Taking from those that have more and giving to those that have less: How inequity frames affect corrections for inequity

Lowery, Brian S.; Chow, Rosalind M.; Crosby, Jennifer Randall

doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2008.09.010

Cited by 39 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Future research might also more fully explore how firms interpret equivocal or ambivalent attainment discrepancy signals Weber, 2009, 2010). Work in social psychology suggests that individuals interpret performance or reward disparities differently whether they perceive such disparities as their being disadvantaged , versus their competitors being advantaged (e.g., Lowery, Chow, and Crosby, 2009). If individual aspirations depend on context and framing, do organizational aspirations similarly depend on framing, say by the media or other contextual influences?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison of alternative measures of organizational aspirations

Bromiley

Harris

2014

Strategic Management Journal

198

155

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Research on organizational aspirations has used various representations of firm-level aspirations and based those representations on various performance measures. To advance our understanding of the measurement of aspirations, we empirically compare three different aspiration models defined using six different performance measures to explain three different firm outcomes (financial misrepresentation, R&D spending, and income-stream uncertainty INTRODUCTIONHow do managers evaluate their own firm's performance? Some theoretical paradigms, such as the behavioral theory of the firm (or BTOF;Cyert and March [1963] 1992) tackle this question explicitly. Other approaches largely ignore how managers assess success, implicitly assuming they use either accounting or capital market performance measures. Yet, paradigms that attempt to explain strategic behavior must make some assumptions about how managers evaluate firm performance; even profit-maximizing models implicitly assume firms know their profits and understand how it compares to optimal profits. The BTOF argues that managers compare expected firm performance to aspiration levels that depend on prior aspirations, prior performance, and the performance of comparable firms. A large literature demonstrates that performance relative to aspirations (or "attainment discrepancy") influences risk taking (Bromiley, 1991;Fiegenbaum, 1990;March and Shapira, 1987;Miller and Chen, 2004;Miller and Leiblein, 1996;Singh, 1986). Attainment discrepancy also influences research and development (R&D) spending (Antonelli, 1989;Bromiley and Washburn, 2011;Chen and Miller, 2007;Palmer and Wiseman, 1999), capital structure (Miller and Bromiley, 1990), actual and intended firm growth (Greve, 2008;Wicklund and Shepherd, 2003), large-scale organizational change (Greve, 1998) (Iyer and Miller, 2008), and organizational misconduct (Harris and Bromiley, 2007).Despite abundant research using attainment discrepancy to explain firm behavior, differences in measuring aspirations demonstrate an insufficient level of theoretical and empirical understanding of organizational aspirations leading to two major problems. First, aspirations studies adopt one of several functional forms for aspirations without discussing the theoretical assumptions or methodological merits of the alternative forms. Second, most studies examining organizational aspirations measure performance using one measure without considering other performance measures. To address these problems, we compare functional forms for aspirations measures defined using a number of different performance measures.The issue we address, comparing a set of measures, differs from the standard measurement issue of validating or assessing the reliability of a single measure. The many extant studies employing one of these three measures collectively demonstrate nomological validity but do not resolve the problem of having several competing measures for the same construct, especially when each measure embodies a slightly different theoretical nuance about...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A comparison of alternative measures of organizational aspirations

Bromiley

Harris

2014

Strategic Management Journal

198

155

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“…Importantly, there are two complementary ways to restore equity or justice between groups in society. It is possible to restore equity or justice by taking resources away from dominant groups or allocating more resources to disadvantaged or oppressed groups (Lowery, Chow, & Crosby, 2009). Our findings suggest that a substantial proportion of the members of disadvantaged groups are willing to pay a personal cost (by participating in collective action) to take resources away from members of dominant groups.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relative deprivation and intergroup competition

Halevy

Chou²,

Cohen

et al. 2010

Group Processes & Intergroup Relations

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Two experiments utilized a new experimental paradigm -the IPD-MD game -to study how relative deprivation at the group level affects intergroup competition. The IPD-MD game enables group members to make a costly contribution to either a within-group pool that benefits fellow in-group members, or a between-group pool, which, in addition harms out-group members. We found that when group members were put in a disadvantaged position, either by previous actions of the out-group (Experiment 1) or by random misfortune (Experiment 2), they contributed substantially more to the competitive between-group pool. This destructive behavior both minimized inequality between the groups and reduced collective efficiency. Our results underscore the conditions that lead group members to care about relative (rather than absolute) group outcomes and highlight the need to differentiate between the motivation to get ahead and the motivation not to fall behind: the latter, it appears, is what motivates individual participation in destructive intergroup competition.Keywords: Relative deprivation, collective action, intragroup cooperation, intergroup competition, experimental games.On August 28, 1963, 250,000 civil-rights supporters attended the March on Washington, during which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous "I have a dream" speech. Two conditions had to be met for this remarkable event to have happened, one involving intergroup processes and the other involving intragroup processes. At the intergroup level, enough group members individuals had to feel that their group was unjustly deprived relative to another group in society. At the intragroup level, a sufficient number of these people had to decide that they were willing to pay the personal costs associated with fighting for change (i.e., invest the time and effort required to participate in this rally).The aforementioned historic event was quite exceptional in its magnitude and impact; the two conditions that afforded it, however, appear to be necessary (though not always sufficient) for successful intergroup competition. Social competition emerges "to the extent that one party feels deprived of important outcomes" (De Dreu, 2010, p. 984). Social competition is successful to the extent that group members are willing to pay the personal costs associated with participation in the group's collective action (Bornstein, 2003). The present investigation focuses on both processes and utilizes a new experimental paradigm -the Intergroup Prisoner's Dilemma -Maximizing Difference (IPD-MD) game (Halevy, Bornstein, & Sagiv, 2008), to study how group members react to relative deprivation when intergroup competition entails costly participation in collective action. From Relative Deprivation to Intergroup CompetitionRelative deprivation theory (Bernstein & Crosby, 1980;Crosby, 1976;Davis, 1959) proposes that feelings of resentment, anger, and unrest arise when a person (group) (a) wants something; (b) perceives that another person (group) has the thing they want; (c) feels ent...

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“…Whites were more willing to give up resources when they perceived the group to be advantaged than when they perceived the outgroup to be disadvantaged. In other words, dominant groups might expect to retain more resources when inequity is framed as outgroup disadvantage (cf Lowery et al, 2009). Thus, dominant group members' material interests might be best served, at least in the short term, by adopting a disadvantage ftame.…”

Section: The Experience Of Group Positionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Paying for positive group esteem: How inequity frames affect whites' responses to redistributive policies.

Lowery¹,

Chow²,

Knowles³

et al. 2012

Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Self Cite

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This article finds that, when faced with racial inequity framed as White advantage, Whites' desire to think well of their racial group increases their support for policies perceived to harm Whites. Across 4 studies, the article provides evidence that (a) relative to minority disadvantage, White advantage increases Whites' support for policies perceived to reduce their group's economic opportunities, but does not increase support for policies perceived to increase minority opportunities; and (b) the effect of White advantage on Whites' esteem for their ingroup drives the effect of inequity frame on support for policies perceived to reduce Whites' opportunities.

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Taking from those that have more and giving to those that have less: How inequity frames affect corrections for inequity

Cited by 39 publications

References 15 publications

A comparison of alternative measures of organizational aspirations

A comparison of alternative measures of organizational aspirations

Relative deprivation and intergroup competition

Paying for positive group esteem: How inequity frames affect whites' responses to redistributive policies.

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