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Compensation Ethics and Organizational Commitment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Jeffrey Moriarty
Jeffrey Moriarty*
Affiliation:
Bentley University
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Abstract:

If an employee is committed to his firm—if he is “attached” or “bound” to it—then his firm may be able to obtain a discount on his labor. This paper asks: Is it wrong for firms to do so? If we understand just or fair pay solely in terms of voluntary agreements between employers and employees, the answer seems to be ‘no.’ Against this, I argue that, in some cases, it is ‘yes.’ In particular, it is wrong for firms to try to obtain discounts on their committed employees’ labor when their employees reasonably expect that they will not try to obtain them. In the process, I probe the limits of exploitation and question the relevance of contribution to fairness in compensation.

Keywords

commitmentcompensationethicsexpectationsexploitation
Type
Articles
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 2014 , pp. 31 - 53
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2014

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