Pay Transparency and Perceived Fairness Across Organizational and Cultural Contexts
Explore innovative research topic ideas on pay transparency and perceived fairness across various organizational and cultural contexts. Understand the impact of salary transparency on workplace dynamics and employee satisfaction.
QUANTITATIVE AND QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
Realyn Manalo
5/26/20253 min read
The issue of pay transparency has sparked global debate as organizations seek to balance equity, morale, and performance. While wage disclosure can promote fairness and mitigate inequality, it may also unintentionally suppress wages or generate discomfort when cultural norms oppose salary openness. With growing calls for salary equity and rising workforce mobility, understanding how different models of pay communication influence employee perceptions and behavior is critical. This study explores how perceived vertical pay disparities, salary secrecy, and varying disclosure practices shape employee well-being, engagement, and organizational trust—especially across distinct sectors and cultural contexts. By examining these dynamics, the research aims to offer context-specific insights into effective, fair, and culturally sensitive compensation communication strategies.
Who Can Use These Topics
This research is ideal for students and professionals pursuing the following courses or strands:
College Programs:
BS Psychology
BS Business Administration – Human Resource Management
BA Sociology
BS Management
Senior High School Strands:
Humanities and Social Sciences (HUMSS)
Accountancy, Business, and Management (ABM)
General Academic Strand (GAS)
Why This Topic Needs Research
There are several key research gaps that justify deeper investigation into pay transparency and fairness:
Cross-sectoral generalizability remains untested: While Filippi et al. (2025) confirmed that vertical pay gaps reduce employee well-being and organizational identification, they highlighted the need to examine how different organizational settings and job types shape this relationship, particularly in culturally diverse workplaces.
Employee perspective on salary communication is underexplored: Klindžić (2025) emphasized that most research focuses on managerial policies, with limited understanding of how employees interpret communication practices and how these influence trust, engagement, and perceived fairness.
Lack of consensus on effective transparency models: Cullen (2024) underscored the debate over horizontal, vertical, and cross-firm transparency, calling for research to compare how each model affects wage equity and bargaining power under different cultural and regulatory conditions.
Secrecy’s psychological impact varies by context: Alterman et al. (2021) recommended analyzing how pay secrecy affects turnover based on justice perceptions—but called for cross-national studies that assess how these effects shift depending on labor norms and sectoral practices.
Cultural taboos around pay disclosure remain understudied: Cullen and Perez-Truglia (2023) noted that privacy norms hinder salary discussions and create information gaps, but their applicability in various countries, industries, and job levels remains untested.
Long-term outcomes of transparency are unclear: Duchini et al. (2023) found that transparency narrows gender pay gaps but noted a lack of research on its long-term influence on promotions, hiring, and productivity.
Format of pay disclosure matters: De la Torre-Ruiz et al. (2024) argued that how pay is communicated (e.g., ranges vs. averages) affects perceived organizational support, but further research is needed to test these effects across different compensation structures and cultures.
Feasibility & Challenges by Target Group
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References
Alterman, V., Bamberger, P. A., Wang, M., Koopmann, J., Belogolovsky, E., & Shi, J. (2021). Best not to know: Pay secrecy, employee voluntary turnover, and the conditioning effect of distributive justice. Academy of Management Journal, 64(2), 482-508.
Cullen, Z., & Perez-Truglia, R. (2023). The salary taboo privacy norms and the diffusion of information. Journal of Public Economics, 222, 104890.
Cullen, Z. (2024). Is pay transparency good?. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 38(1), 153-180.
de la Torre-Ruiz, J. M., Cordón-Pozo, E., Vidal Salazar, M. D., & Ortiz-Perez, A. (2024). Pay information and employees’ perception of organizational support: the mediating role of pay satisfaction. Employee Relations: The International Journal, 46(9), 161-177.
Filippi, S., Salvador Casara, B. G., Peters, K., Maass, A., Feraco, T., & Suitner, C. (2025). They don’t really care about us: the impact of perceived vertical pay disparity on employee well-being. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 34(1), 42-57.
Klindžić, M. (2025). SALARY COMMUNICATION POLICY AND ITS IMPACT ON EMPLOYEE ATTITUDES. Ekonomska misao i praksa= Economic Thought and Practice.