with economic theory. Public organizations are found to be at a disadvantage with respect to the private sector regarding both the degree of satisfaction and perceived fairness. Non-profits record the highest scores, mainly as regards procedural fairness.