Reward Allocation Research Articles

How Do Organizations Allocate Rewards? The Predictive Validity of National Values, Economic and Organizational Factors Across Six Nations

Differences in the reported use of reward allocation principles based on equity, equality, and need in work organizations in Germany, United Kingdom, New Zealand, the United States, and Brazil are investigated. Organization-level and nation-level predictors are used to explain reported differences. Organizational, macroeconomic, and Schwartz's nation-level value indices are all found to be significant predictors. Reliance on equity is predicted by organization-level variables and high nation-level mastery. Reliance on equality is only influenced by organization-level variables. Reliance on need is predicted by the unemployment rate and high nation-level embeddedness. The results indicate that reward allocation studies that focus solely on individual-level factors will fail to detect important sources of variance. The need to consider multiple levels of explanation in cross-cultural research is discussed.

The Effect of Reward Structures in GSS on Group Performance

In any organization, rewards play significant roles in influencing human behaviour at the group level as well as at the individual level. People are keenly aware of how their work is evaluated and rewarded. Reward Allocation Agent (RAA) was developed by the authors of this paper, and implemented for a CyberCollaboratory experiment to automate and track group reward allocation and distribution. To evaluate the effect of reward scheme, 111 students volunteered to participate in this study. Participants indicated that the system is well designed and they are very satisfied with their final decisions. The authors speculated that groups with different reward schemes might produce difference in members’ participation and satisfaction. However, it turned out that there is no significant difference among three experimental groups (I, G, and H) in both the level of members’ participation and their satisfaction.

Epistemic motives and cultural conformity: Need for closure, culture, and context as determinants of conflict judgments.

Three studies support the proposal that need for closure (NFC) involves a desire for consensual validation that leads to cultural conformity. Individual differences in NFC interact with cultural group variables to determine East Asian versus Western differences in conflict style and procedural preferences (Study 1), information gathering in disputes (Study 2), and fairness judgment in reward allocations (Study 3). Results from experimental tests indicate that the relevance of NFC to cultural conformity reflects consensus motives rather than effort minimization (Study 2) or political conservatism (Study 3). Implications for research on conflict resolution and motivated cultural cognition are discussed.

信頼行動の内集団バイアス―最小条件集団を用いた分配者選択実験―

The purpose of this study is to show that expectations of generalized reciprocity within one's own group are responsible for in-group trust. To test this hypothesis, an allocator choice game in the minimal group situation was used. We assigned the role of a recipient in a dictator game to all 81 subjects, and measured whether they chose to be a recipient of either an in-group or an out-group "allocator" who freely allocate a fixed reward between him/her and a recipient. The results indicate that in-group trust occurs only in the condition in which recipients know that allocators make a reward allocation knowing the group membership of their recipient; recipients show no preference for either an in-group or an out-group allocator when allocators make the decision without knowing the group membership of their recipient. It is thus shown that participants' in-group trust is derived from the general belief that people treat in-group members more favorably than out-group members-a belief about generalized reciprocity within groups.

Employee self-enhancement motives and job performance behaviors: Investigating the moderating effects of employee role ambiguity and managerial perceptions of employee commitment.

This study examined the effects of employee self-enhancement motives on job performance behaviors (organizational citizenship behaviors and task performance) and the value of these behaviors to them. The authors propose that employees display job performance behaviors in part to enhance their self-image, especially when their role is not clearly defined. They further argue that the effects of these behaviors on managerial reward recommendation decisions should be stronger when managers believe the employees to be more committed. The results from a sample of 84 working students indicate that role ambiguity moderated the effects of self-enhancement motives on job performance behaviors and that managerial perceptions of an employee's commitment moderated the effects of those organizational citizenship behaviors that are aimed at other individuals on managers' reward allocation decisions.

Inequality Aversion in a Variety of Games – An Indirect Evolutionary Analysis

The indirect evolutionary approach integrates forward‐looking evaluation of opportunities and adaptation in the light of the past. Subjective motivation determines behaviour, but long‐run evolutionary success of motivational types depends on objective factors only. This can justify intrinsic aversion to inequality in reward allocation games. Whereas earlier analysis was restricted to specific games, this article considers a more complex environment comprising different games which – studied in isolation – yield opposite implications. Persistent divergence between intrinsic motivation and true material success is possible depending on the definition of inequality aversion as well as on agents’ ability to discriminate between games.

Apprentissage par renforcement dans le cadre des processus décisionnels de Markov factorisés observables dans le désordre. Etude expérimentale du Q-Learning parallèle appliqué aux problèmes du labyrinthe et du New York Driving

This paper presents experimental results obtained with an original architecture that can do generic learning for randomly observable factored Markov decision process (ROFMDP). First, the paper describes the theoretical framework of ROFMDP and the working of this algorithm, in particular the parallelization principle and the dynamic reward allocation process. Then, the architecture is applied to two navigation problems (gridworld and New York Driving). The tests show that the architecture allows to learn a good and generic policy in spite of the large dimensions of the state spaces of both systems.

