Global entrepreneurship, income, and work norms: a seven country study.

Carraher, Shawn M. ; Carraher, Sarah C. ; Whitely, William T. 等

ABSTRACT

The subjects used for this study consist of 6,307 individuals from 7 countries examining the influence that work norms have on actual income received across 4 occupational groups--Entrepreneurs, Engineers, Educators, and White Collar Employees--and the general population. Differential prediction is found across the occupational groups with entrepreneurs found to be most similar to teachers--but still having a unique structure of the relationship between work norms and income. Directions for future research are suggested.

INTRODUCTION

Compensation has long been a topic of interest to employees and employers alike. In fact, the use of compensation as a motivator has been traced to antiquity (Peach & Wren, 1992). The concept of an employment relationship implies that employees work in exchange for some reward, and this reward is often monetary compensation (Brockner, 2002; Janssen, 2001). Thus, pay satisfaction has emerged as a popular variable for use in organizational research (for reviews, see Heneman, 1985; Heneman & Schwab, 1979; Miceli & Lane, 1991; Rynes & Gerhart, 2000). Pay satisfaction exhibits significant relationships with organizationally important outcomes such as absenteeism (Weiner, 1980), turnover intentions (Hom & Kinicki, 2001; Steel, Griffith, & Horn, 2002), organizational citizenship behaviors (Lambert, 2000) and job performance (Werner & Mero, 1999).

As noted by Rice, Phillips, and McFarlin (1990), one of the most intriguing findings with respect to pay satisfaction is the modest strength of the relationship between how much an individual is actually paid and that individual's pay satisfaction. Although this relationship typically has been positive and statistically significant, it has generally explained well under 25% of the variance in pay satisfaction. These findings have led others to examine the prediction of pay satisfaction based upon multiple discrepancies or multiple monetary standards of comparison for the individual employee (Law & Wong, 1998) and demographic and psychological variables (Berkowitz, Fraser, Treasure, & Cochran, 1987).

Scholars have noted that comparatively little research advances models of pay and their predictors (Heneman, 1985; Miceli & Lane, 1991; Opsahl & Dunnette, 1966; Rynes & Gerhart, 2000; Williams & Brower, 1996). This could be due to the assertions of some researchers that it is clearly "too early to offer a precise theoretical model of the determinants of income satisfaction" (Berkowitz et al., 1987, p. 546), yet such model development is still needed (Rynes & Gerhart, 2000). This is especially important in the area of individual entrepreneurship as little work has been done examining the compensation practices of entrepreneurial organizations--or for entrepreneurs themselves (Buckley, Carrraher, Ferris, & Carraher, 2001; Parnell, Carraher, & Odom, 2000)--especially across cultures (Box, Beisel, & Watts, 1995; Parnell, Crandall, & Menefee, 1995).

How do people experience work, and how are these experiences linked to the economic outcomes of work? The major intellectual traditions within the study of work have been summarized by Dubin (1976). An examination of within-culture, and cross-cultural studies of why individual's work results in identifying six different central variables--or work norms--which may explain why people work. The first of these is the concept of Work Centrality (Lawler & Hall 1970; MOW international work team 1987; Zedeck, 1992). Work centrality is the general belief about the importance of working within one's life. It can be thought of as the degree to which work is seen as the most important variable for developing one's self-concept or self-image (Super, 1953; 1957; Super et al., 1967).

The second work norm is the view of work as an Obligation to one's employer, society, and/or family--with the obverse of this being work as an entitlement (Erickson & Vallas, 1990; Etzioni, 1961; Kohlberg, 1963; Piaget, 1965; Zedeck, 1992). An individual with this work norm believes that he or she works because they ought to contribute to society (or the employer, or the family, etc.) through work. In essence, the obligation to work norm represents an individual's belief that he or she has a responsibility or duty to contribute to social units.

The third work norm is intrinsic satisfaction (basically being interested in the work itself) or expected intrinsic rewards from working (Hall, 1986; McGregor, 1960). It has been reported that across countries and cultures (with the sole exception of the Far East), next to providing economic support, perceived intrinsic rewards are seen as the most important reasons for working.

