Introduction: A role-playing exercise is one in which you try to put yourself in someone else's position and then try to imagine how that individual might perceive or react to a situation. For this exercise, assume that you work in each of the following jobs and earn the salaries noted:
- Newspaper reporter with 5 years' experience making $30,000 a year
- Plant manager with 20 years' experience making $50,000 a year
- Sales representative for a medical equipment firm with 10 years' experience making $200,000 a year
- Retail store manager with 1 year of experience making $20,000 a year
Internet Assignment: Use the Internet to locate salary data for others in similar jobs and with corresponding experience. As a result of what you learn, assess whether you are likely to feel equity or inequity; if the feeling is most likely to be inequity, decide which form you are likely to experience (that is over-rewarded, or under-rewarded).
Follow-up: For any instances in which you are likely to experience inequity, decide how you might react. Finally, respond to the following instructions and questions:
- How easy or difficult was it to locate data on the Internet for this exercise?
- Given the growth of the Internet, do you think more people will start using it for comparisons such as this one, or will people still rely mostly on "real" coworkers?
- Aside from the raw data, what additional information would you really need in this situation before meaningful levels of equity and/or inequity could be formulated?
