Wage Inequality and the Organization of Work: The Case of Academic Departments

The authors gratefully acknowlege the assistance of Alison Konrad in constructing the data files. The comments of Marshall Meyer and three anonymous ASQ reviewers were very helpful. The first author thanks the Graduate School of Business and the Robert M. and Anne T. Bass Faculty Fellowship for generous research support. This research was completed while the second author was a National Institute of Aging postdoctoral trainee in the Organizations Research Training Program at Stanford University. Data from 1,805 academic departments in 303 colleges and universities were used to examine the effect of the organization of work on wage variation within departments. Private control, larger departmental size, and a greater tendency to work alone were all associated with more dispersed wages; more social contact among departmental members, more democratic and participative departmental governance, and more demographic homogeneity were associated with more equal salary distributions. The results are consistent with social psychological theories of reward allocation that have emphasized the importance of norms, social contact, and social relations as critical factors in the allocation process.