Conroy, S. A., Yoon, Y. J.
(2015)
This paper contributes to academic literature by identifying the compelling need to conduct more compensation research. Information has been collected from panel discussions
during the 2016 Academy of Management Conference to investigate future research directions, connections between micro and macro perspectives, as well as publication
challenges.
Q1
Under-researched Areas
1. The impact of sharing economy on pay
2. Benefits
3. Compensation and benefits structure in small
businesses
4. The relative efficacy of merit pay versus bonus pay
Q1
Most important topics (micro/macro)
1. More research required to investigate the
detrimental impact of poorly designed and poorly
communicated performance-based pay systems
2. Big knowledge gap in understanding how incentives
motivate group or team behaviors
3. The role of social psychological factors should be
investigated when studying the effects of
compensation practices
Topic 1: Future Research Directions
Q2
Future trend on wage inequality research
1. Investigate the impact of transparency on
inequality
2. Investigate the mechanisms how pay
practices affect inequality
Topic 2: Connect Micro and Macro Perspectives
Q2
Biggest challenges of consolidation
1. Lack of good theories at the macro-level
2. Lack of strong theory to help explain
individual and organizational responses to
incentives
3. Editors and reviewers have unrealistic
standards that work against authors and
enforce norms
4. The consolidation practice raises issues of
the validity and appropriateness of cross-
level generalizations
Q3
Theories applicable to compensation research
1. Signaling theory and affective events theory are valuable
2. No theories from other disciplines may not necessary
3. Open to new perspectives, but existing theories are strong
foundations
Q3
Strategies to avoid common mistakes in consolidation
1. Work with more varied authors who have different backgrounds
and perspectives to avoid too narrowly focused on our own
literatures
2. Over-emphasis on data analysis and the use of complicated
statistical techniques, but under-emphasis on the quality of the
data collected and generated
3. A considerable amount of compensation research is based on
existing data sets obtained from publicly available sources which
are not collected for research purposes
 Topic 3: Publication Challenges on Compensation Research

Q1 Q2 Q3
Variations in different publication outlets Avoid common mistakes in publishing Challenges and Recommendations on data collection
compensation research

1. The biggest challenge is to obtain data relevant to research

1. Psychologists examine motivational issues (intrinsic 1. The mistake of generalizing research when it projects, because most companies are very concerned about the
and extrinsic motivation) is based on a micro experimental study confidentiality of their compensation data
2. Economist study the topic of executive 2. Some research are context-specific to the 2. When it comes to employee surveys, large companies don’t want
compensation and government policies experiment and cannot be applied to real-world their employees to be overwhelmed with too many surveys
compensation settings
3. Management scholars tend to study a wide range 3. Building a trustworthy relationship with practitioners is very
3. Many articles are unclear about important, and it’s also a great idea to suggest free consulting
4. Marketing scholars tend to investigate conceptualizing constructs and use of theories projects to companies in exchange for data
compensation issues of sales force
4. Some research articles gloss over complexity 4. Alumni network is a highly underutilized networking opportunity
5. Accounting and finance professors are very similar and make inappropriate assumptions for researchers
to economists
5. A good way to increase the possibility of
6. Sociologists are more macro-focused and frequently paper getting published is to use more 5. Working with consulting companies and conducting an
examine the issue of wage inequality and advanced methodologies that address common experiment are great substitutes for obtaining confidential
discrimination statistical issues compensation data and information

Insights and connections to my own areas of research interests

Since my area of research interest is to investigate the causes and effects of occupational fraud on the all levels of an organization, studying academic literature in compensation
research would bring me new insights into the impact of various compensation mechanisms on individual motivation and subsequently organizational behavior. Through deeper
investigation of wage inequality, I would develop better understanding regarding causes and effects of wage inequity and its connection to the increased motivation and
rationalization to commit occupational fraud in a individual basis.

Furthermore, my research on investigating collusion (collective fraud) is consistent with the need to narrow “the big knowledge gap in understanding how incentives motivate
group or team behaviors”. For example, I may investigate the impact of compensation systems on organizational behaviour (organizational culture), and then the influence of a
toxic culture on the likelihood of motivating employees to engage in collective fraud, and the impact of social psychological factors on compensation practices will also be
thoroughly examined in this process.

