{"id":6498,"date":"2025-06-17T19:00:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T19:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=6498"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:48:42","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:48:42","slug":"why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Why You Might Be Getting Exploited at Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Even if you don\u2019t work in agriculture, domestic service, construction, manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare, beauty salons, or restaurants\u2014all industries prone to worker exploitation\u2014your employer might still be taking advantage of you. Sweatshop and forced labor aside, common types of worker exploitation include wage theft, unsafe working conditions, a toxic organizational culture, bullying, harassment, and discrimination.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Jaqueline \u201cJackie\u201d Coyle-Shapiro<\/a> of California State University, San Bernardino, and the London School of Economics\u2014who cowrote The Employee-Organization Relationship: Applications for the 21st Century<\/em> with Lynn Shore and Lois Tetrick\u2014said that she and her colleagues have been tracking the rise of non-traditional employment relationships. Many of these benefit employers and shareholders at the expense of employees and other stakeholders.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got the gig economy; we\u2019ve got lots of platform work, also known as crowd work or crowdworking, and so what is this doing to alter employee-employer relationships?\u201d Coyle-Shapiro said. \u201cThe question I\u2019m particularly interested in is: To what extent is this providing the fertile ground for organizations to exploit employees?<\/p>\n

\u201cExploitation of employees occurs primarily because employers have greater power in the relationship, but also employees may feel that they don\u2019t have viable employment alternatives,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

A more traditional example is the U.S. healthcare system, which is structured around private for-profit insurers and third-party administrators who have come under criticism for ballooning costs and denying doctor-recommended medical procedures and medications. When maximizing profit is an organization\u2019s top priority, other stakeholders\u2019 interests\u2014treating employees well, paying them fairly, and providing the best care\u2014are not prioritized to the same extent or, in some cases, at all. That contributes to many Americans\u2019 dissatisfaction with the healthcare system as a whole, as well as some healthcare workers\u2019 low morale and burnout.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn underlying factor might be this notion that organizations are getting greedy, and as a result of that, engaging in perhaps more sophisticated exploitation practices towards their different stakeholders,\u201d Coyle-Shapiro said. \u201cThat\u2019s a more general trend.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganizations that lost a lot during the pandemic are now trying to recoup some of those losses by becoming more profitable,\u201d she said. \u201cAs a result of looking for ways to increase profitability, they end up taking advantage of their stakeholders, including employees, customers or patients, and surrounding communities.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Even if you don\u2019t work in agriculture, domestic service, construction, manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare, beauty salons, or restaurants\u2014all industries prone to worker exploitation\u2014your employer might still be taking advantage of you. Sweatshop and forced labor aside, common types of worker exploitation include wage theft, unsafe working conditions, a toxic organizational culture, bullying, harassment, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,72,44,46],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-6498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","category-ethics","category-motivation","category-well-being"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWhy You Might Be Getting Exploited at Work - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Why You Might Be Getting Exploited at Work\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-06-17T19:00:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:48:42+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":395,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/06\\\/perceived-exploitation-img.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"CAREERS\",\"ETHICS\",\"MOTIVATION\",\"WELL-BEING\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/why-you-might-be-getting-exploited-at-work\\\/\",\"name\":\"Why You Might Be Getting Exploited at Work - 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Sweatshop and forced labor aside, common types of worker exploitation include wage theft, unsafe working conditions, a toxic organizational culture, bullying, harassment,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=6498"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=6498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}