Senior/Junior Recipient Status and Reward Allocation

This study examines senior/junior recipient status as a possible determinant of perceived fairness of given allocations and allocation preference. Considering status as a feature associated with the cultural dimension of power distance, female university students from India (a high power distance, relatively collectivistic culture) and Canada (a low power distance, individualistic culture) were compared with regard to perceived fairness and allocation preferences in scenarios involving an organisational or an academic setting, with varying senior/junior recipient status, allocation rule combinations, nature of allocation, and the allocator/recipient role. Overall, recipient status effects were incongruent with the expected power distance differences. Further, Canadians perceived more fairness and less unfairness than Indians. They favoured seniority to a greater extent than Indians, possibly because they treated seniority as a component of merit. Indians manifested an equality orientation, and gave variable responses to seniority depending on the nature of allocation, allocator/recipient role, rule combination and their interactive effects. Allocation preferences were affected more by rule combination than by recipient status in both cultures. The need to examine status effects with a modified research design was underlined.

RELATIONAL EXPLOITATION: THE INFORMAL ORGANIZATION OF DAY LABOR AGENCIES

Recent controversies have drawn attention to the growing day labor industry in the U.S. While academics and activists have documented and criticized day labor agencies’ practice of externalizing costs onto the workforce, less attention has been paid to the informal organization of this form of work. At first glance, the day labor industry may appear to be little more than an anonymous “spot market,” but this glosses over the subtle relational and reputational dynamics at play. This article uses qualitative and quantitative evidence to uncover the informal order of the day labor hall, as experienced by homeless workers. Dispatcher discretion over the allocation of jobs leads day laborers to adopt several strategies for combating anonymity in this market. We argue that dispatchers’ perceptions of workers’ loyalty and reliability shape the allocation of rewards, thus inserting a small measure of stability into this highly contingent form of work.

Dual identities in intergroup contact: Group status and size moderate the generalization of positive attitude change

To explore the effects of various categorization strategies on intergroup bias within and beyond a contact situation, two experiments were conducted involving groups of different size and/or status that worked together on a cooperative task. Three categorization strategies (decategorization, recategorization, and dual identity) were compared, and bias was measured through symbolic reward allocations to people who were and were not actually encountered. In Experiment 1 ( N = 129), we varied group size (minority or majority) and found that it affected bias within the contact situation—minority groups were more biased than majority groups. All of the categorization strategies limited bias and they did so equally well. Outside the contact situation, however, only the recategorization and dual identity strategies limited bias. In Experiment 2 ( N = 156), we varied both group status (low or high) and group size. Both of these variables affected bias within the contact situation—high status groups were more biased than low status groups, and minority groups were again more biased than majority groups. Once again, all three categorization strategies limited bias and they did so equally well. Outside the contact situation, however, an interaction among the independent variables was observed. For minority groups, only the dual identity strategy limited bias, but none of the categorization strategies limited bias for majority groups.

Dividing the Domain of Political Science: On the Fetishism of Subfields

American students of political science have repeatedly bemoaned its failure to achieve the status of a coherent intellectual discipline. This essay suggests that claims regarding the disarray of political science are, at the very least, exaggerated. For several key purposes, the profession ascribes near totemic status to four specific subfields: political theory, American politics, comparative politics, and international relations. While one might argue that these categories are innocuous administrative conveniences, that claim would be mistaken. Subfields are vehicles of power insofar as they participate in the allocation of rewards within the discipline, and, more fundamentally, insofar as they participate in structuring our understanding of the nature of politics itself. Inquiry into the emergence and consolidation of political science's basic subfields, however, has been almost entirely ignored in accounts of the discipline and its history. This essay aims to remedy that gap in our understanding.

Equity or equality? a conceptual examination of the influence of individualism/collectivism on the cross‐cultural application of equity theory

Conceptually examines the effect of individualism/collectivism on the tenets of equity theory. It is the view of the authors that the equality principle of reward allocation in collectivistic cultures is not a separate method of distribution, but a subset of the theoretically grounded equity principle appropriately integrating the cross‐cultural individualism/collectivism value. To support this position, the authors reduce equity theory to its fundamental elements and illustrate how in dividualism/collectivism separately affects each component. The derived model and subsequent discussion should provide researchers with a theoretical frame work for future empirical studies.

Do Unto Others as They Do Unto You: Reciprocity and Social Identification as Determinants of Ingroup Favoritism

Predictions from the bounded and unbounded reciprocity hypotheses and from social identity theory (SIT) were examined in a minimal group experiment in which ingroup outcome dependence, outgroup outcome dependence, and the strength of social identity were orthogonally manipulated. Both ingroup and outgroup outcome dependence affected reward allocations. Participants made more ingroup-favoring reward allocations across all conditions. The identification manipulation produced hypothesized effects on social identification measures and marginal effects of identification on reward allocations in the no-dependence condition. Support was found for both an unbounded and bounded version of the reciprocity hypothesis and marginal support for a SIT approach to intergroup discrimination. The study highlights insufficiencies of both theoretical approaches and suggests possibilities for integration and elaboration.

