This study examines the complex relationship between vertical pay dispersion (i.e., pay disparities across different organizational levels) and employee turnover by integrating insights from tournament theory and equity theory. While vertical pay dispersion is designed to incentivize career advancement, we argue it can simultaneously elevate turnover at all levels by fostering competition and inequity. Based on data collected from 302 firms in the Great Bay Area (Guangdong Province in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao), our results show that greater vertical pay dispersion increases turnover for senior managers as well as lower‐level managers and employees. Inconsistent with tournament logic, we find that the detrimental effect of vertical pay dispersion on turnover is not significantly weaker for senior managers who benefit from the dispersion than for lower‐level managers and employees. Drawing on equity theory, we further investigate the moderating role of high‐investment human resource systems (HIHRS), which reflect an organization's fair treatment of employees. Results support the hypothesis that the coexistence of high vertical pay dispersion and high HIHRS within a firm increases both employee and senior manager turnover, as these practices send conflicting signals about organizational priorities and equity. These findings contribute to compensation literature by unfolding the contingent and differential effects of pay structures on turnover across hierarchical levels and organizational contexts.

The present study examined factors predicting employee participation in employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs). Despite the plausible benefits of ESPPs for participating employees, many employees do not participate in ESPPs even when they are eligible. To shed light on this puzzle, we investigated key variables related to the plan (i.e., discount rates), the firm (i.e., stock price movements), and an external event (i.e., COVID‐19 pandemic) in relation to employees' participation in ESPPs. Using a unique proprietary dataset on employee stock purchases from 40 publicly traded companies with a total of 1,005,300 employees, we found that discount rates and past stock price increases, on their own, were not associated with higher participation. However, these relationships became significantly positive when past stock prices displayed stability rather than volatility during certain pre‐participation periods. In addition, we observed that the firms in our dataset had significantly higher ESPP participation rates during (vs. before) the pandemic. These findings offer various research and practical implications, extending the compensation and employee ownership literature that has paid little attention to the predictors of employees' ESPP participation.

Sexual harassment has persisted for decades as an open secret within organizations, creating an ongoing challenge for Human Resource practitioners. Many employees experience or witness harassment yet say nothing. When they contemplate complaining, they are discouraged from doing so. Some still muster the courage to speak out about these abuses, but find their complaints ignored, downplayed, or dismissed by those in charge. Building on prior research, we propose that these practices add up to signals of silence, which we conceptualize and empirically operationalize. Drawing on social information processing theory, we explicate how these signals help sustain and perpetuate sexual harassment. We further argue that supervisors can counteract these harmful signals of silence by modeling ethical leadership. We investigated these ideas with two sets of studies comprising seven independent samples. In Study 1 ( N total = 2649 participants), Phases 1 through 5, we developed and validated a higher‐order aggregate measure of harassment signals of silence (Harassment SOS scale) comprising three interrelated elements: being silent, silencing others, and not listening. In Study 2 ( N total = 1111 participants), we used field samples collected from two North American police departments to test the relationship between signals of silence and experiences of harassment, along with the role of ethical supervision in mitigating the harmful effects of silence. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice, including the implementation of relevant HR policies and practices.