Impact of employee mobility and employee performance on the allocation of rewards under conditions of constraint.

Abstract

We advanced and tested a multiple-motive model of resource allocation. In this model we identified important instrumental, social-emotional, and group maintenance goals, and asserted that rational managers will sometimes allocate reduced rewards to employees with constrained mobility. Consistent with predictions, managers allocated greater salary funds to more deserving employees: those with high competence and dedication. However, allocations also differed as a function of employee mobility. This effect was strongest among competent employees, whose membership was most desirable. Furthermore, the tendency to allocate lesser rewards to low-mobility employees was particularly pronounced under conditions of low reward availability and low labor availability. These effects were not mediated by changes in perceptions of the competence of low-mobility employees. The findings are discussed as a form of rational selective exploitation: The rational manager's need to attend to employee mobility, particularly under conditions of reward or labor constraint, may erode equity. Every social system has rewards and resources that are used to achieve group goals and satisfy individual needs. How do group managers divide rewards among individual members? One answer has been provided by equity theory, which proposes that managers allocate resources to recipients in proportion to the usefulness of their contributions to the group (Adams, 1965; Cohen & Greenberg, 1982; Walster, Berscheid, & Walster, 1973). Indeed, numerous studies of the process of reward allocation have confirmed the assertion in equity theory that the outcomes of allocations are typically commensurate with indi

The Effect of Need on the Allocation Behavior of Children

“…The results also offered some support for multiple-motive theories (Farkas & Anderson, 1979;Greenberg & Cohen, 1982;Leventhal, 1976;Rusbult, Lowery, Hubbard, Maravankin, & Neises, 1988). Many subjects, mostly older, gave several discernible explanations for their allocations to the younger and poorer student involving a combination of need, effort, and sympathy, suggesting that older children are guided by several motives simultaneously, at least in multi-attribute situations.…”

Bread and roses: Justice and the distribution of financial and socioemotional rewards in organizations

“…For example, when limited upward mobility makes it unlikely that lower paid people can ever earn substantially greater financial rewards, they appear to find solace in more equally distributed socioemotional rewards, such as interpersonal warmth (Greenberg and Ornstein, 1983;Kanter, 1977;Martin et al, 1983). Research by Rusbult et al (1988Rusbult et al ( , 1990 has shown that allocators practice rational selective exploitation, distributing lower salaries to individuals with constrained mobility. If future research could show that lower income people find counterbalanced reward systems more just, if they willingly accept roses in lieu of more bread, this would contribute to our understanding of why, in the United States, financial inequality is so often considered just, even by those who receive relatively little (e.g., Crosby, 1982;Lane, 1962;Martin, 1986b;Stouffer et al, 1949).…”

Handbook of Justice Research in Law

“…Rusbult and her colleagues (Rusbult, Lowery, Hubbard, Maravankin, and Neises, 1988) argue that allocation decisions stemming from the combination of these goals depend also on the mobility of the employees and availability of both labor and rewards. Rusbult and her colleagues (Rusbult, Lowery, Hubbard, Maravankin, and Neises, 1988) argue that allocation decisions stemming from the combination of these goals depend also on the mobility of the employees and availability of both labor and rewards.…”