Paulo Goelzer

O ne of the most difficult challenges for the field of international management is the application of theories and models developed in one part of the world to understand phenomena that occur in another part of the world. Much of the early concern about this issue concentrated on the relevance of American theories abroad. But more recently, the same problem has been faced by Japanese theories of quality control and knowledge creation; or by European theories of joint ventures or organizational design. The goal of these efforts is to develop a useful general frame of reference, but also allow for the needed sensitivity to local variation. Some of the biggest challenges for developing theories with cross-cultural relevance come in the area of organizational studies. Differences in behavior, work values, and culture have been studied by many researchers in many different countries. Several frameworks have proven useful for understanding cultural differences (e.g., Trompenaars and Hofst...

ABSTRACT This study examines how perceived in-role (or horizontal) pay differences and understanding of the pay system influence three key performance-related attitudes, namely, organizational commitment, willingness to cooperate, and intent to quit, both directly and indirectly via perceived pay fairness. Toward this end, we apply structural equation modeling to self-report survey-based evidence collected from full-time employees in a major United States supermarket licensing group (n = 159). As expected, perception of wide pay differences was negatively related to pay fairness, while pay understanding was positively related to it. Pay fairness played a pivotal mediating role in strengthening organizational commitment and reducing intent to quit. Cooperation was also influenced directly and negatively by pay differences. Contrary to predictions, however, we found that pay fairness did not mediate the relationship between pay differences and cooperation. Implications for compensation theory and practice are considered.