Employee Stock Ownership and Corporate Performance Among Public Companies
This study compares the corporate performance in 1990/91 of two groups of public companies: those in which employees owned more than 5% of the company’s stock, and all others.
Why Do Firms Adopt Profit Sharing and Employee Ownership Plans?
Profit-sharing and employee ownership in companies have attracted considerable interest, yet there has been little research on factors predicting the adoption and maintenance of these plans. This study uses new data from a survey of 500 US public companies, and panel data on corporate financial variables, to examine factors predicting the presence and adoption of profit-sharing and employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) in the 1975–91 period.
Employee participation, ownership, and productivity: A theoretical framework
A new conceptual framework to define and differentiate among diverse forms of employee ownership is developed.
Work Alienation and Problem Alcohol Behavior
Using a sample of production workers from union, nonunion, producer cooperative, and employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) wood products mills in the Northwest, we test the general proposition that work alienation, defined as low job autonomy, low use of capacities, and lack of participation in decision-making in the workplace, is associated with heavy drinking and negative consequences from drinking.
Customer Satisfaction Incentives
Customer satisfaction incentive schemes are increasingly common in a variety of industries. We offer explanations as to how and when incenting employees on customer satisfaction is profitable and offer several recommendations for improving upon current practice.
The Effects of Employee Ownership on Employee Attitudes – An Integrated Causal Model and Path-Analysis
Research on employee-owned organizations to date has utilized alternative theoretical perspectives and has examined varying attitudinal outcomes. This study reviews previous research and attempts to integrate the findings into a causal model that combines the results of prior studies. The resulting causal model was tested empirically with a sample (N = 181) of employees from a firm that adopted an employee ownership programme.
Theoretical and Empirical Studies of Producer Cooperatives: Will Ever the Twain Meet?
Producer cooperatives (hereafter, PC) have existed in Western economies since the advent of the factory system. The oldest surviving PCs in the U.K. and Italy are over one hundred years old. By analyzing the theoretical properties of PCs, economists hope to assess whether popularization of the PC form, or transplantation of some of its characteristics into other organizations, would benefit or harm social welfare.
The Elusive ESOP–Productivity Link: Evidence from US Firm-Level Data
This paper investigates whether employee participation in ownership or profit-sharing in publicly held firms through an ESOP or profit-sharing plan was positively associated with productivity measures. The sample consists of firms that adopted such plans during 1982 through 1987.
The Scope, Nature, and Effects of Employee Stock Ownership Plans in Japan
Using data for various years, including new data for 1973 through 1984, the scope, nature, determinants, and effects of employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) in Japan are examined.
Practice Note: Questions and Answers Regarding ESOPs for Family Businesses
Assessing the applicability of employee stock ownership plans for a family firm requires a basic understanding of their characteristics, followed by a careful analysis of the costs and benefits in the specific case. This note provides general information and offers guides for the critical, specific questions an adviser or owner should ask.
Employee Ownership, Attitudes, and Turnover: An Empirical Assessment
Previous research on employee-owned organizations has been limited in time frame and in the outcomes examined, which have been primarily attitudinal measures. This study examined the effects of an employee ownership program on employee attitudes and actual turnover behavior over an extended time period.
Workers as Owners: An Empirical Comparison of Intra-firm Inequalities at Employee-owned and Conventional Companies
Based on a sample of three employee-owned and seven conventional companies, this study empirically tests the theoretical claim that employee ownership and management reduces inequality at the firm level. Inequality is broadly defined as the unequal distribution of income, wealth, power, prestige, and privileges, as well as the existence of social boundaries between classes.
The Viability of Employee-Owned Firms: Evidence from France
This study examines data on French producer cooperatives for the years 1970-79 to test the widely accepted theoretical prediction that employee-owned firms either will fail as commercial undertakings or degenerate into capitalist firms as the proportion of hired workers who are not members of the cooperative firm increases.
The Economic Effects of Profit Sharing in Great Britain
There are a number of ways to have workers’ remuneration linked more readily with firms’ commercial performance. One is to link wages to profits by using cash-based profit sharing (where workers are made cash payments which vary with employer’s profitability). A second is to have workers paid partly in their firms’ own shares. A third, and more extreme alternative, is producer co-operatives where workers participate in profits, ownership and decision-making. In this article we examine both the theoretical and empirical evidence in support of such schemes.
Employee Ownership: A Conceptual Model of Process and Effects
A model is developed that explicates one process through which employee ownership operates, leading to a set of social-psychological and behavioral effects.
“People’s Factories”: Worker Co-operatives in South Africa
The aim of this article is to investigate the recent emergence of worker cooperatives or “people’s factories” in South Africa. The development of South African worker co-ops is situated in terms of key aspects of the restructuring of the economy and society during the 1980s. New production forms such as producer cooperatives are linked to … Read More
Correlates of Employee Satisfaction with Stock Ownership: Who Likes an ESOP Most?
This study examines the correlates of individual employee satisfaction with stock ownership in a sample of 37 employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) companies.
How Well Is Employee Ownership Working?
With ESOPs performing so well more American managers should consider adopting this approach.
Employee Perspectives on Stock Ownership: Financial Investment or Mechanism of Control?
This paper explores employee ownership as a financial investment rather than a mechanism of control. Viewed from such a perspective, relations among employee ownership, satisfaction, and desired influence are more complex than supposed.
Employee stock ownership and employee attitudes: A test of three models
Results of a test of three alternative models of the conditions necessary for employee ownership to positively influence employee attitudes are reported.
Employee Ownership, Work Attitudes, and Power Relationships
Relationships of employee equity in the company with work attitudes, information, and desired influence were examined in a prosperous firm converted to employee ownership by its management.
Absenteeism When Workers Have a Voice: The Case of Employee Ownership
Used R. M. Steers and S. R. Rhodes’s (see record 1979-09970-001) model as a framework for examining patterns of absenteeism and their predictors among 112 workers (mean age 44 yrs) in an employee-owned organization. The focus of the study was the effect of job satisfaction on voluntary absenteeism, which is traditionally thought to be either negative or canceled out by pressures to attend work.
Employee Ownership: Implications for the Organizational Distribution of Power
Workers’ and managers’ views of their roles as employee owners, financial partners, and co-decision makers were examined in a furniture factory bought by its employees through a corporate divestiture.
Job Attitudes and Organizational Performance Under Employee Ownership
This paper assesses the apparent effects on job attitudes and organizational performance of recent conversions to employee ownership at three firms.
Desires for and Patterns of Worker Participation in Decision Making After Conversion to Employee Ownership
The article discusses patterns of and desires for employee participation in management and decision making after an organization has converted to employee ownership. The author notes a number of reasons why an increased level of employee participation in decision making is significant.