Using longitudinal personnel data from a U.S. Fortune 500 manufacturing firm for the period of 1967 to 1993, I assess the effects of corporate restructuring and power differences between a firm and its managers on the nature and use of different incentives. I extend relative bargaining power theory to predict that a firm's ability to provide incentives in the ways it prefers—bonuses instead of increases to base salary or promotions—varies due to differences over time in monitoring and sanctions stemming from organizational change processes. Findings are consistent with the theory and show a negative effect of bonuses on salary increases and of bonuses on promotions, with tradeoffs greatest when the firm's oversight of rewards was highest and termination threats were most explicit. Further support for the theory is the finding that the strength of the negative effect of bonuses on promotions varied across managerial groups due to differences in managers' bargaining power: “fast-trackers” were much less likely to experience a tradeoff than were low performing managers, and women were less likely to experience a tradeoff than were men.
Organizational change : processes, contexts and perspectives
