An urgent and deeply resonant case for the power of workplace democracy to restore balance between economy and society. What happens to a society—and a planet—when capitalism outgrows democracy? The tensions between democracy and capitalism are longstanding, and they have been laid bare by the social effects of COVID-19. The narrative of “essential workers” has … Read More
This paper analyzes social stratification in patterns of access to shared capitalism programs, the value of shared capitalist plan assets, and access to workplace power and authority in a sample of over 40,000 employees in 14 companies with various forms of shared capitalism in the United States.
This paper examines the effect of a variety of employee stock ownership programs – including ESOPs and broad based stock options – on employees’ holdings of their employers’ stock, their earnings and their wealth.
Between one-third and one-half of employees participate directly in company performance through profit sharing, gain sharing, employee ownership, or stock options.
Group incentive systems have to overcome the free rider or 1/N problem, which gives workers an incentive to shirk, if they are to succeed.
This paper addresses whether the risk in shared capitalism makes it unwise for most workers or whether the risk can be managed to limit much of the loss of utility from holding the extra risk.
In the 1990s an increasing proportion of US firms moved toward compensation systems that made part of pay depend on the economic performance of work-groups or the firm.
This paper uses nationally representative linked workplace-employee data from the British 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey to examine the operation of shared capitalist forms of pay—profit-sharing and group pay for performance, employee share ownership, and stock options—and their link to productivity.
Apart from the extreme cases that get publicized, are employee stock ownership plans generally good or bad for workers?
This paper analyzes a survey of employees from multiple companies to assess the extent to which employees are ignorant about company, group, and individual-based incentive pay plans and ESOPs.
This paper uses data from NBER surveys of over 40,000 employees in hundreds of facilities in 14 firms and from employees on the 2002 and 2006 General Social Surveys to explore how shared compensation affects turnover, absenteeism, loyalty, worker effort, and other outcomes affecting workplace performance.
This collection of papers provides background on a number of employee ownership issues.
Almost half of American private-sector employees participate in shared capitalism — employment relations where the pay or wealth of workers is directly tied to workplace or firm performance.
This paper investigates the relationship of ‘shared capitalist’ compensation systems—profit/gain sharing, employee ownership, and stock options—to the culture for innovation and employees’ ability and willingness to engage in innovative activity.
This paper presents finding from our most recent research on the transformation of participatory employment practices of Japanese firms in the 1990s, during which the Japanese economy slowed down considerably. The operation appears to be of particular public policy interest for many countries considering participatory employment practices as a way to improve their productivity performance and thus competitiveness.