“Should I Pay a Living Wage?” A Systematic Review on Employers’ Decision from an Organisational Justice Perspective

Abstract

This study is a systematic review that explores employers’ decision for or against living wage (LW). Published articles up to year 2022 were extracted and screened, and a total of 24 articles were reviewed.  Thematic analysis was used to extract themes for three components of organisational justice. Themes like employer morale and ethics, employee contribution as well as current and future impacts explain distributive justice. The right strategy, implementation costs, perceived benefits and external interventions describe procedural justice. Finally, employers direct, indirect or no communication to employees explain interactional justice. Theoretically, a novel framework that describes how employers decide on living wages from the perspective of organisational justice is proposed. It simultaneously serves as a decision-making tool for employers to introduce LW and a strategy for living wage advocates to persuade employers paying living wage.