Labor, Knowledge, and Value in the Workplace: Implications for the Pay of Low-Wage Employees

Abstract

The issue of worker pay, particularly the pay of low-wage workers, is one that often surfaces in Western political and academic discourse. This article contributes to the discussion in a number of ways. Theoretically, I address the issue by leveraging insights from critical and “mainstream” research on determinants of worker pay, specifically the work of Marx (1867/1976) and Coff. First, similarities between Coff’s (1999) resource-based strategic management model of rent generation/appropriation and Marxian conceptualizations of subsistence wages are outlined, with an eye toward forging some common ground between “mainstream” and “critical” formulations of how value is created and appropriated in organizations. Having established this, I explore some key endogenous and exogenous factors that influence worker pay, and I discuss the ways in which workers and academicians can leverage them to improve the pay of low-wage workers. Ultimately, the goal of this article is to help critical scholars develop practical ideas about strategies for raising the pay of low-wage employees.