Pay Systems, Authority and Conflict

Abstract

Conflict, as it is normally understood, involves intentionally hostile action. In linking pay attitudes to pay conflict, therefore, one has to show how attitudes can lead to the formation of hostile intentions. In Chapter 2, however, I argued that there was no logical or psychological basis for linking attitudes-to-objects (e.g. to pay) with attitudes-to-future-actions (e.g. intentions) whether hostile or otherwise. The link between the two can only be a substantive one, arising from the social meaning of the situation which underlies both types of attitude. Thus a theory linking pay attitudes to conflict is not a special kind of attitude theory, but a sociological theory of conflictful situations which happen to involve pay.