Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t8hqh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T06:08:32.941Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Price of Equality: Suboptimal Resource Allocations across Social Categories

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Stephen M. Garcia ,
Max H. Bazerman ,
Shirli Kopelman ,
Avishalom Tor  and
Dale T. Miller
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explores the influence of social categories on the perceived trade-off between a relatively bad but equal distribution of resources between two parties and a profit maximizing yet unequal one. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people prefer to maximize profits when interacting within their social category, but chose not to maximize individual and joint profits when interacting across social categories. Study 3 demonstrated that outside observers, who were not members of the focal social categories, also were less likely to maximize profits when resources were distributed across social category lines. Study 4 showed that the transaction utility of maximizing profits required greater compensation when resources were distributed across, in contrast to within social categories. We discuss the ethical implications of these decision making biases in the context of organizations.

Type
Special Issue Behavioral Ethics: A New Empirical Perspective on Business Ethics Research
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , January 2010 , pp. 75 - 88
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Abrams, D., & Hogg, M. A. 1988. Comments on the motivational status of self-esteem in social identity and intergroup discrimination. European Journal of Social Psychology, 18: 317–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Adams, J. S. 1963. Toward an understanding of inequality. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 67: 422–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashforth, B. E., & Anand, V. 2003. The normalization of corruption in organizations. Research in Organizational Behavior, 25: 1–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bazerman, M. H., Loewenstein, G. F., & White, S. B. 1992. Reversals of preference in allocation decisions: Judging an alternative versus choosing among alternatives. Administrative Science Quarterly, 37 (Special Issue: Process and outcome: Perspectives on the distribution of rewards in organizations): 220–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bazerman, M. H., Schroth, H. A., Shah, P. P., Diekmann, K. A., & Tenbrunsel, A. 1994. The inconsistent role of comparison others and procedural justice in reactions to hypothetical job descriptions: Implications for job acceptance decisions. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 60: 326–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bazerman, M. H., White, S. B., & Loewenstein, G. F. 1995. Perceptions of fairness in interpersonal and individual choice situations. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 4: 39–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, M. 2004. The ethics of compensation systems. Journal of Business Ethics, 52: 149–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blount, S., and Bazerman, M. H. 1996, Inconsistencies in valuing comparative payoffs: Implications for bargaining and trade. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organizations, 30: 1–14.Google Scholar
Brockner, J., Siegel, P. A., Daly, J. P., Tyler, T., & Martin, C. 1997. When trust matters: The moderating effect of outcome favorability. Administrative Science Quarterly, 42: 558–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deaux, K. 1996. Social identification. In Higgins, E. T. & Kruglanski, A. W. (Eds.), Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles: 777–98. New York: The Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Deutsch, M. 1985. Distributive justice. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Garcia, S. M., Darley, J. D., & Robinson, R. J. 2001. Morally questionable tactics: Negotiations between district attorneys and public defenders. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 27: 731–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, S. M., & Miller, D. T. 2007. Social categories and group preference disputes: The aversion to winner-take-all solutions. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 10: 581–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, S. M., Tor, A., Bazerman, M. H., & Miller, D. T. 2005. Profit maximization versus disadvantageous inequality: The impact of self-categorization. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 18: 187–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garcia, S. M., & Ybarra, O. 2007. People accounting: Social category-based choice. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43: 802–09.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gaertner, S. L., & Dovidio, J. F. 2000. Reducing intergroup bias: The common ingroup identity model. Philadelphia: Psychology Press / Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Gaertner, S. L., Dovidio, J. F., Anastasio, P. A., Bachman, B. A., & Rust, M. C. 1993. The common ingroup identity model: Recategorization and the reduction of intergroup bias. In Stroebe, W. & Hewstone, M. (Eds.), European review of social psychology: vol. 4. pp. 1–26. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J., & Bies, R. J. 1992. Establishing the role of empirical studies of organizational justice in philosophical inquiries into business ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 11: 433–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, J., & Cropanzano, R. 2001. Advances in organizational justice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Haidt, J. 2001. The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108: 814–34.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Haidt, J. 2003. The moral emotions. In Davidson, R. J., Scherer, K. R., and Goldsmith, H. H. (Eds.) Handbook of affective sciences: 852–70. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hogg, M. A., & Hains, S. C. 2001. Intergroup relations and group solidarity: Effects of group identification and social beliefs on depersonalized attraction. In Hogg, M.A. & Abrams, D. (Eds). Intergroup relations: Essential readings. Key readings in social psychology. Philadelphia: Psychology Press/Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar
