Reward Allocations to the Extremely Mobile Employee: A Qualification of Rational Selective Exploitation

In Experiment 1, undergraduate students role-played the position of a university department head dividing rewards among a group of six hypothetical employees who varied in competence (high or low) and mobility (high, medium, or low). The departments were described as being either high, medium, or low in available rewards, and being in a high-, medium- or low-demand field. As predicted, there was a quadratic relationship between reward allocation and mobility, with greatest rewards given at the intermediate level of mobility. Experiment 2 explored the same questions, except that actual university department heads divided rewards among the same six hypothetical employees as though they were members of their own department. Department heads were grouped on the basis of the actual resources in their department and the availability of faculty in their field. There was a quadratic relationship between faculty mobility and reward allocations; this effect was most evident for high competence employees under conditions of moderate reward scarcity.