Predicting wage theft in organizations

Author(s): Connelly, C. E.

Date: 2025

Resource: Human Resource Management Review.

Employees naturally expect to be paid for their work; moreover, they expect to be paid fully and on time. Unfortunately, this does not always happen; this phenomenon is known as “wage theft”. Despite wage theft being of paramount importance to employees who experience it, this topic has received scant attention in the human resources management (HRM) research literature. This paper therefore describes the prevalence of wage theft, or the illegal underpayment of employees, and offers several propositions regarding its antecedents, with specific attention to roles of both organizations and managers. This paper also identifies specific strategies that HR managers can use to detect and curtail wage theft and it ends with policy recommendations and suggestions for future research.

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Related Research Areas: Vulnerable Workers