The fourth work norm is the interpersonal or Social work norm (Carraher, Buckley, Scott, Parnell & Carraher, 2002; Carraher, Mendoza, Ishaq, Buckley, Carraher & Kerley, 1996, Erikson & Vallas, 1990; Hall, 1986). Humans tend to be social beings and therefore many work in order to have increased opportunities to interact with others.

The fifth major work norm to be explored in this work, which may seem obvious, is that work is performed to produce income necessary for survival (Hall, 1986; Maslow, 1954; Zedeck, 1992)--which we call the Importance of Pay work norm. A study examining the levels of importance placed on the basic functions of work has found that across eight culturally diverse countries over 60% of all individuals identify this as the most important reason for working (MOW international work team, 1987).

The final major work norm is the entitlement work norm. The entitlement work norm relates to whether one feels that they are entitled to employment and a good job. Based upon equity theories, it has been found (Jaques, 1961) that some classes of employees may believe that they are entitled to a particular level of work or income due to personal characteristics such as education, family background, and/or previous work experiences.

RESEARCH PURPOSE

The purpose of the present study is to examine the influence that work norms may have on actual income received globally comparing entrepreneurs to three other professional occupational groups and within the general population.

METHODS

Sample Characteristics

The research design is based upon work published by Carraher and Whitely (1998) using scales from the international Meaning of Work and the actual incomes of respondents. Specifically results from 6,307 individuals from the U.S., Japan, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Yugoslavia are used to examine differences between the influence of work norms on actual income for entrepreneurs, three professional occupational groups, and the general population. Information about each of the scales and the processes used to develop and administer the scales are provided in The Meaning of Work (Mow international research team, 1987).

RESULTS, DISCUSSION, & CONCLUSIONS

As can be seen in Table 1, entrepreneurs tend to earn more if they work because they enjoy their work or because they have a sense of obligation to contribute to their family, their community, and/or society at large. However, we find that there is no relationship between the importance placed upon working for pay, their desire for social interaction, and their feelings of entitlement and an individual entrepreneur's actual level of pay.

Turning to Tables 2, 3, 4 and 5; we find that for engineers they earn more if they have a sense of obligation to contribute through their work while they earn less if they work because they believe that they are entitled to a good job, out of the desire for social interaction, and in order to make money. Educators, on the other hand, are most similar to entrepreneurs in that they earn more if they have a sense of obligation to contribute through their work and/or if they have intrinsic satisfaction in their work--however, they also make significantly less if their major work norm is to have social interactions through their work.

It is also possible to explain almost twice the variance in the actual incomes of educators than for the entrepreneurs based upon the work norms (18.9% vs 10%)--likely due to the fact that many more factors such as performance and industry can influence the incomes of entrepreneurs. White collar employees then seem to earn more if they feel that they have a sense of obligation to contribute through their work but earn less if they work because they want to earn more money or for social reasons. In the general population all of the work norms are related to actual income--with the exception of Work Centrality. Entitlement, Social, and Pay all have a negative influence on actual income received while Obligation and intrinsic satisfaction both had a positive influence on actual income received.

Based upon the results of our current study, future research should explore what other individual attributes might differentially influence actual pay levels across occupations in a differential manner with particular attention paid to what it is that differentiates entrepreneurs from nonentrepreneurs. For instance based upon research performed in the United States, we believe that it is likely that individual differences in an individual's ability to resist organizational stress as it influences their overall coping abilities--which could influence how well employees are able to adapt to highly stressful, but higher paying, employment (Shalit, 1977; Sullivan & Bhagat, 1992). Additionally, given that it has been found that individuals with different cognitive styles also have differing preferred styles and modes of observing their environment (Myers & McCaulley, 1985; Carraher, 1993), we believe that it is possible that dominant cognitive type or preferred learned style also could potentially influence an individual's dominant work motive, their actual pay levels, and their choice of occupation. It is also likely that individual differences in cognitive complexity, cognitive differentiation, and/or general intelligence might be differentially predictive of actual salaries received across cultures (Carraher & Buckley, 1996; Lance & Scarpello, 1989). While these relationships may be valid across occupations it might be interesting to examine these variables between occupations.

