Process and Outcome: Perspectives on the Distribution of Rewards in Organizations

Abstract

James N. Baron Stanford University Karen S. Cook University of Washington Gaining a better understanding of reward systems in organizations has become a high priority, not only for scholars in diverse disciplines but also, increasingly, for managers, human resource specialists, and those who craft public policy. Organizations are claimed to be undergoing a period of unprecedented experimentation in appraising and rewarding employees. In the current presidential campaign, candidates are staking out positions on levels of U.S. executive compensation. Journalistic accounts contrasting American greed and individualism with the strong group ethic and compressed reward distributions of Japan and other countries have become hackneyed.