Aino Salimäki, Anu Hakonen and Robert L. Heneman
The aim of this study is to find out whether managers can facilitate employee understanding of the pay system through a goal‐setting process. The paper draws from Thierry's…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study is to find out whether managers can facilitate employee understanding of the pay system through a goal‐setting process. The paper draws from Thierry's largely untested Reflection Theory to study employee pay satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on the theory, it is posited that managerial goal setting improves employee pay satisfaction through increased employee knowledge and perceived meanings of pay. The hypotheses are tested with survey data from one municipal health care organization.
Findings
The results of the study show that both knowledge and meanings of pay mediate the effects of goal setting on pay satisfaction. The paper finds support for the somewhat distinguishable roles of instrumental and symbolic meanings of pay. The regression analyses show that the former fully mediates the effect of pay level and the latter fully mediates the effect of goal setting on pay satisfaction. Even though the analyses do not provide evidence that common method variance would explain the results, it remains a potential issue.
Research limitations/implications
Future research is needed to establish the dimensionality of meanings – positive as well as negative – a pay system can convey, and to explore the degree to which they can be managed.
Practical implications
The results of the study suggest that organizations can promote their ROI of pay systems by paying attention to the employees' interpretations of messages conveyed by the pay system implementation process. More specifically, the results demonstrate that managers can contribute to employee pay satisfaction via a goal‐setting process that informs employees about the functions of the pay system and use the system to give feedback on the job.
Originality/value
The study provides a unique but preliminary test for Reflection Theory.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to look into employee perceptions of politics and fairness in a work setting where a new merit pay system had recently been implemented.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to look into employee perceptions of politics and fairness in a work setting where a new merit pay system had recently been implemented.
Design/methodology/approach
The results are based on employee survey responses from three governmental organizations (n=367) that had implemented analogous merit pay systems.
Findings
Hierarchical moderated regression results indicated that perceptions of politics and fairness distinctively and interactively predicted whether the pay system was perceived effective in achieving its objectives. The results suggest that some forms of politics in performance appraisals (e.g. compression) might be perceived less detrimental than others (e.g. favoritism). In a high politics environment, the pay system effectiveness varied as a function of the level of distributive justice. Voice in the pay system development only mattered in a situation where there was a low level of organizational politics.
Research limitations/implications
One of the main limitations of this study is its reliance on cross‐sectional data. Future research should complement employee perceptions about pay system effectiveness with objective data from the organizations studied. Research on the effect of contextual factors, such as national culture on the motives, in and reactions to, organizational politics, is desired.
Practical implications
The result suggests that the adopted merit pay systems were not ineffective or detrimental per se, but that the effectiveness varied as a function of the established political and fairness climates at different levels of the organization.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the discussion on what are the conditions under which politics and fairness are antithetical, and when they are interactively associated with outcomes.
Details
Keywords
Aino Tenhiälä, Anne Linna, Monika von Bonsdorff, Jaana Pentti, Jussi Vahtera, Mika Kivimäki and Marko Elovainio
The aim of this paper is to study age-related differences in how perceptions of two forms of organizational justice, i.e. procedural and interactional justice, are related to…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to study age-related differences in how perceptions of two forms of organizational justice, i.e. procedural and interactional justice, are related to short (i.e. non-certified) spells and long (i.e. medically certified) spells of sickness absence.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a study on a large sample of Finnish public sector employees (n=37,324), in which they matched employees' 2004 survey data with their records-based sick absences in 2005 and 2006.
Findings
The results suggest that age moderates the association between perceptions of procedural justice and long sickness absences after controlling for gender, tenure, occupational group, work unit, job demands and health behaviors. When older employees experienced a high level of procedural justice, they were 12 percent less likely to miss work due to medically certified illnesses. Overall, older employees were less likely to take short, non-certified sickness absences from work. Finally, the results suggest that high-quality relationships with supervisors can prevent both short and long spells of sickness absence at all ages
Originality/value
The study contributes to the literature on age-related differences in the effects of psychosocial workplace conditions (organizational justice) on employee behavior (absenteeism).