Drawing on a unique survey of US workers with information about their employers’ policies on pay discussions and whether workers engage in such talk with their coworkers, we provide the most comprehensive investigation into pay talk in workplaces to date. Unlike existing treatments, we focus on core organizational and relational factors that influence whether workers talk about pay. We theorize pay talk as a challenge to managerial discretion, and we hypothesize that organizational attributes related to pay-setting influence workers’ willingness to discuss wages and salaries with colleagues. Managers, in turn, combat such challenges to their discretion by instituting pay secrecy rules. Particular relational factors within organizations are related to workers’ violations of these rules. Findings indicate that the likelihood of pay discussions varies by workplace pay secrecy rules, managerial relations within organizations, and, in certain model specifications, sector and career turning points. Among status characteristics, only age is associated with discussing pay, with younger workers significantly more likely to talk about pay and to violate organizational rules meant to suppress pay discussions.

中文翻译：

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现代工作场所的薪酬谈话


利用对美国员工的独特调查，了解雇主的薪酬讨论政策以及员工是否与同事进行此类对话，我们对工作场所的薪酬谈话进行了迄今为止最全面的调查。与现有的治疗方法不同，我们关注影响员工是否谈论薪酬的核心组织和关系因素。我们从理论上将薪酬谈话理论化为对管理层自由裁量权的挑战，并假设与薪酬设定相关的组织属性会影响员工与同事讨论工资和薪水的意愿。反过来，经理们通过制定薪酬保密规则来应对此类挑战。组织内的特定关系因素与工人违反这些规则有关。研究结果表明，薪酬讨论的可能性因工作场所薪酬保密规则、组织内部的管理关系以及某些模型规范中的行业和职业转折点而异。在地位特征中，只有年龄与讨论薪酬有关，年轻员工明显更有可能谈论薪酬并违反旨在压制薪酬讨论的组织规则。