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Explained pay dispersion theory (Shaw, Gupta, & Delery, 2002) contends that the consequences of pay dispersion depend on two critical contingencies: (1) the presence of legitimate or normatively acceptable dispersion-creating practices, and the (2) identifiability of individual contributions. In this chapter, the first 20 years of empirical evidence and theoretical offshoots of this theory are reviewed. Other recent studies on the outcomes of horizontal and vertical pay dispersion are also evaluated. The review concludes with an evaluative summary of the literature and the identification of several potential fruitful areas for future research.

In this paper, we review the literature on pay variation (e.g., pay dispersion, pay compression, pay range) in organizations. Pay variation research has increased markedly in the past two decades and much progress has been made in terms of understanding its consequences for individual, team, and organizational outcomes. Our review of this research exposes several levels-related assumptions that have limited theoretical and empirical progress. We isolate the issues that deserve attention, develop an illustrative multilevel model, and offer a number of testable propositions to guide future research on pay structures.

The authors propose and test these boundary conditions to the relationship between voluntary collective turnover and unit performance: job and organizational tenure and the time clustering of turnover.

The authors analyze longitudinal data obtained from 231 units of an international clothing retailer in Spain assessed during 36 months.

The authors show that when the remaining workforce has moderate, but not low or high, levels of job and organizational tenure, the negative effect of quits on performance is buffered. Furthermore, their results show that time-clustered voluntary turnover patterns have stronger negative effects on unit performance than turnover patterns spread over time.

The authors extend the collective turnover literature addressing two qualitative properties of the content of voluntary turnover, the experience of the workers that remain in the unit after the turnover events happen and how these events are clustered/dispersed over time.

Incentives are effective at enhancing productivity, but research also suggests that performance incentives can have “unintended negative consequences” including increases in hazard/injuries, increases in errors, and reduction in cooperation, prosocial behaviors, and creativity. Relatively overlooked is whether, when, and how incentives can be designed to prevent such negative consequences. The authors review literature in several disciplines (construction, healthcare delivery, economics, psychology, and [some] management) on this issue. This chapter, in toto, sheds a generally positive light and suggests that, beyond productivity, incentives can be used to improve other outcomes such as safety, quality, prosocial behaviors, and creativity, particularly when the incentives are thoughtfully designed. The review concludes with several potential fruitful areas for future research such as investigations of incentive-effect duration.

The purpose of this paper is to make a comparative assessment of the relationship between types of pay plans and several workforce‐level outcomes in 214 organizations. The plans include pay that is skill‐based, job‐based, and market‐based. The types of workforce‐level outcomes include workforce flexibility, attitudes, membership behaviors, and productivity. The paper also assesses the relationship between the success of pay plans and workforce productivity/membership behaviors.

Survey data from 214 organizations are used to test the hypothesized relationships using hierarchical regression analysis and partial least square techniques.

Results support a significant and positive relationship between skill‐based pay plans, workforce flexibility, and workforce attitudes. Skill‐based pay plans, when compared with market‐based pay plans, are found to positively relate to workforce membership behaviors, and workforce attitudes mediate this relationship. Similarly, workforce flexibility mediates the positive relationship between skill‐based plans and workforce productivity. The success of skill‐based plans depends on significant improvements in workforce productivity and membership behaviors. The fit between the pay plan and the facility's climate/culture moderates the relationship between workforce productivity and the pay plan's success.

The results indicate that skill‐based pay plans are superior for achieving several organizational and employee outcomes. The authors discuss the implications of these results for research and practice.

Limited comparative empirical evidence exists on the effects of different types of pay systems on organizational outcomes. The paper seeks to address this gap.

The strategic management of human resources (HR) has been one of the most rapidly growing areas of research within human resources. In the last decade, there have been numerous empirical examinations and theoretical treatments of the link between HR and firm performance. In this paper, we review this empirical and conceptual literature and highlight areas of agreement and those that need further development. We then begin the process of building a conceptual framework based on this review and the extensive employment systems literature. Using our framework, we then discuss several methodological concerns that must be addressed for continued substantive research to proceed. We conclude with our suggestions for future empirical and conceptual work.