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Internal and external referents as predictors of pay satisfaction among employees in a two‐tier wage setting
Author(s) -
Lee Raymond T.,
Martin James E.
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of occupational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.257
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 2044-8325
pISSN - 0305-8107
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8325.1991.tb00541.x
Subject(s) - earnings , wage , psychology , equity (law) , tier 2 network , demographic economics , schedule , work schedule , social psychology , business , labour economics , economics , operations management , accounting , management , scheduling (production processes) , telecommunications , political science , computer science , law
Two‐tier wage structures occur when employees hired after a certain date are placed on a substantially lower pay schedule than the schedule for previously hired employees. This study examined how internal and external pay comparisons related to attitudes toward pay among low‐ and high‐tier employees in a retail food chain with two‐tier wage structure. For the low‐tier group, comparisons with low‐ and high‐tier referents, and to a lesser extent, part‐time referents and referents at other places where the respondents might obtain work predicted pay satisfaction. For the high‐tier group, comparisons with high‐tier referents and referents in heavy industries (automobile or steel) predicted pay satisfaction. The results are consistent with the notion that both groups were concerned with pay equity relative to referents with similar earnings, and with deprivation relative to referents with higher earnings.