Moral Economy and the Ethics of the Real Living Wage in UK Football Clubs

Tony Dobbins; Peter Prowse

doi:10.1007/s10551-024-05645-8

Moral Economy and the Ethics of the Real Living Wage in UK Football Clubs

Tony Dobbins^*, Peter Prowse

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

Real living wages (RLWs) are an important ethical and moral policy to ensure that employees earn enough to live on. In providing ‘a fair day's pay for a fair day's work’, they set an ethical foundation for liveability. This article explores the ethics and moral economy of the RLW for lower-paid staff in the overlooked economy context of UK professional football, illustrated by a qualitative case study of Luton Town Football Club (LTFC). The article provides theoretical insights grounded in moral economy concepts about how a RLW contributes to a broader common good means of enabling fuller human participation in decent working and living conditions. Applying these concepts using a multi-disciplinary moral economy interpretation offers deeper theoretical contributions than economistic interpretations restricted to mainly technocratic economic distributive issues. LTFC are evidently ethically embedded in a moral economy as a local community club paying a RLW, and part of the overlooked economy. The research also contributes to contemporary debates on ‘Common Good’ HRM regarding the role of living wages in addressing grand common good challenges like inequality and quality of working lives.

Original language	English
Journal	Journal of Business Ethics
Early online date	26 Mar 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05645-8
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 26 Mar 2024

Bibliographical note

Acknowledgments:
We would like to thank all participants that kindly contributed to this research. The research was supported by the British Academy and Leverhulme Trust [SRG1819\190788]: The ethics of living wages for low-paid staff in UK professional football clubs

Keywords

‘Common Good’ HRM
Contributive justice
Ethics
Football
Living wage
Moral economy
Overlooked economy

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1007/s10551-024-05645-8Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

DobbinsT2024MoralFinal published version, 852 KBLicence: Creative Commons: Attribution (CC BY)

The ethics of living wages for low-paid staff in UK professional football clubs
Dobbins, T.
British Academy
1/05/19 → 31/03/22
Project: Research Councils

Cite this

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title = "Moral Economy and the Ethics of the Real Living Wage in UK Football Clubs",

abstract = "Real living wages (RLWs) are an important ethical and moral policy to ensure that employees earn enough to live on. In providing {\textquoteleft}a fair day's pay for a fair day's work{\textquoteright}, they set an ethical foundation for liveability. This article explores the ethics and moral economy of the RLW for lower-paid staff in the overlooked economy context of UK professional football, illustrated by a qualitative case study of Luton Town Football Club (LTFC). The article provides theoretical insights grounded in moral economy concepts about how a RLW contributes to a broader common good means of enabling fuller human participation in decent working and living conditions. Applying these concepts using a multi-disciplinary moral economy interpretation offers deeper theoretical contributions than economistic interpretations restricted to mainly technocratic economic distributive issues. LTFC are evidently ethically embedded in a moral economy as a local community club paying a RLW, and part of the overlooked economy. The research also contributes to contemporary debates on {\textquoteleft}Common Good{\textquoteright} HRM regarding the role of living wages in addressing grand common good challenges like inequality and quality of working lives.",

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Moral Economy and the Ethics of the Real Living Wage in UK Football Clubs

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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The ethics of living wages for low-paid staff in UK professional football clubs

Cite this