The Power of Perks: Equity Theory and Job Satisfaction in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is known for its amazing workspace and perks. Due to Equity Theory and Two-factor Theory, employees should be content and stay longer. However, studies have found that there's a higher rate of job-hopping, which seems like a contradiction (Fallick et al, 2006). Participants were 135 engineers, ages 18 to 35 years old, who completed an online survey looking at job satisfaction, job expectations, perk usage, employee perception of perks, personal equity sensitivity, and comparison others. Recruitment was done through personal connections in the Bay Area and various social media sites that are targeted towards engineers. Results did not show that job satisfaction influenced job expectations while individual differences in equity didn’t influence perk usage, perceptions of job expectations. In conclusion, this research adds to the dearth of literature about Silicon Valley, and, more broadly, explored a link between Equity Theory and Two-Factor Theory that had not been previously examined. Search terms: Silicon Valley, Equity Theory, Job Satisfaction EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 3 Introduction Today, Silicon Valley and its unbelievable workspace have officially permeated the cultural zeitgeist: in the past two years, there has been two movies about the life of Apple founder Steve Jobs. In the movie The Internship (2013), Google’s massive Mountain View headquarters, the Googleplex, shares just as much screen time as Hollywood stars Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, while HBO has found success with its 2014 sitcom, Silicon Valley. Currently, there is an intense fascination about the workplace culture of the United States’ hub of technological prowess. Today, “Silicon Valley” is generally used as a metonym for the technology industry in the United States, just as “Wall Street” is used to refer to finance and “the Capitol,” politics. To properly understand Silicon Valley, it is imperative to define the region and its history. Silicon Valley is a region and cultural mindset of the Bay Area in California and is delineated as the 1,854 square miles that make up San Francisco County, Santa Clara County, San Mateo County, and parts of Alameda County and Santa Cruz County (Silicon Valley Indicators, 2015). Although traditionally San Francisco is not considered part of Silicon Valley, the recent growth of technology giants that call it home, such as Pinterest, Airbnb, Uber, Dropbox, make it suitable for this study. In this study, the term “Silicon Valley” will be used interchangeably with tech culture in the Northern California area. The prevalent myth that Silicon Valley experienced “instant industrialization,” becoming a powerhouse for technology seemingly overnight is false: there has been a robust electronics industry in the area since the beginning of the radio, television, and military electronics industries (Kenney, 2000, p. 16). However, the Silicon Valley we know today originates from the various silicon chip manufacturers and producers, and where it also gets its name. In 1947, EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 4 William Shockley and his peers introduced the first transistor to the world and eventually won the Nobel Prize. Nine years later, he founded Shockley Semiconductor Laboratories in Palo Alto and recruited talented individuals to help him produce Fairchild semiconductors. Later, his employees all dispersed and created the staples that Silicon Valley originated from, such as Intel and Hewlett-Packard (Kenney, 2000). Currently, the work hard, play hard mentality is highly prevalent and is openly encouraged by the companies themselves through the forms of various perks. This employeefirst approach supposedly bodes well for the health of the company in accordance with Social Identity Theory and Equity Theory. Companies utilize these two theories to create company loyalty and retain top workers, mostly through perks and benefits. Since Silicon Valley is renowned for its amazing working conditions and other aspects that usually cause employees to score higher on the Job Satisfaction Survey (Spector, 1997). However, studies have found that there's a higher rate of job-hopping for college-educated men in Silicon Valley compared to other technology industries located in other parts of the United States (Fallick et al, 2006). Thus, the question of interest would be even though it seems like Silicon Valley companies are doing everything correctly in regards to psychology theories, it remains unclear why they cannot retain their employees for as long as other non-Silicon Valley technology companies. Perhaps it is related to individuals’ personal sense of equity sensitivity and if they are actually taking advantage of the perks that are offered and using them, or if there a sense of selfpolicing or a social norm that prohibits workers from using a certain perk. There might be a relationship between worker satisfaction and long-term job expectations, or it could be influenced by some other variable. Is there a relationship between equity sensitivity and perk EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 5 usage? All these questions and their psychological bases will be examined in the following pages. To examine how companies are trying to appeal and retain their workers, it is important to start at the source. A quick browse through the websites of the tech companies casts them in thoughtful, magnanimous light. A review of three websites of well-known technology companies reveals certain perks and activities are common. For example, many emphasize their social activities, free food, and relaxed work environment. The