In an open ladder-type resonant atomic system, variation in relative phase between probe and driving fields does not affect the transient evolution of populations, but it has remarkable effects on gain and dispersion of the probe field. No matter whether an incoherent pump is present or absent, transient and stationary gains without inversion (GWI) always can be obtained by choosing an appropriate value of the relative phase. When the incoherent pump is absent, the values of transient and stationary GWIs are much larger and the time interval required to reach the stationary value is longer than those when the incoherent pump is present. Varying the exit rate and the ratio between injection rates can obviously change the phase-dependent GWI. In addition, in the transient evolution process, the phenomenon of high dispersion (refractive index) without absorption occurs at some values of relative phase. In the corresponding closed system, the stationary GWI can be obtained by choosing an appropriate value of relative phase only when incoherent pump exists, moreover the gain is smaller than that in the open system.