Framing jobs as for the greater good suppresses pay demands

When considering career options, candidates are often faced with a choice: a high salary for work that is potentially non-meaningful, or meaningful work that pays much less. Research has suggested that despite lower financial rewards, many people are willing to go for the second option — a new study, published in Organization Science, explores why. 

In the first study, 392 participants (recruited online) were given a description of what an organisation might communicate about the nature of its work. In the 'social impact' condition, participants read that organisations often emphasise their mission to "serve the good" and "make the world a better place", and that they seek employees who also want to make a positive impact. In the control condition, participants read a more neutral description of a company that simply seeks to achieve its goals without mentioning any social claims. 

Participants were then asked to enter the name of a company they thought fit the description they saw, and imagine they received a job offer from them. After that, they answered whether they would feel comfortable asking the hiring manager for a higher salary, and to elaborate on why or why not. 

Analyses revealed a 32% decrease in the odds of asking for a higher salary from those in the social impact condition, a marginally significant result. In terms of why participants would not negotiate in the social impact condition, reasons included perceived inappropriateness, including that it would "contradict the premise of the job" itself. A second study also found that placing emphasis on an organisation's social impact made participants concerned about violating the norms of these seemingly more charitable organisations. 

In the next study, a set of participants took part in a scenario-based simulation. Here, 835 online participants were told they would take on the role as a middle school teacher applying for jobs. After being split into two groups, each group watched a video providing information about their potential new company: those in the social impact condition saw a video for a socially-conscious organisation called TeachToChange, and those in the control condition saw a video for a company called AfterTeach which had no particular focus on social impact. 

Participants then answered questions on how comfortable they would be asking for extra compensation, how likely they would be to ask for a higher salary, and how much more money they would ask for in that situation. The team also explored whether participants felt that the organisation would be struggling with financial resources, how meaningful they might find the work, and whether they felt the organisation would be supportive of their wellbeing.

Again, participants in the social impact condition were less likely to negotiate pay than those in the control condition. In fact, even the participants willing to ask for higher compensation requested less than those in the control condition. This may suggest that job candidates believe organisations focused on social impact are less able to afford higher pay, and/or may be indicative that even the boldest job seekers feel held back by assumed norms. A final study replicated these findings across the different industries and occupations, including education, finance, food manufacturing, and health. 

Overall, the study suggests that social impact framing can put candidates under pressure to censor their desire for higher compensation. As the team notes, however, some people may willingly accept less in exchange for meaningful work, which this study did not take into consideration. Somewhat cruelly, however, low pay could undermine any psychological benefits jobseekers may anticipate from doing meaningful work. 

It is likely that many organisations are fully aware of this effect, and may employ it to keep costs down. So, if you are in a position to negotiate, be sure to resist the pressure and ask for what you're worth.

Read the article in full: https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.1675