primary concept is that they value each individual employee like family, and that their benefits and perks prove it. Palantir Technologies, a private data mining company located in Palo Alto, highlights its flexible work hours, free food, organized activities, and playful environment, urging their employees to choose their own adventure (Life at Palantir, 2015). It can’t get any clearer when Google itself signs off with a modest, “Hey, we’re family” on its benefits page (Benefits at Google, 2015). The use of the construct of family ties into Social Identity Theory, which has three components: social categorization, social identification, and social comparison (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). People naturally categorize themselves into groups, which then give us a sense of belonging and pride. In-groups could range from something as small as shared hobbies to something much more defining, like a shared ethnicity. This act of categorization is benign but leads to social identification, where people start identifying with an in-group more explicitly (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). The group norms that other members bring begin to be perceived as compatible with one’s personal beliefs, and one begins to emulate them. Lastly, social comparison occurs, where one’s own sense of self becomes closely intertwined with one’s perceptions of personal identity and of group membership. One’s sense of self-esteem increases or decreases based on how one’s in-group is performing in society by comparing it to the out-group (Tajfel & Turner, EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 6 1979). Interestingly, the mere perception of two distinct groups, as in social categorization, is enough to elicit intergroup discrimination favoring the in-group. In other words, the mere awareness of the existence of an out-group is enough to aggravate the in-group to respond in a competitive or discriminatory fashion. (Billig & Tajfel, 1973). Out-groups, the groups we do not belong to, are discriminated against to increase feelings of superiority towards our own ingroup. (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). By capitalizing on this sense of social identity, companies—and to a broader extent, all organizations—want to build a sense of community to increase in-group loyalty and retain valuable workers, and perhaps provoke intergroup competition. Another theory relevant to the goals of this study is equity theory, which asserts that workers are motivated by a desire to be treated fairly, which is measured by the ratio of their inputs and outcomes (Adams, 1965). Workers possess certain inputs that they bring to the job, like skills, time, and effort. In return, they expect to receive certain outcomes from the job, such as a salary, benefits, and other forms of compensation. Workers are satisfied if they think their inputs are equal to their outcomes. The way this satisfaction is determined is by comparing themselves to “comparison others,” like co-workers or peers. If workers draw the conclusion that conditions are inequitable, their motivation will change. Empirical evidence has been found in many studies including Greenberg, 1988; Greenberg & Ornstein, 1983; Valenzi and Andrews, 1971. It is important to note that this is not a measure of true equity, but what workers personally perceive to be equitable (Huseman, Hatfield, & Miles, 1987). There are two types of perceived inequity: underpayment inequity and overpayment inequity. Underpayment inequity states that if the worker determines that their inputs are greater than their outcomes as compared to their comparison others, there will be four outcomes: EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 7 i. Increasing outcomes, like asking for a raise ii. Decreasing inputs, like putting in less hours of work iii. Changing the comparison other iv. Leaving the situation, like switching companies. Overpayment inequity, which states that if the worker feels that their outcomes are greater than their inputs as compared to their comparison others, manifests in four different results: i. Increasing inputs, such as working extra hours to feel like they have earned the extra outcomes ii. Decreasing outcomes, such as asking for a cut in pay; this is the least likely scenario iii. Changing the comparison other to someone in a higher position iv. Distorting the situation through rationalization, like telling themselves that they deserve this increased outcome because of their higher work quality However, equity theory sometimes has difficulty predicting behaviors, especially when people act non-rationally. For instance, Valenzi and Andrews’ (1971) study found that, contrary to inequity theory predictions and to previous inequity theory experiments, there were no significant work performance differences among the three groups, overpay, underpay, and control. However, 3 out of 11 underpay workers quit, and during the debriefing process, many others reported wanting to quit as well. The limitations of the study also acknowledged that underpay workers may also feel that decreasing their work performance had an element of revenge that was personally distasteful to them and would have caused admonishment. Ultimately, the researchers concluded that “self-esteem” was an important variable, and suggested that future research on wage inequity should focus more on variables, e.g., turnover, satisfaction, and recruitment rather than solely on work performance. The idea of “self-esteem” was extended into a more developed perspective of Equity Theory—the Equity Sensitivity Construct (Huseman, Hatfield, & Miles, 1987). This perspective EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 8 states that there are individual