Salary Attainment Research Articles

Core self-evaluations and salary attainment: the moderating role of the developmental network

Core self-evaluation (CSE) has been shown to be robust as a predictor of employees' salary attainment. Although the developmental network is suggested to have a positive impact on salary, do all high-CSE individuals benefit from their developmental networks similarly? We incorporate both personality research and developmental network research to explore this question in two studies. In Study 1, we investigated whether developmental network size moderates the positive CSE–salary relationship. In Study 2, we explored whether the organizational status and the strength of ties of one's developers moderate the positive CSE–salary relationship. Results indicated that high-CSE individuals with developmental networks characterized by fewer developers and by strong ties reported higher salaries than others. Overall, our findings demonstrate that the positive CSE–salary link may vary depending on the structural characteristics of the developmental network.

A conservation of resources perspective on career hurdles and salary attainment

Guided by conservation of resources theory, the present study examines six types of hurdles individuals face in their careers and how those hurdles impede the attainment of higher salaries. With a meta-analysis of 339 empirical studies conducted over the past 50years, we observed that socio-demographic hurdles (e.g., being non-Caucasian), trait-related hurdles (e.g., low cognitive ability), motivational hurdles (e.g., being unwilling to relocate), skill-related hurdles (e.g., low levels of formal education), social environment hurdles (e.g., no mentors), and work environment hurdles (e.g., jobs with low control) all made it more difficult to command high salaries.

The relationship between external job mobility and salary attainment across career stages

The current study examines the relationship between external job mobility and salary for employees in different career stages. Based on career stage and career timetable theories, we predict that external job mobility would generate the greatest salary benefits for early-career employees whereas external job mobility would generate fewer salary benefits for employees in mid- and late career stages. Data collected from multiple industries in Hong Kong and the United States consistently show that, as expected, highly mobile early-career employees earn significantly greater salaries than their less mobile peers do. The positive effects of external job mobility on salary were stronger for early-career workers than for mid-and late-career workers.

Voluntary employer changes and salary attainment of managers

The nature of the relationship between a manager's voluntary employer changing and salary attainment remains unclear. A possible, but relatively unexplored, reason for past inconsistency of findings may be that the effect of changing employer has not been examined in terms of the frequency of changes. Therefore, this study sought to verify the relationship between frequency of voluntary employer changes and salary attainment of middle managers. The hypothesis that was tested predicted that the relationship would be of inverted-U shape. Data from a survey of MBA degree holders in Taiwan supported the hypothesis, such that salary attainment was highest among managers with a moderate number of employer changes and lower among managers with low or high inter-firm moves. This revises the notion of the boundaryless career by suggesting that the over-utilization of voluntary employer changes may evoke obstacles to salary attainment.

Moderating effect of firm size on the relationship between voluntary employer changes and salary attainment

This study presents a meaningful moderator, a fundamental characteristic of employers – their size, to unravel the inconsistencies regarding the relationship between the workers’ voluntary employer changes and salary attainment in previous studies. Results indicate that voluntary employer changes did not predict salary attainment in large firms, whereas a positive effect was found to be stronger in medium than in small firms. Also presented herein are several explanations for the moderating property of firm size.

Gender, Mentoring Experiences, and Salary Attainment among Graduates of an Historically Black University

The effects of gender and the development of mentoring relationships on salary attainment were examined among African-American graduates of an historically black institution of higher education. After controlling for a series of background, career, and organizational factors, there were no gender-based pay differences, and only those who had established mentoring relationships with white-male mentors displayed compensation advantages over graduates who had never formed mentoring relationships. These results are comparable to findings reported for majority and minority graduates of majority-culture schools of business and have implications concerning the ways in which companies and individuals work to maximize career potential.

Gender, influence tactics, and job characteristics preferences: New insights into salary determination

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether gender retains its significance as a predictor of salary, after controlling for the well-documented influences of human capital accumulation and job level, and the less well-researched effects of both influence tactics and job characteristic preferences. Second, this study investigates whether similar factors predict salary attainment for males and females. Finally, the question of whether males and females differ in all of the hypothesized variables of interest is investigated. Exempt staff at a state university are surveyed. Of those respondents, 52.8% are female and 47.2% are male, the majority of whom are white, with other ethnic and racial categories representing less than one-fifth of the sample. After controlling for all other hypothesized influences, gender retains its significance as a predictor of salary. A significant interaction between job level and gender indicates that females in high-level jobs earn significantly less than males in high level jobs. Human capital variables and two job characteristics preferences also displayed significant main effects in predicting salary.

