Librarians and compensation negotiation in the library workplace

Date09 January 2017
Pages45-64
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/LM-08-2016-0060
Published date09 January 2017
AuthorShannon L. Farrell,Aliqae Geraci
Subject MatterLibrary & information science,Librarianship/library management,HR in libraries,Library strategy,Library promotion
Librarians and compensation
negotiation in the
library workplace
Shannon L. Farrell
University of Minnesota Twin Cities, St Paul, Minnesota, USA, and
Aliqae Geraci
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to report on survey results from a study about librariansexperience
with compensation (salary and benefits) negotiation in the library workplace in order to providedata that will
inform professional discourse and practice.
Design/methodology/approach A primarily quantitative survey instrument was administered via
Qualtrics Survey Software and distributed through listservs and social media channels representing a range
of library types and sub-disciplines. The survey was explicitly addressed to librarians for participation and
asked them questions related to their work history and experience with negotiating for salary and benefits.
Findings A total of 1,541 librarians completed the survey. More than half of survey respondents reported
not negotiating for their current library position. The majority of those who did negotiate reported positive
outcomes, including an increase in salary or total compensation package. Only a very small number of
respondents reported threats to rescind or rescinded offers when negotiating for their current positions.
Respondents cited prior salary and prior work experience and/or education as the top information sources
informing negotiation strategy.
Originality/value There is minimal discussion of salary and benefits negotiation by individuals in the
library literatureand prior surveys of librariansexperience withcompensation negotiation do notexist. This is
the first paper that tracks negotiating practices and outcomes of librarians in library workplaces of all types.
Keywords Wages, Compensation, Librarians, Human resources, Library profession, Salary negotiation
Paper type Research paper
Background
Although the topic of salary negotiation has been covered extensively in many academic
disciplines and even the popular media, discussion within the library community has been
markedly limited. The library literature is devoid of scholarly articles on the topic and
sessions on negotiation are rarely found on conference agendas, with the exception of those
sponsored by the American Library Association Allied Professional Organization
(ALA-APA) at ALAs annual conferences. ALA-APA, which works to promote the interests
of library workers, also produces the freely available Advocating for Better Salaries Toolkit
that focuses on individual and col lective avenues for improvin g library worker
compensation in the library workplace (Dorning et al., 2014).
The authors have had extensive involvement with the ALA-APAs Salaries and Status of
Library Workers committee, working together from 2011 to 2015, an d serving consecutive
years as chair in 2013-2015 and 2015-2016. During their tenure on the committee, they
co-authored the fifth edition of the Advocating for Better Salaries Toolkit and facilitated
well-attended negotiation programming at the ALA conference. Through this work, they
identified the scarcity of research and data on the topic and observed the enthusiastic interest
that the library community had for more information around salaries, compensation and
negotiation. As a result, the authors decided to investigate librariansexperience with salary,
compensation, and benefits negotiation in the library workplace.
To understand the similarities or differences in librariansexperience with negotiation
and what information they find useful in learning to negotiate, the authors designed and
Library Management
Vol. 38 No. 1, 2017
pp. 45-64
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0143-5124
DOI 10.1108/LM-08-2016-0060
Received 10 August 2016
Accepted 21 November 2016
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0143-5124.htm
45
Librarians and
compensation
negotiation
distributed a survey across numerous sectors of the library profession, including various
library types, geographical regions, and community sizes. This paper reports on the
top-level findings from the survey; it is the first part of a larger study exploring librarians
and the negotiation of compensation. Through sharing these research findings, the authors
hope to provide data to inform evidence-based professional discourse and practice.
Literature review
Salary negotiation propensity, practices, and outcomes have been extensively researched
within a range of disciplines, including management/human resource (HR) studies, business,
organizational and applied psychology, and economics, as well as by practitioner and
professional communities tracking employment variables for constituent communities. While
researchers have observed that salary negotiation generally leads to better compensation
outcomes (Gerhart and Rynes, 1991; OShea and Bush, 2002; Marks and Harold, 2011), the
many variables influencing the negotiation relationship and workplace contexts have been
studied to generate a more nuanced picture of what happens when people negotiate.
Negotiation practices and outcomes studied within a lab context, as simulations, have
facilitated findings on the impact of salary offered and employer behavior on the perceived
attractiveness of a job (Porter et al., 2004), how different training programs affect
subsequent negotiation behavior (Stevens et al., 1993), whether gender differences in
negotiation practice could be connected to differences in how men and women are treated
when negotiating (Bowles et al., 2007), and gender differentials in negotiation behavior
(Bowles et al., 2007; Dittrich et al., 2014), and pairing outcomes (Dittrich et al., 2014). Survey
and interview methodologies have also been deployed to study the reported experiences and
outcomes of actual negotiations, capturing negotiation frequency and strategy of women
university administrators (Compton and Bierlein Palmer, 2009) and school psychology
practitioners and faculty (Crothers et al., 2010a, b), the impact of negotiation outcomes on
later job attitudes and turnover intentions (Curhan et al., 2009), assessing individual
differences in negotiation behaviors and outcomes (Marks and Harold, 2011), and exploring
the extent of negotiation and impact on starting salary (OShea and Bush, 2002).
The literature investigating gender differentials spans both methodological camps,
documenting persistent differences in negotiation behaviors outcomes for men and women.
Researchers have found that salary requests of male respondents were significantly higher and
correlated with beliefs that differed from women respondents(Barron, 2003), that female
negotiators were penalized more for initiating negotiation than men (Bowles et al.,2007),that
womens negotiation outcomes were worse than mens when in the role of employee, but not as
the employer (Dittrich et al., 2014), that while school psychology faculty of all genders negotiated
at comparable rates, women faculty reported more negative consequences as a result (Crothers
et al., 2010a, b), and that recent hires of all genders negotiate at similar rates, but women saw less
gains (Marks and Harold, 2011). Findings were uniformly consistent across studies; OShea and
Bush (2002) surveyed recent college graduates to determine extent of negotiation, including
gender differentials, and impact on starting salary, observing an additional average of $1,500 for
those negotiating and similar propensity and success rates across gender. However,
Stuhlmacher and Walters(1999) meta-analysis of studies investigating gender differentials in
salary negotiation outcome observed more positiveoutcomesformenthanwomen,andcallfor
further research into moderating factors to determine cause.
Studies of specific occupations (as opposed to general adult or student audiences) generally
deploy surveys and interviews to capture the experience of specific groups of workers within
more narrowly scoped work contexts and determine how findings deviate. Crothers et al.s
(2010a, b) national sample of school psychology university faculty found that successful
negotiation attempts outweighed the failures, earningsofwomenfacultylaggedbehindthoseof
their male colleagues despite experience, and that there were no gender differentials in
46
LM
38,1

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