differences that influence different preferences for outcome/input ratios, and is influenced by how sensitive the individual is to equity in the first place. (Huseman, Hatfield, & Miles, 1987). Equity Sensitives are workers who are rational about equity: they feel unhappy when they feel underbenefited and guilty when they feel overbenefited. They are the only group that feels both distress and guilt. There have not been any recent studies on this theory in Industrial-Organizational psychology examining technology work culture, revealing a gap in the literature. On the two opposing ends of the spectrum are the Benevolents and the Entitleds. Benevolents are more altruistic and feel fairly fine with staying in a situation of underpayment inequity. Their contentment comes from perceptions that their outcome to input ratios are smaller than the comparison other’s. The conceptual origins of Benevolents can be traced back to Alfred Adler’s (1935, as cited in Huseman, Hatfield, & Miles, 1987) “socially useful, ideal” type that gives without expecting much in return. This orientation may come from a few sources, such as altruism or a personal and cultural philosophy of social responsibility. The latter was the reasoning Weick et al. (1976) posited in their study of work differences between Dutch and American students. Altruism could also be tied to employees’ long-term relationship with their company and wanting to help fulfill employer needs (Huseman, Hatfield, & Miles, 1987). As King, Miles, and Day (1993, as cited in Sauley & Bedeian, 2000) found, Benevolents are better at tolerating, not preferring, under-reward while Entitleds are more focused on the outcomes as compared to their personal input contribution. In Alderian psychology, Entitleds are known as the exploitative “getting type” who tends to feel that others are indebted to them and they deserve everything that they get (Alder, 1935). Entitleds, as the name suggests, are more intolerant of under-reward, more tolerant of over reward than are either Equity Sensitives or EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 9 Benevolents. In other words, Entitleds are workers who are determined to make high outcomes, even if they have not contributed the equivalent amount of inputs to their job. It is also important to note that compensation don’t have to be monetary—a nominal title is sufficient to elicit feelings of overpayment and increase one’s standing in an “organizational status hierarchy” (Greenberg, 1988, Greenberg & Ornstein, 1983). Greenberg (1988) hypothesized that offices were status symbols that reflected the status of the worker within it. For instance, a coveted corner office with windows is more desirable and correlated with higherstatus employees. Greenberg and colleagues reassigned employees to offices of either higher, equal, or lower status as compared to their personal position in their company. The results found that employees in the higher status condition were more productive than the control group while workers relocated to offices of lower status were less productive than the control group. The results show that money is not the only motivating factor for equity theory; the prestige of the status symbol was enough compensation. This finding follows Foa and Foa’s Resource Exchange Theory (1974, as cited in Greenberg & Ornstein, 1983), which states that one type of outcomes can be substituted for another in social exchange settings; here, one outcome—the perks of a great work space—compensated for another—money. Nonetheless, there is a limitation to overrewarding employees in the hopes that they will work harder—the employees have to feel that their increased outcome was earned. If not, their performance will not improve over the long-term. Greenberg and Ornstein (1983) ran a study involving undergraduate students doing a proofreading job and rewarding some with the title of “senior proofreader.” They found that workers who received an earned title and additional responsibilities felt equitably paid, while those performing an increased amount of work without a title felt underpaid. In another condition, participants were given an unearned title, which EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 10 caused their performance to improved immediately, but then drop again later. This difference was attributed to the subjects feeling suspicious towards the experimenter for giving them this unearned title, and their self-reported liking of the experimenter dropped over time. Thus, the participants believed that the experimenter gave them the title in order to deceive them into doing more work, which made them dislike the experimenter. One way companies use equity theory to their benefit is adding perks to increase their perception of outcomes. In other words, by making the employees feel valued, companies might trigger a sense of overpayment inequity. With perks, there is no changing the comparison other or decreasing outcomes, so the only two remaining scenarios are increasing inputs, such as working extra hours to feel like they have earned the extra outcomes, and distorting the situation through rationalization by believing that they deserve this increased outcome because of their higher work quality. To understand how this works, a definition for perk is necessary. A perk, short for perquisite, is a privilege, gain, or profit that accompanies a worker’s regular salary (Perquisite Definition at Merriam-Webster, 2015). In a general survey conducted by Ceridian Employer Services, out of 129 companies, 65% believed perks were important for attracting and retaining employees (Meece, 1999). Some of the most popular perks included a casual dress code, flexible hours, personal development training, entertainment