What are you hiding? Employee attributions for pay secrecy policies. (29th April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Montag‐Smit, Tamara A.; Smit, Brandon W.
• Other Names: Sanders Karin guestEditor.; Guest David guestEditor.; Rodrigues Ricardo guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Human resource management journal. Volume 31:Number 3(2021)
• Page Start: 704
• Page End: 728
• Publication Date: 2020-04-29
• Subjects: HR attributions -- pay secrecy -- trust; Personnel management -- Periodicals; 658.3
• DOI: 10.1111/1748-8583.12292
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0954-5395

Abstract

Abstract: This study examines the effect of three dimensions of pay secrecy policies (i.e., distributive nondisclosure, communication restriction, procedural nondisclosure) on employee trust in management. Drawing from HR attributions research, we propose that these pay secrecy policies are positively related to malevolent attributions and negatively related to benevolent attributions. We tested our model with 317 employees and found that attributions generally mediated the relationships between pay secrecy and trust. Employee preferences for sharing pay information moderated some of these relationships; those who are unwilling to share personal pay information did not make negative attributions of secretive distributive pay policies. Overall, these findings demonstrate the value employee attributions of organisational pay policies have for our understanding of employee trust formation.