Making sense of egalitarian pay: Reconceptualising its treatment in organisations

In this paper, we offer an intraorganisational sensemaking perspective on how organisational members interpret egalitarian forms of pay. Specific focus is given to managerial (non)communication of diverse rationales for egalitarian pay practices. We integrate a wide range of research and descriptive accounts to organise schema-relevant concepts into a typology of rationales that inform the sensemaking process, as ultimately observed in employee receptivity and response to egalitarian pay practices. The culmination of our conceptual development is a prescriptive framework on organisational communication of egalitarian pay practices to its members. We offer a future research agenda and propositions to test the validity of this developed framework and conclude with a discussion of limitations and theoretical and practical implications.