and product discounts, and free food and drinks. Perks exist because they supplement employees’ salaries and influence them to work more (Kuntze & Matulich, 2010). This study will specifically be focusing on perks that have “productive consumption” attributes. Coined by Rosen (2000), the use of these perks has a direct effect on productivity, either positively or negatively. Therefore, the type of perks not studied here will be perks that have no direct influence on day-to-day productivity, EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 11 such as dental or health insurance. To categorize these perks, Marino (2008) identified four different types: 1. “Personal business machines,” like company-provided computers, laptops, and cell phones 2. Workplace amenities, such as a pleasing work environment with good location views 3. Personal services, such as a concierge, company gym, or masseuses 4. Transportation services, such as cars, company planes, or shuttles Within the literature, there has been some controversy regarding the efficacy and use of these perks. Some researchers (Jensen & Meckling, 1976; Yermack, 2006) worry about the possibility of abuse or excessive consumption, especially among the upper-level executives. For instance, CEOs and the like typically have access to better perks to match their higher status, such as private jets and country club dues. Besides potentially wasting company funds and enabling unethical conduct, excessive perk use may dampen morale if lower-level employees notice. However, a larger group of researchers view these perks as legitimate incentives to increase productivity (Kuntze & Matulich, 2010; Oyer, 2004; Rajan & Wulf, 2006; Rosen, 2000). According to Oyer (2004), it is in the best interest of the company to provide goods that benefit the workers’ well-being. Through the subcontracting of meals, entertainment options at the workplace, and errand services to a third party, the company frees up employees’ time to complete the high-level work that they are being paid for. Essentially, by providing all of life’s necessities free of charge, the company eliminates reasons for employees to leave and exacts more work time out of them. In other terms: “Paternalistic interest by firms in their workers’ welfare can arise solely on considerations of self-interest, without any altruism whatsoever” (Rosen, 2000). EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 12 Furthermore, there is a dearth of literature on how employees themselves feel about using said perks. Even though many generous perks are offered, do employees actually take advantage of all of them? Perhaps there is a sense of self-policing that comes along with the spacious openfloor plans of a typical Silicon Valley office. For instance, even if the individual has the ability to take a two-hour long lunch breaks, would avoid it due to the fear of judgment from coworkers. Thus, the feeling that one might not be able to accept certain benefits might extend to larger things, such as maternity leave or vacation days. In September 2015, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made headlines when she announced that she was expecting twins and would only take a twoweek long maternity leave (Rodriguez, 2015, September 1). This announcement came a few months after Netflix announced an unheard-of 52 weeks off parental leave policy for both new mothers and fathers (Lang, 2015, August 7). However, that comes with its own set of pressures—at this fast paced company with a reputation of firing workers who aren’t excelling, new parents will be extremely reluctant to take all the time off, or may lessen the quality of parental leave by fretfully working from home. Ultimately, what is the basic theory of employee retention, and why are companies so focused on worker retention in Silicon Valley? In Occupational Health psychology, located at the crossroads between Health Psychology and Industrial-Organizational Psychology, there is the two-factor theory, also known as Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene Theory. Based in Maslow’s Theory of Motivation, the two-factor theory states that there are two separate, independent factors that cause job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction (Herzberg, Mausner, Snyderman, 1959). Employees are not satisfied with just the fulfillment of basic physiological and safety needs at work, such as a salary or nice working conditions. Instead, they want their higher-level needs, such as achievement, credit, responsibility, and advancement, to be fulfilled EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 13 as well. By interviewing 203 Pittsburgh engineers and accountants, empirical evidence was found for this theory (Herzberg, 1964). Beyond drawing from Maslow’s theory, Herzberg also suggested that there was a two-factor model of motivation: the presence of one set of job characteristics (motivators) leads to worker satisfaction at work, while the absence of another different set of job characteristics (hygiene) leads to dissatisfaction at work. Motivators are more intrinsic, such as rewarding work, recognition, responsibilities, a sense of importance and belonging to the organization. Hygiene factors are more extrinsic, and involve high workplace status, perks, and insurance (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Thus, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not inversely related on a spectrum, with one increases while the other decreases, but are independent agents. There are four types of combinations (Herzberg, 1964): 1. High Hygiene and High Motivation: The ideal situation where employees have their needs taken care of and are highly motivated. 