Beyond Minimum Wage: A Conceptual Framework for Living Wage in Organizations

The Problem Economic inequality and wage stagnation challenge employee well-being and organizational sustainability. HRD scholarship has given minimal attention to living wages as a strategic and developmental issue. Organizations lack conceptual guidance on integrating living wage practices into HRD frameworks, leaving practitioners without a foundation for aligning compensation with development goals. The Solution This paper positions the living wage as a developmental imperative aligned with HRD’s core domains: Training and Development, Organizational Development, and Career Development, grounded in Human Capability Theory, Organizational Justice Theory, and Strategic HRD Theory. Using illustrative examples from Costco, JPMorgan Chase, and Unilever, it theorizes that adequate wages enable employees to engage in training, contribute to organizational change, and pursue career advancement; it offers a conceptual framework to guide future empirical investigation. Stakeholders HRD professionals, educators, organizational leaders, policymakers, and researchers interested in advancing empirical inquiry on living wage as a strategic HRD mechanism.