How could linguistic capital influence the overtime pay of low-skilled workers – A qualitative study of Bangladeshi workers

In this study, based on Bourdieu's linguistic capital theory, Gioia's method was used to conduct semi-structured interviews with 76 Bangladeshi low-skilled workers in Malaysia to explore how language capabilities influence their overtime pay. The results reveal that language capabilities constitute informal thresholds for overtime allocation through three mechanisms: communication efficiency, opportunity screening and trust in capabilities. In theoretical terms, this study extends the applicability of linguistic capital to organisational behaviour in Industry 4.0. Methodologically, qualitative research was used to compensate for the limitations of the current overreliance on quantitative models. Its practical application is a call for enterprises to establish more equitable and linguistically inclusive management mechanisms to reduce structural income inequality.