2. High Hygiene and Low Motivation: Employees have their needs taken care of but aren’t highly motivated. The job is viewed as merely a source of income. 3. Low Hygiene and High Motivation: Employees are motivated by the work but have many complaints about the working conditions. 4. Low Hygiene and Low Motivation: The worst situation where employees are not motivated and have many complaints about the working conditions. To keep workers satisfied and ultimately retain them, companies must be aware of both factors. While Silicon Valley is definitely high on hygiene factors and motivated, skilled workers, it is surprising that they cannot retain their workers. As Fallick et al (2006) found, there is evidence that, compared to other metropolitan areas with large IT clusters, Silicon Valley has a higher rate of “employer-to-employer mobility.” Furthermore, this effect does not hold true for other industries in California, which suggests there is something special about the interaction between features of the technology EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 14 industry and features of a specific geographic location. In regards to the high technology side, Dockel, Basson, and Coetzee (2006) postulated that the difficulty in worker retention is caused by a revolutionary shift in how we view work. In the past, the world of work was based in a worker-intensive, industrial society with high organizational loyalty. Nowadays, the modern workforce is increasingly highly educated and less concerned with loyalty to a specific organization. Furthermore, the markets that technology industries specialize are unpredictable and grow at an extremely fast pace. Their employees prefer a large degree of independence and are largely responsible for the organization’s intellectual capital (Murphy, 2000 as cited by Dockel, Basson, and Coetzee, 2006). There is also an ideological clash between the employee and the company that influences worker retention: while high technology employees want to develop projects that enrich their careers, assets and future earning power, the organization generally wants their current knowledge used to create profitable products. The employee is loyal not to individual companies, but to a distinct high technology culture and mindset (Von Glinow & Mohrman, 1990). Furthermore, there is no stigma against leaving a successful company to launch a startup, and, even if it fails, ample jobs are available at other companies (Lesser, 2000). Another defining characteristic of Silicon Valley is rapid turnover—workers shift swiftly from company to company (Lesser, 2000). This movement is important because of the diffusion of knowledge know-how (Lesser, 2000). The current demand for engineers is greater than the supply, so talented candidates are aggressively recruited by other companies (Storey, 1992). With all these characteristics, it is unsurprising that employers struggle to retain their valuable employees. Ultimately, this study aims to bring together Equity Theory, individual differences in equity sensitivity, and two-factor theory to examine an unorthodox workspace with EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 15 magnanimous perks and benefits. While employee perks have been examined in Economics and Industrial-Organizational Psychology literature, not much has been written about Silicon Valley’s workplace precisely. These perks are offered because there is a relatively small pool of talented engineers that these companies are trying to entice, and there are studies offering empirical evidence on how Silicon Valley is a very special area (Lesser, 2000; Fallick et al 2006). This dearth of research is noteworthy because of the unprecedented atmosphere that this unorthodox work environment offers, and how these high technology workers feel about their workspace, so this study aims to cover that gap. Hopefully the results of this proposed study could be applicable to other high technology industries around the nation and world. Brief overview of the study: Data will be collected through an online survey on SurveyMonkey.com. Participants will be engineers who have spent at least one summer working in the Silicon Valley technology industry. Since this entire study will all be conducted online, the link can be easily spread through various other resources. Participants will be recruited through social media, specifically Facebook, and through personal connections. The first portion of the survey will give a perk list where participants will indicate the ones that they have used recently and its frequency of usage. This list will be 20 items long and will be later coded into the four separate categories of perks: personal business machines, workplace amenities, personal services, and transportation services. Participants will be also asked about their perceptions of perks and how long they saw themselves staying at the company in 1 year, 2 years, and 5 years increments. They will also experience be a modified Job Satisfaction Survey, an established Likert scale that is a popular measurement for job satisfaction. Another portion of the survey will include an established scale that measures EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 16 personal equity sensitivity that will be taken from Sauley and Bedeian’s (2000) study. Participants will also be asked about their comparison others. Finally, the survey concludes with demographic questions, which will be asked at the end as not to influence results, include age range, gender, ethnicity, education, and size of their company. I will also ask if they are entry level, middle management, or upper management in order to get a sense of their title. Compensation will be a chance to enter a raffle for one of seven $50 Amazon gift card, funded by Scripps