This article examines how individual pay for performance is interpreted, predominantly by nonmanagerial employees, within the European context, at three subsidiaries of one U.S. multinational corporation in Spain. The study reveals how two levels of the cognitive socialization process color the lens through which employees view pay for performance and reveals how subsidiary founding, politics of resistance, and host-country effects impact the implementation of the practice. Contrary to past studies in the literature, the study discovered a large number of nonmanagerial employees with a positive interpretation of pay for performance due to the influence of pre-existing organizational cultural experiences