Way back in 1963, J. S. Adams established the “equity theory of management”. I find his theory a bit obvious and extremely applicable to entrepreneurs and all sorts of business minded individuals, but I want to discuss this theory with you today.

In short, the theory “attempts to explain relational satisfaction in terms of perceptions of fair/unfair distributions of resources within interpersonal relationships” (1). Very simply put, this theory says that there is a tie between what you feel you are worth in a certain setting and how you feel about your worth or compensation.  In a business setting, this means that an employee may feel like they’re being treated unfairly if they’re paid too little (or too much? Yeah, right.) for their work.  The relationship between the pay for the job and the fairness of the pay based on the amount of work (“equity”) that you put in can lead to either an increase or a decrease in work satisfaction.  Click on the image below to get a bigger version – it’ll help you visualize this theory better.

So what does this have to do with blogging?  Well, it’s pretty straightforward, I think.  How hard to you work on your blog?  What kind of time and commitment are you giving your blog?  How thorough are you when you make posts?  Do you research your topic?  Do you spell check?  Do you make posts that make sense?  Are you active in your blog’s community?  Do you answer the emails that you get?   If you’ve answered “yes” to these questions, then you are definitely working hard and deserve to receive recognition or payment for your work.  If you’ve answered “no” to some or all of these questions and yet you believe that you should be getting paid to blog, then you need to wake up and smell the roses.  There’s a definite tie between the amount of work that you put in and the amount of money that you get paid for your work.

I recently received an email question from a newbie blogger asking for my honest feedback on his blog.  I know it probably was a shot in the dark to send me an email, but I appreciated the note and felt as though this person cared about my opinions.  So I took the time to research his blog, figure out what I thought about it, and compose a nice email detailing my views.  It took about 35 minutes out of my already busy day but I did it as a favor for this guy.  I never received acknowledgment of receipt nor did I receive a simple “thanks” or anything else.  I don’t mean that I felt like I was owed anything, but I what I got out of this transaction was that the blogger didn’t really care to hear about anyone else’s opinions, even though he asked for it.  I don’t think his blog will be around very much longer if he keeps up this attitude.

If you’re involved in your blog’s community and are actively putting in sweat equity into your blog, Adams suggests that somewhere down the road you will feel like you need to be compensated for your work.  And I agree.  How you can be compensated varies, but if you have any kind of audience it is your duty as a blogger to work hard to monetize your site.  Private ad sales, paid reviews, or otherwise,  you need to figure out what kind of payment you want to receive from your blog.  Don’t give up and keep writing!  The money will follow…eventually.

1 – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_theory