Associated Students, the Hearst Thesis Fund, and the Motley Coffeehouse. The current hypotheses are as follows: Hypothesis I: Based on the Two-Factor Theory, if employees are satisfied at their job, they should want to stay longer as compared to employees who are not satisfied. Hypothesis II: Based on Two-Factor Theory (Herzberg, 1964), employees who were more satisfied in their jobs should use more perks. Thus, employees who used many perks should also have high job satisfaction. However, this should also be tempered by their personal equity sensitivity; Entitleds who used more perks should be more satisfied and Benevolents who used less perks should be more satisfied. Hypothesis III: An individual’s Personal Equity Sensitivity should influence how they use their compensation (Huseman, Hatfield, & Miles, 1987). Employees with higher equity sensitivity should use fewer perks when they perceived themselves to be overcompensated. Employees with lower equity sensitivity should use fewer perks when they perceived themselves to be overcompensated. Hypothesis IV: There is a persistent and significant compensation gap across most industries (Corbett & Hill, 2012). However, women may not recognize or feel that they are underbenefiting relative to men if they are using other women as their comparison others. EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 17 Women who compare themselves to other women may not feel an inequity, but if women are comparing themselves to men or everyone, they may become aware of this inequity. Hypothesis V: The lower the job satisfaction, the less productive and loyal they will be to the company (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). By tying together Equity Theory and two-factor theory, this study predicts that Benevolents will be more likely to see themselves staying at the company regardless of how satisfied they feel, while Entitleds will be less likely to see themselves staying at the company if they are not satisfied. Method Participants The participants for this study were men and women working or who have worked at technology companies in Silicon Valley. Data was collected from 135 participants, 63 men, 30 women, 1 non-binary, and 41 individuals that didn’t respond. Those 41 participants were not included in analyses about gender. The age range was 18 to 35 years old (M = 23, SD = 3.25). This age range was selected because it encompasses the group known as Millennials, who share a similar cultural background of growing up at the same time. Multiple races and ethnicities were represented, but they were inherently limited by the races and ethnicities represented at the companies. Out of the 97 participants that responded to the ethnicity question, 2 were AfricanAmerican/Black, 59 were Asian/Asian-American/Pacific Islander, 8 were Hispanic/Latino/Mexican-American, 1 was Native American, and 38 were White. Current statistics indicate that the tech industry is predominately young White males (Diemer, 2015; Diversity, 2015); therefore, this study hypothesized that participants will predominantly fit this 1 While all individuals could participate in this study, only data from participants who identified as men and women were used for analyses. However, future research should focus on individuals who do not identify as a binary gender. EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 18 description. In order to reduce confounding variables, this study limited its investigation to only engineers. They were defined by the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) code 35: Industrial and Commercial Machinery and Computer Equipment (Fallick et al, 2006). Materials Demographics. Demographics, which were asked at the end of the survey as not to influence results, involved a more in-depth look at the participants’ backgrounds. Participants were asked for their age, gender, race/ethnicity, and educational background. Out of the 100 participants that answered what the highest level of education they’ve received, 2 said high school, 42 said in the process of obtaining a Bachelor’s degree, 36 said a Bachelor’s degree, 7 were in the process of obtaining a Master’s degree, 11 had a Master’s Degree, and 2 had a Ph.D. Participants were also asked how long they've worked at their current company, with 93 responses ranging from a summer internship (3 months) to 9 years; however, most respondents responded with under a year. 100 participants also responded to what level they considered the job they’ve been currently rating it this survey, and 49 were current/past interns, 23 were entry level, 24 were experienced (non-manager) level, 4 were middle management, and none considered themselves upper management. Lastly, participants were asked about the size of their company. 100 participants responded to this question, and nine said 1-20 employees, six said 2050 employees, six said 50-100 employees, ten said 100-500 employees, five said 500-1000 employees, 15 said 1000-2000 employees, six said 2000-5000 employees, and 43 said 5000+ employees. Thus, while there was an even distribution of half of the participants among the smaller to medium sized companies, the other half of the participants were in a large company. EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 19 Perk usage. Perk usage was a list of 20 perks that are commonly found in a Silicon Valley company (see Appendix A). These perks fell into the four categories proposed by Marino (2008): personal business machines, workplace amenities, personal services, and transportation services. Examples of certain perks were free meals, family leave, shuttle services, and flexible work hours. Participants were prompted with, “To what extent do you use each of the following perks?” then were provided