Pursuant to legislative mandates the proportion of job postings that include wage and salary information has rapidly increased. However, many organizations comply by advertising very broad salary ranges. Here, we examine how the width of a pay range influences prospective applicants' perceptions. Although in other contexts people often exhibit a preference for vaguely specified gains, we draw from decision and signaling theories to hypothesize negative reactions to highly ambiguous pay ranges and test them in three preregistered experiments. In Study 1, business students evaluate a job posting with the width of the salary range manipulated between subjects. Study 2 tests for moderating effects of ambiguity explanations using a within-subjects manipulation of pay range width counterbalanced across two job postings and a sample of college graduates with relevant work experience. In Study 3, a diverse sample of recent job seekers predict a salary offer for a hiring vignette in which both the extent of ambiguity in the advertised pay range and the chosen candidate's qualifications are manipulated; their qualitative impressions of the organization are also analyzed. Results provide converging evidence for modal aversion to high ambiguity resulting from negative effects on perceived organizational trustworthiness and skewed predictions of salary offers. Practical implications of this aspect of pay transparency are discussed, as well as broader theoretical implications for understanding outcome ambiguity effects in domains where decision makers vary in their beliefs about underlying reasons for vagueness in communicated information. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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薪酬广告中的模糊性：名义上遵守薪酬透明度立法的招聘影响。


根据立法规定，包含工资和薪资信息的职位发布比例迅速增加。然而，许多组织通过宣传非常广泛的薪资范围来遵守这一规定。在这里，我们研究了薪酬范围的宽度如何影响潜在申请人的看法。尽管在其他情况下，人们经常表现出对模糊指定收益的偏好，但我们从决策和信号理论中汲取经验，假设对高度模糊的薪酬范围的负面反应，并在三个预先注册的实验中对其进行测试。在研究 1 中，商科学生根据科目之间薪资范围的宽度来评估职位发布。研究 2 使用受试者内部对薪酬范围宽度的操纵，在两个职位发布和具有相关工作经验的大学毕业生样本之间进行平衡，来测试模糊性解释的调节效果。在研究 3 中，近期求职者的不同样本预测了招聘片段的薪资报价，其中广告薪资范围的模糊程度和所选候选人的资格都受到操纵；还分析了他们对组织的定性印象。结果提供了对高度模糊性的模式厌恶的一致证据，这种厌恶性是由于对组织可信度的负面影响和对薪资报价的倾斜预测而产生的。讨论了薪酬透明度这一方面的实际影响，以及更广泛的理论影响，以理解决策者对所传达信息模糊的根本原因的看法不同的领域中的结果模糊性影响。 （PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2024 APA，保留所有权利）。