The influence of interdependent self-construal on procedural fairness effects

Various theories have been shown to account for the effects of procedural fairness on people’s attitudes and behaviors. We propose that a logical next step for organizational justice researchers is to delineate not whether, but rather when certain explanations are likely to account for people’s reactions to procedural fairness information. Accordingly, the present research tested the hypothesis that social psychological explanations would be particularly applicable to people high in interdependent self-construal. As predicted, the results of three studies showed that interdependent self-construal (ISC) moderated the relationship between procedural fairness and a variety of dependent variables (cooperation, positive affect, and desire for future interaction with the other party). In different types of interpersonal encounters (social dilemmas, reward allocations, and negotiations), procedural fairness had more of an influence on participants’ reactions among those high rather than low in ISC. Theoretical implications are discussed.

An investigation into the antecedents of goal congruence in retail‐service settings

The authors report the results of two studies that model the antecedents of goal congruence in retail‐service settings. They draw the antecedents from extant research and propose that goal congruence is related to employees' perceptions of morale, leadership support, fairness in reward allocation, and empowerment. They hypothesize and test direct and indirect relationships between these constructs and goal congruence. Results of structural equations modeling suggest an important mediating role for morale and interesting areas of variation across retail and service settings.

Perfect or Bounded Rationality?

Abstract Simple game experiments of the reward allocation, dictator and ultimatum type are used to demonstrate that true explanations of social phenomena cannot conceivably be derived in terms of the perfect rationality concept underlying neo-classical economics. We explore in some depth, if speculatively, how experimental game theory might bring us closer to a new synthesis or at least the nucleus of a general theory of ‘games and boundedly rational economic behavior’ with enhanced explanatory power.

Reward allocation decisions of Chinese managers: Influence of employee categorization and allocation context

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationships between employee categorization criteria and Chinese managers’ allocation behaviors. Using a vignette approach and a four‐factor within‐subjects design, the effects of relationship (guanxi), loyalty, and competence, as well as their interactions with allocation context (private vs public) were examined. Results showed that subordinates who had a close relationship with the allocator, high loyalty, or high competence were rewarded more. Significant two‐way interaction effects indicated that relationship, loyalty and competence interactively affected Chinese managers’ reward allocation decisions. In addition, the moderating effects of allocation context on these three criteria were also significant. Limitations of the study and suggestions for further research were discussed.

Organizational reward allocation: a comparison of British and German organizations

The present paper reports two studies investigating the use of reward allocation principles based on equity, equality, need and seniority by work organizations in Germany and the UK. The study sampled participants from various organizations to replicate some findings from laboratory studies involving students. Consistent with predictions, equity was more important in the UK than Germany. Contrary to previous laboratory studies, need was more important in the UK than Germany. Large differences between private and public sector organizations were found. More research focusing on real-life allocations is needed to develop a better understanding of cross-cultural differences.

Penalties for success: reactions to women who succeed at male gender-typed tasks.

A total of 242 subjects participated in 3 experimental studies investigating reactions to a woman's success in a male gender-typed job. Results strongly supported the authors' hypotheses, indicating that (a) when women are acknowledged to have been successful, they are less liked and more personally derogated than equivalently successful men (Studies 1 and 2); (b) these negative reactions occur only when the success is in an arena that is distinctly male in character (Study 2); and (c) being disliked can have career-affecting outcomes, both for overall evaluation and for recommendations concerning organizational reward allocation (Study 3). These results were taken to support the idea that gender stereotypes can prompt bias in evaluative judgments of women even when these women have proved themselves to be successful and demonstrated their competence. The distinction between prescriptive and descriptive aspects of gender stereotypes is considered, as well as the implications of prescriptive gender norms for women in work settings.

Behind the rising meritocracy: market, politics, and cultural change in urban China

Research on reforming China has documented a clear trend of rising meritocracy in the allocation of rewards and career opportunities. This article examines three competing theoretical perspectives and explores their implications on what causes Chinese organizations to adopt merit-based reward and sanctioning practices. While the market perspective emphasizes organizational exposure to competitive market, the political perspective points to state control and supervision. Rooted in the new institutional theory of organizations, the cultural perspective suggests organizational exposure and susceptibility to Western managerial models as the chief determinants. Regression analysis of data collected from two Chinese cities yields the following findings. First, nonprofit organizations are less meritocratic than firms, public enterprises are less meritocratic than private/hybrid firms, and Sino-foreign joint ventures are less meritocratic than indigenous private firms. Second, among public enterprises performance emphasis is in general positively associated with budgetary rank and size. These findings lend support to the market and cultural perspectives. There is little evidence for rising meritocracy directly driven by the state.