Question

Megan graduated from college three years ago and has been working at Sterba Inc. ever since. A conscientious employee, she has consistently received good performance evaluations. She recently found out that a younger colleague, who was just recruited to her team, is drawing a higher salary than she is for doing the same type of work. Following this discovery, Megan starts coming to work late and her productivity begins to suffer. Which of the following is most similar to the scenario mentioned above based on the equity theory?
A) Dawn starts coming to work early and stays late once she learns that the mid-term review is around the corner.
B) Greg believes he works harder than any of the other members in his department as they often leave the office before him.
C) Lisa starts working longer hours after learning that her co-workers earn less than she does for the same work.
D) Myrtle produces a higher number of units to compensate for the lower quality of her output.
E) Beth submits her resignation after she was passed over for promotion for the second time.

Answer 1

Answer: C) Lisa starts working longer hours after learning that her co-workers earn less than she does for the same work.

Explanation:

The Equity Theory was posited by John Stacey Adams in 1963 and it argued that 2 key components in motivating employees are fairness and equity. This means that employees are more motivated when they feel they have getting the same outputs as their relevant colleagues for the inputs they put in if those inputs are the same as their relevant colleagues as well. If employees have reason to believe that there is no fairness in output, they will adjust their input to match the level of Equity they believe in. This is what Megan did by starting to reduce her productivity in response to not getting the same salary.

Lisa also subscribes to this theory because she saw that she was getting more output for the same amount of input as others. She therefore adjusted her input to be more than theirs so that the output she received would be fairer.