Overall, the future prospect of my research aspiration is supported by this article, since “more research is required to investigate the detrimental impact of poorly designed and
poorly communicated performance-based pay systems.”
Research questions to be investigated

1. What is the influence of organizational culture on compensation system transparency and inequity?

2. What’s the influence of business strategy (cost strategy, differentiation, niche strategy) on the design of its compensation system and subsequently individual and team
performance?
Xavier, B. (2014)

This article contributed to academic literature through identifying and recommending future research directions. The results of recent investigations by Vierick Business School;s
Centre for Excellence in Strategic Rewards were obtained and reviewed in order to gain valuable insights into diverse perspectives of various stakeholders. This initiative would
allow guarantee that future research is practical and relevant to stakeholders’ needs so as to fill the “Research to Practice” gap.

Stakeholders' Perspectives on Compensation and Benefits

Managers Front-line Employees Practitioners

Managers believe that compensation According to employees’ survey results, the

and benefits policies and systems do
not achieve their strategic role, and
this is probably due to the lack of a
well-thought-out reward strategy.
main problem lies in the way compensation
and benefits are managed, rather than in
the actual salary and bonus levels. This
finding is also consistent with the fact that
the worst scoring items deal with procedural
justice. Similar to the insights from
managers, input by front-line employees
also suggest the need to develop and
implement a clear reward strategy.
Just like managers and front-line employees, practitioners are interested in reward
processes and procedures, and reward communication is the most popular topic among
practitioners who believe it’s most challenging and most under-researched. Besides
procedural and communication concerns, practitioners have strong interest in the impact of
external business context and the regulatory context on stakeholders’ opinions on
compensation and benefits.
 From Perspectives to Future Research Initiatives

External Environment Employee Perspectives Total Rewards Reward Procedures

1. Since aging is a global trend,
researchers need to investigate
what reward instruments are most
successful in retaining and
motivating older employees, and
how such reward system should be
designed and implemented
2. Future research should
investigate the impact of
geographic and cultural differences
on specific reward systems
3. It’s crucial to investigate the
interactions between various
reward strategies and macro-level
economic situations and outlooks to
enable organizations to remain
competitive
Future research on investigating the impact
of employee participation in the design and
implementation of compensation and
benefits management systems is required,
as well as assessing workers’ attitudes and
preferences for various types of reward
systems
Very limited research has been devoted to the
investigation of integrated approach to rewards.
The traditional research focused too much on
cash compensation, employee benefits and
non-financial rewards are very under-
researched topics. Therefore, there is a
compelling need to develop an inventory of non-
financial rewards. Another area deserves a
greater amount of research is strategic
alignment of compensation and reward systems
with business strategy, firm culture, structure
and other HR policies in order to develop truly
integrated reward policies.
Future research initiatives are required to
investigate the specific impact of
performance management process on
the effectiveness of performance-related
pay. Moreover, more work is needed to
examine the impact of various forms of
performance--driven compensation
management processes and the
conditions under which the system
operates on the effectiveness of
performance-related pay. Furthermore,
the study of the effectiveness of hybrid
systems of variable remuneration are
more successful in comparison to other
systems is also a promising field of
compensation research. Finally,
increased research on reward
communication is crucial for improving
employee feelings about procedural
justice.

Insights and connections to my own areas of research interests

The suggestion on investigating the impact of external environment on the design and effectiveness of compensation systems helped me come up with the idea of researching
the impact of COVID-19 on the performance compensation systems. Since the effect of disruptive events is like a stress test, and the weaker systems tend to collapse or give
rise to very unfavorable effects such as occupational fraud (asset misappropriation at lower level of the organizational hierarchy, and corruption and fraudulent financial
statements, collusion at the executive level), because the pandemic may have severely increased employees’ financial pressure at all levels, therefore under poorly designed
and administered compensation systems, they have increased motivation to engage in financial crimes and are much more likely to rationalize their wrongdoings.

Research questions to be investigated

What’s the impact of the pandemic on employees’ (intrinsic and extrinsic) motivation? And how does the changes in their motivation affect their perception of compensation
systems? And how the changes in their perception influence their individual and team performance, and the incentive to engage in various types of occupational fraud?