Organizational hierarchical position, perception of unfair pay, and job satisfaction : evidence from large nation-wide surveys in Poland

Purpose The study examines the relationship between perceived unfair pay and job satisfaction and how this relationship is contingent on organizational hierarchical rank. Design/methodology/approach The proprietary data are from ongoing surveys of individual workers conducted by a major Polish human resource consulting firm. The pooled cross-section dataset is comprised of nearly 330,000 individuals working in the Polish labor market during 2015–2017. Drawing upon various theories, the authors formalize and test three hypotheses. The estimations are performed using the ordered probit method. Findings Ceteris paribus, job satisfaction is increasing with organizational hierarchical rank; perceived unfairness of pay is negatively associated with job satisfaction, and organizational hierarchical rank exacerbates this negative relationship by making it stronger for employees holding higher organizational positions. Originality/value First, prior research is mainly confined to studying pay satisfaction as a contributing factor to job satisfaction, and perceived fairness of pay was rarely considered. Second, very few studies examine the role of hierarchical level as a moderator in the relationship between organizational justice and workplace outcomes. Third, the authors add to the scarce empirical literature on job satisfaction for post-Communist Central and East European countries as only a limited number of such studies exist for Poland.