To help establish annual salary system, this study tried to find the factors affecting R&D researchers' reaction to annual salary system characteristics. R&D researchers' position, locus of control, self-efficacy, role ambiguity, sociopolitical support, individualism-collectivism, and justice were considered.
Three major hypotheses were developed and tested empirically, using self-reported data from 173 R&D researchers from 3 research institutes. Pearson and Spearman correlation analysis was employed to test the hypotheses. Frequency analysis was employed for the additional analysis.
The major findings of the study are as follows.
First, as expected, R&D researchers' position, locus of control, self-efficacy, role ambiguity, sociopolitical support, and justice were shown to have relationships with some characteristics of annual salary system. Self-efficacy was correlated with the acceptance for "pay reverse". Locus of control and self-efficacy were correlated with the preference for project contribution evaluation. Sociopolitical support and justice were correlated with preference for team-based performance. R&D researchers' position, self-efficacy and role ambiguity were correlated with the salary range.
Second, R&D researchers showed positive response to annual salary system characteristics.
Third, locus of control has meaningful relationship with the preference for performance pay system, self-efficacy with preference for team-based performance, and justice with salary range, but the direction is contrary to the hypotheses. The author suggested that another study must be requested to explain the results.
The implications of the findings and future research directions were discussed.
