{"id":6503,"date":"2025-07-08T22:05:38","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T22:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=6503"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:35:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:35:54","slug":"exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploitation of Workers Is More Widespread than You Think"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

Exploitation isn\u2019t limited to sweat-shop laborers and illegal immigrants. While agriculture, food-delivery, and healthcare are three of the sectors with the most workers who feel they\u2019re being exploited, many professionals are treated unfairly\u2014or feel<\/em> they\u2019re being treated unfairly\u2014by their employers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s according to Academy of Management Scholar Jaqueline \u201cJackie\u201d Coyle-Shapiro<\/a> of California State University, San Bernardino, and the London School of Economics (LSE), who cowrote an Academy of Management Journal article<\/a> on this topic with Ephrat Livne-Ofer of LSE and Jone Pearce of the University of California, Irvine. They noted that the idea of exploitation has received a lot of attention in other fields yet is conspicuously absent in management and organizations research.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we think about exploitation, our natural tendency is to think about immigrants that may not be legal residents in that particular country where they are working being exploited by employers or small businesses where they\u2019re overworked,\u201d Coyle-Shapiro said. \u201cThey’re not paid a lot; their health isn\u2019t taken care of, and so they\u2019re vulnerable because of their immigrant status.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coyle-Shapiro and colleagues from Aalto University in Finland are currently researching the extent to which platform workers who deliver food feel that their immigration status makes them vulnerable to exploitation by companies such as DoorDash, Uber Eats, Seamless, Grubhub, Instacart, ChowNow, Deliveroo, and Postmates. They\u2019re also doing research work on exploitation in Portugal, gauging to what extent hospital workers feel exploited by their employers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re examining to what extent that exploitation is structurally based in terms of the systems and human-resource-management practices in the organization, versus to what extent it\u2019s more relationally based in the sense that upper management and leaders within the organization are taking advantage of employees,\u201d Coyle-Shapiro said. \u201cWhat this suggests is that exploitation may be a lot more prevalent than low-paid, vulnerable immigrants that may not be legal in a particular country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking at how organizations may be exploiting professional employees, and one question that that I have is, \u2018To what extent do employees need to be exploited in order to make a difference?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cIf we think about employees that are passionate about providing the best healthcare possible, and so they have this calling or innate desire to make a difference to society, to what extent that puts them in a position where they\u2019re vulnerable to exploitation by their employer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s raising a question about who\u2019s carrying the burden of making a difference or having an impact in society: Is it the employee through going above and beyond the call of duty, working extra hours, or is it the organization whose purpose propels them to making a positive impact in society?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Exploitation isn\u2019t limited to sweat-shop laborers and illegal immigrants. While agriculture, food-delivery, and healthcare are three of the sectors with the most workers who feel they\u2019re being exploited, many professionals are treated unfairly\u2014or feel they\u2019re being treated unfairly\u2014by their employers. That\u2019s according to Academy of Management Scholar Jaqueline \u201cJackie\u201d Coyle-Shapiro of California […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6505,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,72,77,46],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-6503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","category-ethics","category-pay","category-well-being"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nExploitation of Workers Is More Widespread than You Think - 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\/exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think\/\" \/>\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\\\/exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"Exploitation of Workers Is More Widespread than You Think\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-08T22:05:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:35:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":469,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2025\\\/06\\\/Exploitation-worker-img.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"CAREERS\",\"ETHICS\",\"PAY\",\"WELL-BEING\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/exploitation-of-workers-is-more-widespread-than-you-think\\\/\",\"name\":\"Exploitation of Workers Is More Widespread than You Think - 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While agriculture, food-delivery, and healthcare are three of the sectors with the most workers who feel they\u2019re being exploited, many professionals are treated unfairly\u2014or feel they\u2019re being treated unfairly\u2014by their employers. That\u2019s according to Academy of Management Scholar Jaqueline \u201cJackie\u201d Coyle-Shapiro of California…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503","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=6503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6503"},{"taxonomy":"sp_smart_badges","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sp_smart_badges?post=6503"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=6503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}