This study was conducted for the purpose of identifying key issues and suggesting future research directions by analyzing empirical studies over the past 10 years (2013-2023) related to the pay dispersion introduced for corporate performance improvement. In existing empirical studies, the theories mainly used to explain the effect of the pay dispersion were the tournament theory, the expectancy theory, the equity theory, and the relative deprivation theory. On the other hand, both types of vertical pay dispersion and horizontal pay dispersion received similar attention from the pay dispersion literatures, and it was also confirmed that studies looking at the effect of pay dispersion on organizations positively and negatively were mixed. In addition, it was confirmed that each study set the financial and non-financial performance of various organizations as outcome variables, and that many studies applied various contingency factors to identify the cause of the different effects of the pay dispersion. Finally, by synthesizing the analyzed papers, 4 main issues (the effect of the pay dispersion, the mediators and dependent variables of the pay dispersion, the contingency factors in creating the pay dispersion effect, and the limitations of the available data) were derived, and future research directions for each issue were presented.