Influence tactics and salary attainment: A gender-specific analysis

In this article the linkages between upward influence tactics and salary attainment were studied within the context of observed salary differences between men and women. The data for this field study were gathered from 212 male and 82 female business school graduates. Annual salary was regressed on a set of control variables and six dimensions of upward influence. Separate salary equations were estimated for men and women, and used to study sex-based salary differentials. The results indicated that even though there were few mean differences between men and women in terms of person-centered attributes, the characteristics of employing organizations, or the use of upward influence styles, women earned less than men. The set of upward influence tactics uniquely accounted for variation in salaries for both men and women, and there was evidence of gender specificity in the salarly allocation process. The usefulness of considering upward influence tactics when studying the salary allocation process is emphasized, particularly when the goal is to understand observed salary differences between men and women.

Influence Tactics and Salary Attainment: A Study of Sex-Based Salary Differentials.

The linkages between upward influence tactics and salary attainment were studied within the context of observed salary differences between men and women. Upward influence tactics uniquely accounted for variation in salaries for both men and women, and there was evidence of gender specificity in the salary allocation process.

A Note on the Recruitment and Reward Equity of Organizations: U.S. Universities Before Affirmative Action

Do the personnel equity patterns of organizations within a single industry show substantial variance? What statistical relationship exists among the various dimensions of equity in organizations? To answer these questions, a method for measuring and comparing the objective equity of organizations in recruiting and rewarding personnel is presented. After controlling for differences in qualifications and performance, inequities in recruitment, rank, tenure, and salary of men and women faculty in the late 1960s are systematically measured at each of 79 universities. Almost all universities exhibited inequity in the recruitment, rank, and salary attainment processes of women faculty; but, in most cases, they were not disadvantaged in the tenure process. On all equity dimensions, however, there was sizeable variation in the patterns exhibited. The extent of equity in recruitment, rank, tenure, and salary were found to be largely unrelated to one another. The implications of this work for segmented labor market research and for the analysis of stratification systems in science are discussed.

Job-Specific Sex Differences in Organizational Reward Attainment: Wage Discrimination Vs. Rank Segregation

Aggregate analyses of sexual inequality fail to explore directly the resources of structurally induced earnings differences. These differences may derive from between- andlor within-employer differences in the rewardattainment processes of working men and women. This paper examines the second of these two issues, i.e., within-employer sex differences in salary for the same job. Two hypotheses are considered: the so-called wage discrimination hypothesis refers to inequality generated by male-female differences in the direct rates of return to productive resources and hierarchical rank; the rank segregation hypothesis refers to inequality generated by denying women equal access to the higher-paying ranks to which a particular job ladder leads. Our results suggest that sex differences in salary attainment result more from rank segregation than from wage discrimination per se. The implications for the problem of sexual discrimination and the generalizability of the findings are discussed.

Sexual inequality in the workplace: An employer-specific analysis of pay differences

This paper reports an analysis of employer-specific sex differences in the processes governing the salary attainment of personnel of a large company. The two dominant theories of inequality both view discrimination as the operative cause of pay differences, but locate the structural source of discrimination at different points in the employer-employee exchange space. The wage discrimination hypothesis asserts that the economic disadvantage of women issues directly from the pay practices of employers, with women receiving “unequal pay for equal work.” The crowding, or employment segregation, hypothesis asserts that inequality issues from the employment practices of employers; disparities in the allocation of jobs and promotions results in segregation along sexual lines, with women relegated to lower-paying positions. The findings show that both wage discrimination and sexual segregation of the company's job and rank structures contribute to inequality, but that the latter is more important. The implications for the issue of discrimination are briefly discussed.

Career Attainment in Canadian Bureaucracies: Unscrambling the Effects of Age, Seniority, Education, and Ethnolinguistic Factors on Salary

Five hypotheses concerning the influence of age, seniority, expertise (education), and informal factors on salary attainment of men in bureaucratic careers in the Canadian federal administration are tested. Age, seniority, and education are positively related to salary, but relationships are stronger for the Anglophone majority than for the Francophone minority; older Francophones are behind their Anglophone equivalents. The departure of able Francophones from the federal administration, discrimination against them, and the state of French-Canadian education a generation ago are assessed as explanations of the Francophone disadvantage. Although there was a fallout of able Francophones in the early 1960s and an educational gap between Francophones and Anglophones in the fields of science and engineering, career discrimination is the primary factor accounting for salary differentials.