ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the issues involved in studying the effects of deliberately introduced changes in the methods used by an organisation to calculate how much pay their employees are to receive. The basis for these considerations derives from a study of incentive payment systems introduced in 63 different employing organisations (Bowey, Thorpe and Hellier 1986). The aim of that study was to identify the factors which influenced the success or otherwise of these schemes. How important to eventual results were such things as the design features of the payment system itself, the suitability of the payment system for the kind of organisation it was introduced into, the kind of organisation itself, and the processes through which the changes were implemented?