Alternatively, it is also possible that differences in age, organizational tenure, job tenure (Goodwin, 1991), compensation systems (seniority vs merit systems; Li,1985), organizational hierarchical levels (Cotton & McKenna, 1994; Goodwin, 1991) and/or work and team structures (job rotation vs no job rotation, etc.; Cotton 1977, Hollenbeck, LePine, and Ilgen 1996, McCarthy 1989) may be capable of explaining individual differences in pay within cultures and/or occupations--but they may also differentially influence actual pay levels across cultures and occupations (Jaques, 1961). It may also be useful for future research to examining what other work-related outcomes might be influenced by individual work motives. For instance, do individuals with a strong Social work norm tend to cluster within a limited number of industries and/or occupations regardless of culture? Further, how are individual's reasons for working developed across cultures and occupations? Are there similar patterns of development across cultures and occupations or are there even similar developmental patterns based upon life experiences across cultures and occupations? Putting pay of the other side of the prediction equations, it may then be asked if higher pay tends to lead to greater job mobility (DiPrete & Nonnemaker, 1997; Wilk & Sackett, 1996) and occupational satisfaction (Carson, Carson & Phillips, 1996; Judge, Cable & Boudreau, 1995).

It would be interesting to examine questions such as these using multi-trait/multi-method data and/or multi-sample confirmatory factor analysis in order to determine whether the results are sample specific and also whether the results are generalizable across samples. With multi-sample confirmatory factor analysis it is important the remember the influence that the number of samples included has on the statistical results. It is generally preferable to have 3 to 6 samples per multi-sample confirmatory factor analysis (Carraher & Buckley, 1996). Should one desire to examine more than 8 samples then it would be preferable to perform two or more separate analyses or to randomly choose samples and then run a single analysis with no more than 6 samples. Due to the potential of increasing the likelihood that results due to chance occurrences could be observed with multiple multi-sample confirmatory factor analyses, it is the second of these suggestions that would be more preferable.

Another interesting area for study suggested by Scarpello and Carraher (1997) is whether entrepreneurial orientation influences the relationship between reasons for working and actual pay received--especially within professional level employees and entrepreneurs. They have suggested that the relationship between reasons for working and the actual pay received should be strongest for self-employed individuals and weakest for those in industrialized, unionized settings where workers may have little real influence on their actual wages. We also believe that more work should be done examining the sense of obligation to make a contribution through ones work as this was found to be such a power influence on actual income received in this study.

It is hoped that this short study can help guide future researchers in the examination of the importance of how ones reasons for working can influence the outcomes received from working across cultures within occupations. With this study we have sought to help create a better understanding in the relationship between reasons for working and actual pay levels received--and hopefully assist help future researchers to develop models about the influence of work norms on actual pay received within occupations. It appears that in professional occupations that the stronger ones sense of their obligation to make a contribution through their job the more that they earn. Additionally, it appears that cross-occupationally, the stronger ones desire for social interactions from work, the less will be ones pay and that while the relationship between individual work norms and income is most similar for the entrepreneurs and the teachers that the entrepreneurs still have a unique identity among the occupational groups.

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Shawn M. Carraher, Texas A & M University--Commerce

Sarah C. Carraher, Texas A & M University--Commerce

William T. Whitely, University of Oklahoma

Table 1: Entrepreneurs

Multiple R .3164
R Square .1001
Adjusted R Square .0886
Standard Error 1089.29577

Analysis of Variance DF Sum of Squares Mean Square

Regression 6 62148878.60050 10358146.43342
Residual 471 558872243.56059 1186565.27295
F 8.72952 Signif F .00001

Variable B SE B Beta

Entitlement 81.470506 103.994449 .035105
Work Central 2.799370 6.014815 .021635
Social 9.111768 7.057538 .059310
Intrinsic Sat. 28.581235 9.725662 .137337
Obligation 608.612670 95.292801 .296230
Pay 10.939088 6.954566 .074638
(Constant) 3300.874872 957.466948