with a 6-point Likert scale: never, almost never, occasionally, almost always, always, not offered at my company. Job Satisfaction. Job satisfaction was measured with the Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS; Spector, 1985, as cited in Spector, 1997) (see Appendix B). This scale is an extremely popular one within the field of job satisfaction research. Over a thousand studies have cited it, and various other studies have shown to be reliable and valid (Fields, 2002; Spector, 1988; Van Saane et al, 2003). This scale measures nine facets of job satisfaction with each facet asking four questions, making the survey 36 items long. The nine facets are pay, promotion, supervision, fringe benefits, contingent rewards, operating conditions, coworkers, nature of work, and communication. One sample question asks, “I am not satisfied with the benefits I receive.” The JSS yields 10 scores, with each of the nine subscales having its own score, and the tenth score a sum. The total score can range from 36 to 216. The more specific ranges are 36 to 108 for dissatisfaction, 108 to 144 for ambivalent, and between 144 to 216 for satisfaction. The questions are formatted as 6-point Likert scales, with choices being disagree very much, disagree moderately, disagree slightly, agree slightly, agree moderately, and agree very much. This survey used a modified version of the JSS, shortened to from, 36 to 20 items. Two questions from each of the nine facets were chosen, except for the “fringe benefits” category— all four questions were included in this category as it was most relevant to perks. This EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 20 modification was allowed, as stated in the original study to make the length of the survey more manageable (Spector, 1985, as cited in Spector, 1997). Job Expectations. This set of questions concerned long-term career goals. Participants were asked: “I can see myself working here in 1 year,” “I can see myself working here in 2 years.” and “I can see myself working here in 5 years.” These three items were formatted as 6point Likert scales: disagree very much, disagree moderately, disagree slightly, agree slightly, agree moderately, and agree very much. Employee Perceptions of Compensation. This section was measured by three Likert scale type questions. The Likert type items were: “I feel that I am being compensated more than my job merits,” “I believe that my compensation is fair,” and “Perks are part of my overall compensation.” Participants chose a response from 5 responses: strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree (neutral), agree, and strongly agree. A composite score was created from the first two questions as an average based on two dimensions. Participants were also asked “Why?” after each Likert scale item. Their responses will be analyzed to see if there are any common themes. Personal Equity Sensitivity. The Equity Preferences Questionnaire (EPQ, Sauley & Bedeian, 2000) was used in this study (see Appendix C). In order to measure equity sensitivity, two different scales had been developed in the past. Huseman, Hatfield, and Miles (1987) were the first to develop a scale called the Equity Sensitivity Index, while Sauley and Bedeian (2000) developed the Equity Preferences Questionnaire (EPQ). Multiple studies have measured the validity and reliability of both scales and agree that they produce comparable results (Jeon, 2012, Wheeler, 2007). This study used the EPQ because the format was more compatible with the means of online data collection. Developed by Sauley and Bedeian (2000), the EPQ was a list of EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 21 16 items that investigate an individual’s sense of equity theory. A sample question was, “Employees who are more concerned about what they can get from their employer rather than what they can give to their employer are the wise ones.” The questions were rated on 5-point Likert scales with the responses strongly disagree, disagree, neither agree nor disagree (neutral), agree, and strongly agree. Scores ranged from 16 to 80. Entitleds fell in the range between 16 to 37 points, Equity Sensitives fell in the range between 35 to 58 points, and Benevolents fell in the range between 59 to 80 points. Comparison Others. This section was measured with one item. The question began with, “When I think about how I’m doing in my job, I compare myself to__.” Participants chose the answer that they most identified with among men, women, and men and women. Procedure This study was conducted completely online. Participants clicked on a SurveyMonkey link, where they were presented with the informed consent form for the study and notified that this project was reviewed and approved by the Scripps IRB prior to launch. Participants were only be able to continue after checking a box that indicated their consent and understanding. The second and third pages of the survey was the perk list and the employee perceptions of perks. The fourth page assessed participants’ long-term job expectations. The fifth page measured the participant’s job satisfaction; the sixth asked about the participant’s comparison others. It was important to collect the perk list and the employee perceptions of perks data before their personal equity sensitivity to reduce self-report biases and contamination effects, specifically regarding social desirability bias and inability to accurately reflect on and predict behavior. The seventh page asked about the participant’s equity sensitivity and the eight page EQUITY THEORY AND SILICON VALLEY 22 asked about demographics. The last page provided compensation information, thanked the participants for their participation, and debriefed them on the purpose of the study.