Effort–Reward Imbalance and Passion Exploitation: A Narrative Review and a New Perspective

This paper provides a narrative review of previous research on effort–reward imbalance (ERI) and passion exploitation, providing a perspective for future research. Previous research has shown that ERI can cause work stress, negative economic behavior such as job turnover, and illnesses such as metabolic syndrome. Previous research also claims that loyal and generous people, as well as young people and women, are more likely to be targets of passion exploitation. However, there are unresolved issues in previous research, such as (i) the mechanism by which effort–reward imbalance leads to stress and illness, (ii) there being lack of research on what types of jobs are more likely to experience imbalance, and (iii) there being lack of research on what level of imbalance is acceptable, and therefore further research is required. To this end, this study recommends addressing these challenges through the integration of ERI and passion exploitation theory.