Brown, Conor Van Court
(2023)
What Are You Hiding? Pay Secrecy and Its Effect on Employees’ Misreporting.
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Abstract: Using two experiments, I examine three research questions. First, I explore how pay inequity (i.e., unexplained differences in employee pay) affects management’s choice of a pay secrecy or pay transparency policy. Second, I examine how this choice affects employee misreporting and the signal the policy choice sends about pay inequity. Finally, I test how employees respond when pay information is disclosed through unintended leakage after management chooses a pay secrecy policy. I find that management tries to hide pay inequity by choosing a pay secrecy policy. However, this strategy is ineffective because employees interpret a pay secrecy policy as a signal that pay is inequitable. Specifically, pay secrecy does not reduce misreporting among inequitably paid employees relative to pay transparency. I also find that a pay secrecy policy increases misreporting among equitably paid employees because they mistakenly believe their pay is inequitable. Finally, employees react more negatively when they learn their pay is inequitable through a leak than from a pay transparency policy. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
20 May 2023 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
16 December 2022 |
| Approval Date: |
20 May 2023 |
| Submission Date: |
19 December 2022 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
60 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
College of Business Administration > Accounting
College of Business Administration > Business Administration |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
Pay Secrecy; Pay Transparency; Pay Comparisons; Misreporting; Budgetary Slack |
| Date Deposited: |
20 May 2023 19:15 |
| Last Modified: |
20 May 2023 19:15 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/44056 |
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