Organizational Justice and Gender Integration

The U.S. Military is currently working to open employment opportunities to women. However, there is significant entrenched resistance to gender integration. This paper is part of a larger project exploring the... [ view full abstract ]

The U.S. Military is currently working to open employment opportunities to women. However, there is significant entrenched resistance to gender integration. This paper is part of a larger project exploring the potential benefits and barriers to integrating women into the elite Special Forces unit of the Army. Here, we explore procedural justice, unit cohesion, and the potential integration of women into Special Forces, better known as the Green Berets. Based on surveys of 1,701 men in Special Forces (response rate - 27.8%) and 214 women in Special Operations (response rate - 27.6%), we argue that increased procedural justice in the organization decreases entrenched resistance to gender integration. Specifically using unit cohesion as a way to gauge organizational resistance to gender equity, we find that increases to perceptions of organizational procedural justice indirectly reduce the potential harm to unit cohesion introduced by the integration of women by reducing the negative perception of women in the organization. Having just processes within the organization, specifically as they relate to training opportunities, promotion and advancement decreases the extent to which gender integration harms unit cohesion. Ultimately, we argue that organizational processes, and the just implementation of these processes, are as important as gender specific policy change in efforts to increase gender equity within public organizations.