EQUITY, EQUALITY, OR NEED - THE EFFECTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE ON THE ALLOCATION OF BENEFITS AND BURDENS

Individuals' concerns with entitlements and fairness are important in determining outcomes of negotiations. This paper examines the effects of organizational culture and resource valence on the decision rules i ndividuals enact in creating fair resource allocations, It was hypothe sized that organizational culture (economically oriented, relationship -oriented, or personal development-oriented) would determine which dis tribution principle (equity, equality, or need) group members would us e to allocate resources. Valence of the resources also was predicted t o influence allocation decision and processes. Participants role-playe d the negotiation of resource allocations across three divisions of a company. Results generally supported the hypothesized links between cu lture and the resource distribution used by the principles. Significan t differences also were found between the allocation of positively val enced and negatively valenced resources. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.