Sunday, December 8, 2013

Adam's Theory of Inequity

In the last byte, we looked at demand and contributions as part of social equity theory. In today's byte, we look at Adam's theory of inequity.

Sometimes one finds oneself unmotivated and angry about the compensation/hike that was granted by the organization one worked for.

If one were to reflect on what could have lead to this discomforting feeling and we map it on to the equity theory, we realize we could develop a output-input ratio based on the expectations and their fulfillment.

Let us begin by defining an important concept that would follow this ratio that we have just mentioned - Inequity

Inequity - is a situation in which a person perceives he or she is receiving less that he or she is giving, or is giving less than he or she is receiving.

Looking back the situation described earlier, a person would examine the contribution portion of the exchange relationship - the individual considers their input (own contribution) in the relationship and their outcomes (the organization's contribution) in the relationship. We could summarize this in the following diagram:

In essence, inequity leads to the experience of tension, and the tension motivates people to act in a manner to resolve the inequity - this was proposed by Stacy Adams.

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