Do followers mind the pay gap? An experimental test of the impact of the vertical pay gap on leader effectiveness
通过两个实验（样本量分别为318和327），研究领导与员工之间的薪酬差距如何影响下属对领导者的认同、服从意愿以及公共贡献行为，发现大薪酬差距会降低下属认同感和服从意愿，且当差距由领导者自主决定时，下属的公共贡献也会减少。
The pay gap between those in leadership positions and other organisational members has risen markedly over the last five decades. There is evidence that this gap may undermine subordinate identification with and evaluation of the organisation and its leaders. To date, however, there is limited evidence that this gap affects related subordinate behaviour, including their willingness to follow their leader’s commands and work for the organisational public good. To address this, we ran two pre-registered experiments (Study 1: N = 318; Study 2: N = 327) that examined participants’ real effort behaviour in temporary ‘organisations’ with a small or large leader-worker pay gap. We varied whether this pay gap was exogenously determined (Study 1), or endogenously chosen by the leader (Study 2). In both studies, workers in large (versus small) pay gap organisations were less likely to identify with their leader and organisation and reported poorer affective well-being. They were also less willing, at least initially, to follow their leader’s commands. When the size of the pay gap was endogenously chosen by the leader, workers in large (versus small) gap organisations reduced their contributions to the public good. We discuss implications for organisational leadership and performance.