Money attitudes and pay satisfaction of the low paid

Abstract

Purpose -The research aims to explore the relationship between money attitudes and pay satisfaction for individuals in low paid jobs. Design/methodology/approach -The methodology developed a questionnaire that contained three key measures, including money attitudes, pay satisfaction and income level. The sample for this study consisted of blue-collar workers from industries and occupations identified as low paid by The National Minimum Wage Commission in the UK. The questionnaire was distributed in East London and South East England through employment exchanges and community organisations. Findings -Individual differences in money attitudes was found to be a significant variable in explaining pay satisfaction of people in low pay. The evidence proposes a case for money attitudes to be incorporated in the traditional models of pay satisfaction as it provides for the idiosyncrasies in individual differences. Research limitations/implications -A major limitation of this study was that it only captured certain low paid occupations, and also that it was based in the UK. This must be the most important direction for future research. Practical implications -The findings have managerial important implications in designing pay and reward structures for people in low pay. Originality/value -One of the major contributions of this study is that it is an early example of an empirical study, hopefully to be followed by more on money attitudes and the satisfaction of low pay.

Money, money, money – how do attitudes toward money impact vanity and materialism? – the case of young Chinese consumers

“…According to Tang (1992), people's attitude towards money may influence their work performance, reward systems, and their intrinsic motivation to perform any task. Money attitudes also have an impact on pay satisfaction for both low paid and high paid employees (Thozhur et al, 2006). In contrast, and contrary to intuition, individual characteristics (e.g., age, education, gender) were found to be inconsistent predictors of pay satisfaction (Crosby, 1982;Keaveny and Inderrierden, 2000;Shaw et al, 1999).…”

Managers generating meaning for pay

“…The mean population correlations for these variables were r ¼ 0.04 for age, r ¼ 0.01 for gender (0 ¼ male, 1 ¼ female), r ¼ 0.01 for education and r ¼ 0.29 for pay level in meta-analysis by Williams et al (2006). Even though the studied employees were on average low paid, we expected there to be variation in pay satisfaction since for money attitudes have been found to have covary with pay satisfaction even in low paid jobs (Thozhur et al, 2006). The other control variables have demonstrated quite high variation in their relationship with pay satisfaction, so no specific pattern was expected.…”

Inside the “black box” and “HRM”

“…The first statement required respondents to indicate the extent (using a five‐point Likert scale: 1=strongly disagree; 5=strongly agree) they believed congruence exists between organisation and employee goals in their workplace (in this organisation, staff members share the overall goals of management and willingly work towards achievement of these goals). While use of a single overt statement is a relatively common phenomenon in attitudinal studies (see for example, Thozhur et al , 2006; Bonache, 2005), this study also asked respondents to indicate agreement or disagreement with the following two statements – the principal objectives and interests of management and workers are more or less similar; and in this organisation management and workers work together as a team. For aggregation purposes, data from item one were subsequently collapsed to fit data obtained from the dichotomous statements.…”