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hubie [soylentnews.org] writes:

Job seekers in the era of 'social impact framing' are afraid to ask for higher pay [medium.com]:

For many companies today, recruiting employees includes luring them with job postings that tout the organization's altruistic goals, such as to "make an impact" or fulfill a mission or purpose that benefits the greater good.

Appealing to job seekers' altruism isn't just for nonprofits anymore. Both for-profit and nonprofit organizations increasingly employ what has been termed "social impact framing" that emphasizes that their work has welfare benefits for society.

Although companies might have entirely noble intentions when using social impact framing, a recent study by Texas McCombs Assistant Professor of Management Insiya Hussain illustrates how it may work against prospective employees during salary negotiations. Specifically, job candidates exposed to such messaging feel it would be against company norms to ask for higher pay.

"This speaks to a broader social phenomenon about how we view money when it comes to doing good," Hussain says. "There's an implicit assumption that money and altruism don't mix. Money taints attempts to do good. Even if job candidates might not necessarily subscribe to this view, they're assuming that hiring managers will."

[...] The research suggests job applicants might experience a fearful thought process around salary: "I can't even ask. I feel like if I ask, it might be held against me or against the norms of the organization. It might be seen as greedy," Hussain says, paraphrasing the job seekers.

The researchers describe this attitude as a "self-censoring" effect, which Hussain says is a novel finding for research on social impact framing and wage demands. Prior work assumed that candidates sacrificed pay for meaningful work. Hussain and colleagues show this effect may be driven by job candidates feeling uncomfortable with such negotiation.

That mindset was true across the age spectrum and several industries, including education, financial services, food manufacturing, and health care — in both nonprofit and for-profit businesses.

[...] "Job seekers could consider whether companies that stress social impact take care of their own employees — financially or otherwise." Hussain says. "And, companies shouldn't assume that extrinsically motivated workers don't care about the job and aren't willing to work hard to perform well."

Journal Reference:
Insiya Hussain et al., Pay Suppression in Social Impact Contexts: How Framing Work Around the Greater Good Inhibits Job Candidate Compensation Demands, INFORMS, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2023.1675 [doi.org]

Original Submission