Having limited information regarding how pay is distributed in their organization, employees often find it difficult to assess the fairness of their pay. Uncertainty management theory (UMT) posits that fairness uncertainty is aversive and that individuals experiencing it search for information to reduce this uncertainty. Pay information exchange – the communication of one's pay-related information to others in return for information from that other – provides a mechanism to reduce pay information uncertainty. We focus on third-party mediated pay information exchange (such as via Glassdoor and PayScale), an increasingly prevalent form of exchange. Drawing on UMT, we investigate why and when individuals exchange their pay information with such agents. Using data from a field experiment we find that (a) the willingness of employees to disclose their pay to a pay information exchange platform is influenced by perceived utility of a-priori information offered by the exchange partner, but that this relationship depends on the salience of fairness uncertainty to the employee, and (b) employer pay communication restrictiveness only attenuates the impact of disclosure willingness on actual disclosure when individuals engage in deliberative thinking about such restrictiveness and its possible consequences. We discuss the implications for theory and practice.

中文翻译：

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公平不确定性与薪酬信息交换：员工为何以及何时向薪酬信息网站披露奖金

由于有关组织内薪酬分配方式的信息有限，员工常常发现很难评估其薪酬的公平性。不确定性管理理论（UMT）认为，公平的不确定性是令人厌恶的，经历这种不确定性的个人会寻找信息来减少这种不确定性。薪酬信息交换——将一个人的薪酬相关信息传达给其他人以换取其他人的信息——提供了一种减少薪酬信息不确定性的机制。我们专注于第三方中介的支付信息交换（例如通过 Glassdoor 和 PayScale），这是一种日益流行的交换形式。利用 UMT，我们调查个人为何以及何时与此类代理交换薪资信息。使用现场实验的数据，我们发现（a）员工向薪酬信息交换平台披露其薪酬的意愿受到交换伙伴提供的先验信息的感知效用的影响，但这种关系取决于显着性(b) 当个人认真思考这种限制性及其可能的后果时，雇主薪酬沟通限制只会减弱披露意愿对实际披露的影响。我们讨论对理论和实践的影响。