The Relationship Between Pay Dispersion Based On Reference Point And Employee Performance

In this age of efficiency,pay dispersion,as an important factor affecting human resource efficiency and performance,has attracted social attention.Although we know that pay dispersion has significant effects on employee and organizational performance,the direction and strength of these effects remain elusive.Generally,it is difficult to obtain detailed pay data,most scholars choose the panel data of listed companies,which makes the results only staying in the relationship between the objective pay dispersion and corporate performance.Therefore,there is few researches about deeper psychological perception of employees.From the perspective of individual psychological perception,this thesis analyzes the relationship between pay dispersion and employee performance in order to have a comprehensive understanding of their relationship.Based on the objective pay dispersion in the organization and considering the individual psychological feelings about pay comparison,this thesis defines the self-pay dispersion(i.e.,the dispersion between one's actual pay and the expected pay after considering his abilities and experiences in a reasonable way)and the social pay dispersion(i.e.,the dispersion between other people's actual pay and a fair and reasonable pay that one thinks others should be paid).Taking the overall perceived value of pay dispersion as a bridge,we established the overall research framework and explored the internal mechanism of the relationship between pay dispersion and employee performance systematically.Holding behavior experiment with MBA students in a domestic university and employees of a state-owned enterprise,we found that the self-pay dispersion was positively correlated with the perceived value of self-pay dispersion and the overall perceived value of pay dispersion.Social pay dispersion was negatively correlated with the perceived value of social pay dispersion and the overall perceived value of pay dispersion.There was a positive relationship between self-pay dispersion and individual performance,while the relationship between social pay dispersion and individual performance was inverted U-shaped.Then,the perceived value of the overall pay dispersion played a mediating role between self-pay dispersion,social pay dispersion and individual performance.The self-pay referent point negatively moderated the relationship between the overall perceived value of pay dispersion and employee performance.There was a moderated intermediary effect model among the above variables.The innovation of this thesis is as follows.Firstly,based on the self-pay reference point and the social pay reference point,this thesis linked the pay dispersion with individual psychological feelings and divided two types of pay dispersion.In this way,amore systematic and thorough study on the relationship between pay dispersion and employee performance was carried out.Secondly,taking the perceived value of pay dispersion as mediating role,which opened the black box between pay dispersion and employee performance and extended the research to a deeper cognitive situation.Finally,as an important factor in the process of pay comparison,pay reference points played an important role in employees' psychological perception,behavior and results.However,few scholars have conducted in-depth research on it.Based on the analysis of the previous research limitations,this thesis confirmed the moderating effect of self-pay reference point between the perceived value of the overall pay dispersion and the employee performance.This conclusion has not been mentioned in relevant literature,so it strengthens the recognition of pay reference point and enriches the relevant theories about the impact mechanism of individual performance.This will provide a new perspective for the further study.