British Journal of Industrial Relations Archives - CLEO Skip to main content

Can Cooperatives/Employee-Owned Businesses Improve ‘Bad’ Jobs? Evaluating Job Quality in Three Low-Paid Sectors

Sarah Jenkins, Wil Chivers | September, 2021

Job quality has received increased attention from academics and policy makers across industrialized countries. Yet, there has been limited assessment of how job quality is impacted by different organizational forms, including cooperatives and employee-owned businesses (EOBs). Although there has been growing interest in how cooperatives/EOBs impact on employee outcomes, comprehensive assessments of the range and … Read More

An Empirical Analysis of the Relationship Between Employee Ownership and Employment Stability in the U.S.: 1999-2011

Douglas Kruse, Fidan Ana Kurtulus | June, 2018

Do firms with employee ownership (EO) programs exhibit greater employment stability in the face of economic downturns? In particular, are firms with EO programs less likely to lay off workers during negative shocks? In this article, we examine the relationship between EO programs and employment stability in the United States using longitudinal Form 5500‐CompuStat matched … Read More

Do Broad-Based Employee Ownership, Profit Sharing and Stock Options Help the Best Firms Do Even Better

Douglas Kruse, Joseph Blasi, Richard B. Freeman | March, 2016

This article analyses the linkages among group incentive methods of compensation (broad‐based employee ownership, profit sharing and stock options), labour practices, worker assessments of workplace culture, turnover and firm performance in firms that applied to the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For in America’ competition from 2005 to 2007. Although employers with good labour practices … Read More

The Perception and Effects of Share Ownership: Empirical Evidence from Employee Buy Outs 

Andrew Pendleton, Mike Wright, Nicholas Wilson | January, 1998

This paper explores the impact of employee ownership on employee attitudes, using additional data obtained from four UK bus companies which had adopted the ESOP form of employee share ownership. After reviewing the recent UK literature, the paper highlights findings from US literature that a ‘sense of ownership’ is an important intervening variable between actual ownership and additudinal change, and that opportunities for participation in decision-making are more important that ownership per se in generating feelings of ownership. 

Why Do Firms Adopt Profit Sharing and Employee Ownership Plans? 

Douglas Kruse | January, 1996

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.