The pay gap between those in leadership positions and other organisational members has risen markedly over the last five decades. There is evidence that this gap may undermine subordinate identification with and evaluation of the organisation and its leaders. To date, however, there is limited evidence that this gap affects related subordinate behaviour, including their willingness to follow their leader’s commands and work for the organisational public good. To address this, we ran two pre-registered experiments (Study 1: N = 318; Study 2: N = 327) that examined participants’ real effort behaviour in temporary ‘organisations’ with a small or large leader-worker pay gap. We varied whether this pay gap was exogenously determined (Study 1), or endogenously chosen by the leader (Study 2). In both studies, workers in large (versus small) pay gap organisations were less likely to identify with their leader and organisation and reported poorer affective well-being. They were also less willing, at least initially, to follow their leader’s commands. When the size of the pay gap was endogenously chosen by the leader, workers in large (versus small) gap organisations reduced their contributions to the public good. We discuss implications for organisational leadership and performance.

中文翻译：

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追随者介意薪酬差距吗？纵向薪酬差距对领导者效能影响的实验测试


在过去的五十年里，担任领导职务的人与其他组织成员之间的薪酬差距显著扩大。有证据表明，这种差距可能会破坏下属对组织及其领导者的认同和评估。然而，迄今为止，有限的证据表明这种差距影响了相关的下属行为，包括他们愿意听从领导的命令并为组织的公共利益而努力。为了解决这个问题，我们进行了两个预先注册的实验（研究 1：N = 318;研究 2：N = 327），该研究考察了参与者在领导与员工薪酬差距较小或较大的临时“组织”中的实际努力行为。我们调整了这种薪酬差距是外生决定的（研究 1），还是领导者内生选择的（研究 2）。在这两项研究中，大型（与小型）薪酬差距组织的员工不太可能认同他们的领导者和组织，并且报告的情感幸福感较差。他们也不太愿意听从领袖的命令，至少在最初是这样。当薪酬差距的大小由领导者内生选择时，大型（相对于小型）差距组织中的员工会减少他们对公共利益的贡献。我们讨论了对组织领导力和绩效的影响。