Content area
Full Text
This article presents a comparative study of compensation, by exploring nine items which measure pay and benefits practices in ten locations (nine countries and one region). First, similarities and differences in employee compensation are examined. Second, emerging issues for international compensation are identified. Third, gaps are identified between current practice and employee preferences for future compensation. Overall, the results of this study provide some support for previous research, although a number of counterintuitive findings are identified with respect to the ways in which culture might be expected to impact employee preferences for crosscultural compensation practices. The research suggests several challenges for compensation practice and directions for future research. (c) 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Introduction
The escalating pace of globalization is increasing the need for organizations to develop effective international compensation programs. Though globalization is not a new phenomenon, it is the rapid pace of escalation that has focused attention on international issues in both the business press and the executive suite. In these turbulent and increasingly global competitive markets, no function is under greater scrutiny than the human resource function (Bowker, 1996). Despite the need to attract, motivate, and retain an effective workforce in a variety of foreign locations, the international compensation literature has focused primarily on a small percentage of the international workforce: the expatriate manager. It is important that international compensation scholars begin to extend this focus beyond the expatriate to inform organizations regarding the cross-cultural use and motivational utility of various compensation practices on the larger workforce.
The Purpose of This Article
The purpose of this article is to explore the role of pay and benefits in international compensation from an empirical perspective. This ten-country/region study is exploratory in nature and has three primary objectives. First, to determine what "is now" the current state of practice for a variety of compensation practices (what are the similarities and differences evident in employee compensation in different countries?). Second, to determine to what extent managers feel these compensation practices "should be" utilized in these countries (what constitutes the current ideal in compensation practice?). Third, to identify the gap between what "is now" the state of practice and employee preferences for what "should be" the state of practice for varying compensation forms across these ten...