Hogg, M. A., & Mullin, B. A. 1999. Joining groups to reduce uncertainty: Subjective uncertainty reduction and group identification. In Abrams, D. & Hogg, M. A. (Eds.), Social identity and social cognition: 249–79. Oxford, England: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hogg, M. A., & Terry, D. J. 2000. Social identity and self-categorization processes in organizational contexts. Academy of Management Review, 25: 121–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopelman, S. 2008. The influence of group culture on cooperation in social dilemmas. In Biel, A., Eek, D., Garling, T., & Gustafson, M. (Eds.), New issues and paradigms in research on social dilemmas: chap. 11, pp. 177–88. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopelman, S. 2009. The effect of culture and power on cooperation in commons dilemmas: Implications for global resource management. Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108: 153–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewenstein, G. F., Thompson, L., & Bazerman, M. H. 1989. Social utility and decision making in interpersonal contexts. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 57: 426–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayer, D. M., Kuenzi, M., Greenbaum, R., Bardes, M., & Salvador, R. 2009. How low does ethical leadership flow? Test of a trickle-down model. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108: 1–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messick, D. M. 1993. Equality as a decision heuristic. In Mellers, B. A. B. J. (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on justice: Theory and applications. Cambridge series on judgment and decision making: 11–31. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messick, D. M., & McClintock, C. G. 1968. Motivational Bases of Choice in Experimental Games. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 4(1): 1–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Messick, D. M., & Sentis, K. P. 1985. Estimating social and nonsocial utility functions from ordinal data. European Journal of Social Psychology, 15(4): 389–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, D. T., & Prentice, D. A. 1999. Some consequences of a belief in group essence: The category divide hypothesis. In Prentice, D. A. & Miller, D. T. (Eds.), Cultural divides: Understanding and resolving group conflict. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Robinson, R. J., Keltner, D., Ward, A., & Ross, L. 1995. Actual versus assumed differences in construal: “Naive realism” in intergroup perception and conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 68: 404–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, L., & Ward, A. 1996. Naive realism in everyday life: Implications for social conflict and misunderstanding. In Reed, E. S. & Turiel, E. (Eds.) Values and knowledge: The Jean Piaget symposium series: 103–35. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.Google Scholar
Schminke, M., Ambrose, M. L., & Noel, T. W. 1997. The effect of ethical frameworks on perceptions of organizational justice. Academy of Management Journal, 40: 1190–1207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sonenshein, S. 2007. The role of construction, intuition, and justification in responding to ethical issues at work: The sensemaking-intuition model. Academy of Management Review, 32: 1022–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tajfel, H. 1981. Human groups and social categories: Studies in social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. 1979. An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict. In Austin, W. G. & Worchel, S. (Eds.), The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations. Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole.Google Scholar
Tesser, A. 1988. Toward a self-evaluation maintenance model of social behavior. In Berkowitz, L. (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology: vol. 21, pp. 193–355. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Thaler, R. H. 1985. Mental accounting and consumer choice. Marketing Science, 4: 199–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H. 1999. Mental accounting matters. Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, 12: 183–206.3.0.CO;2-F>CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treviño, L. K. 1986. Ethical decision making in organizations: A person-situation interactionist model. Academy of Management Review, 11: 601–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, J. C., Brown, R. J., & Tajfel, H. 1979. Social comparison and group interest in ingroup favoritism. European Journal of Social Psychology, 9: 187–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, G. R. 2006. Virtue in organizations: Moral identity as a foundation for moral agency. Organization Studies, 27: 341–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weber, J. M., Kopelman, S., & Messick, D. M. 2004. A conceptual review of decision making in social dilemmas: Applying a logic of appropriateness. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8(3): 281–307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed