Pay Transparency: Advancing Theory and Empirical Knowledge

Organizational pay transparency is a hot topic widely discussed among scholars, compensation professionals, employees, politicians and the broader public, and for good reason. Transparency (and its opposite, pay secrecy) affects many important employee judgments and perceptions, including awareness of whether one is are over- or underpaid relative to coworkers, understanding of how merit raise or incentive systems work, perceptions of being fairly paid relative to the external market, and attributions made about the organization itself (e.g., whether it is procedurally fair or not). Despite the growing interest, the pay transparency literature is still in its infancy and additional theorizing and empirical tests are needed. Overall, our symposium showcases a complementary set of papers that (1) contribute to a shared understanding of pay transparency, (2) highlight not only outcomes but also potential antecedents of pay transparency, (3) explore the boundary conditions under which pay transparency has a positive versus negative effect, (4) provide insight on individual differences in pay transparency preferences, and (5) use different research methods (e.g., field study, survey) at different levels of analysis (individual, organizational and multilevel). In bringing these studies and scholars together, we hope to contribute to community building, foster the dialog among researchers and practitioners attending the session, and contribute both theoretically and practically to the advancement of compensation research.