Variable T Sig T

Entitlement .783 .4338
Work Central .465 .6419
Social 1.291 .1973
Intrinsic Sat. 2.939 .0035
Obligation 6.387 .0001
Pay 1.573 .1164
(Constant) 3.448 .0006

Table 2: Engineers

Multiple R .33123
R Square .10972
Adjusted R Square .09808
Standard Error 1469.53241

Analysis of Variance DF Sum of Squares Mean Square

Regression 6 122154332.68065 20359055.44678
Residual 459 991222202.40089 2159525.49543
F 9.42756 Signif F .00001

Variable B SE B Beta

Entitlement 350.036206 147.964315 .10547
Work Central 3.657807 10.329310 .01644
Social 48.309775 12.477399 .18045
Intr. Sat 20.470233 15.470690 .06133
Obligation 696.209536 161.980409 .19775
PAY 39.120082 10.916012 .17284
(Constant) 3764.239268 1614.704223

Variable T Sig T

Entitlement 2.366 .0184
Work Central .354 .7234
Social 3.872 .0001
Intr. Sat 1.323 .1864
Obligation 4.298 .0001
PAY 3.584 .0004
(Constant) 2.331 .0202

Table 3: Teachers

Multiple R .43429
R Square .18861
Adjusted R Square .17976
Standard Error 686.75299

Analysis of Variance DF Sum of Squares Mean Square

Regression 6 60296974.79721 10049495.7995
Residual 550 259396317.66598 471629.6685
F 21.30802 Signif F .0000001

Variable B SE B Beta

Entitlement 20.156316 73.654468 .010687
Work Central. 1.867839 4.482575 .016620
Pay 1.253011 4.486225 .011493
Obligation 490.716044 58.827645 .333750
Intrinsic Sat. 16.695508 6.431315 .102937
Social 23.461882 4.760499 .202633
(Constant) 303.364626 638.283586

Variable T Sig T

Entitlement .274 .7844
Work Central. .417 .6771
Pay .279 .7801
Obligation 8.342 .0001
Intrinsic Sat. 2.596 .0097
Social 4.928 .0001
(Constant) .475 .6348

Table 4: White Collar Employees

Multiple R .35235
R Square .12415
Adjusted R Square .11535
Standard Error 799.18807

Analysis of Variance DF Sum of Squares Mean Square

Regression 6 54050631.49116 9008438.58186
Residual 597 381304841.69262 638701.57737
F 14.10430 Signif F .00001

Variable B SE B Beta

Entitlement 54.172880 81.712677 .025962
Pay 22.718926 4.562652 .199990
Work Central 0.443415 4.293434 .004123
Intrinsic Sat. 7.061407 6.429295 .042636
Obligation 391.851106 70.589754 .224546
Social 21.221300 5.101138 .168973
(Constant) 1623.437679 646.180621

Variable T Sig T

Entitlement .663 .5076
Pay 4.979 .0001
Work Central .103 .9178
Intrinsic Sat. 1.098 .2725
Obligation 5.551 .0001
Social 4.160 .0001
(Constant) 2.512 .0123

Table 5: General Population

Multiple R .30753
R Square .09458
Adjusted R Square .09334
Standard Error 962.76953

Analysis of Variance DF Sum of Squares Mean Square

Regression 6 425538874.41492 70923145.73582
Residual 4395 4073836147.70867 926925.17582
F 76.51442 Signif F .0000001

Variable B SE B Beta

Entitlement 144.431372 33.317761 .062789
Work Central 2.461696 1.895356 .019375
Pay 10.753453 1.999066 .084491
Obligation 439.807354 29.717750 .220308
Int. Sat. 16.325154 2.796920 .088444
Social 21.326386 2.275713 .143647
(Constant) 528.551043 293.674612

Variable T Sig T

Entitlement 4.335 .0001
Work Central 1.299 .1941
Pay 5.379 .0001
Obligation 14.799 .0001
Int. Sat. 5.837 .0001
Social 9.371 .0001
(Constant) 1.800 .0720