Deciding on equity or parity: a test of situational, cultural, and individual factors
研究美国人和香港中国人在分配奖金时,如何受个体主义-集体主义文化、任务相互依赖性和系统目标的影响,发现情境因素比文化因素更能预测分配偏好。
Previous cross-cultural research in distributive justice has neglected the situational and individual determinants of allocation preferences. This study incorporated the cultural value of Individualism–Collectivism (I–C), situational demands of task interdependence and system goals, and individual achievement motivation to examine their effects on the allocation decisions made by U.S. Americans and Hong Kong Chinese. It was found that the Americans and the Chinese in the study responded to situational demands in a similar fashion, i.e. equity was preferred under circumstances of low interdependence and the productivity goal whereas parity was preferred under circumstances of high interdependence and the solidarity goal. It was also found that in the U.S., I–C had no significant relation with the allocation differential (between the bonus amounts for the highest and the lowest performer), and the achievement motivation interacts with levels of interdependence and with goal priorities; in Hong Kong, both I–C and the achievement motivation related negatively to the allocation differential. Research and managerial implications for international management were discussed. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.