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. Several findings support productivity-related motivations for such plans (including higher R&D levels among old profit-sharing firms, and recent adoption of job enrichment programmes among new profit-sharing firms), while others support flexibility-related motivations (including higher variance in profits prior to the adoption of profit-sharing plans and ESOPs). Unionized firms were less likely to have either type of plan in 1975, but equally likely to adopt them subsequently (often in concessionary contracts). Comparisons of cross-sectional and panel results illustrate advantages of panel data in disentangling the causes and effects of profit-sharing and ESOPs.     

Ownership Advantages, Foreign Production and Productivity: Evidence from Austrian Manufacturing Firms

Multi-plant economies of scale generated by firm-specific assets form a constituent feature of multinational firms. This paper uses a panel of Austrian manufacturing firms to test for multi-plant economies of scale by examining the dependence of labor productivity in plants of the home country on the volume of foreign production. As there is an inherent causality problem in testing this proposition, the econometric estimates use a simultaneous equation framework. The estimation results indeed indicate that firms which operate plants abroad achieve productivity advantages in domestic plants. The same holds true for affiliates of foreign multinationals.     

Broad-Based Employee Ownership and Labour Productivity During the 2008 Recession: Evidence from Public Firms in Europe

Did publicly traded European firms with employee ownership (EO) realize higher firm performance during or after the Great Recession? Contributing to the growing interest in exploring the association between EO and firm performance during and after the 2008 economic crisis, we draw on a longitudinal sample of 4,259 firm-years representing 892 publicly traded firms from 28 European countries. The results show that compared to firms without EO, those with EO experienced higher firm performance during or after the recession, albeit with small effect size. Consistent with past findings, we found that firms with EO were less likely to lower their employee count during or after the recession. Findings are robust to controlling for contemporaneous endogeneity and alternate specifications. Our results indicate that publicly traded European firms with EO, on average, realized higher firm performance in the face of the Great Recession.     

Broad-based Employee Stock Options in US 'New Economy' Firms

This paper compares the performance of 229 'New Economy' firms offering broad-based stock options to that of their non-stock option counterparts. A simple comparison of these firms reveals that the former have higher shareholder returns, Tobin's q and new knowledge generation. Multivariate analysis using panel data also suggests that the adoption of a stock option plan results in higher levels of value added per employee. However, we do not find evidence that these plans result in superior growth in Tobin's q or new knowledge generation.     

Employee Participation,Ownership, and Productivity: A Theoretical Framework

A new conceptual framework to define and differentiate among diverse forms of employee ownership is developed. Two central rights associated with ownership, return and control rights, are identified. Their impact on individual motivation, individual performance, organizational structural variables and organizational performance is evaluated. We show how, over certain ranges of combinations of control and return rights, the relationship between alternative ownership arrangements and organizational performance may be nonlinear. The implications for the introduction of employee ownership and the evaluation of empirical work are considered.     

Importing and Productivity: An Analysis of South African Manufacturing Firms

Review of Industrial Organization - This paper uses firm-level data from company tax declarations to analyse the complementary relationship between direct access to imported intermediate inputs and...     

On the Relationship between Japanese Manufacturing Firms and their Domestic Subsidiaries

Much past research on ownership policy has dealt with foreign subsidiaries. In this paper, we study the ownership relationship between Japanese firms and their publicly-traded domestic subsidiaries. Using a transaction cost framework, we find that benefiting from high subsidiary profitability is not the sole motivation behind parent firms' decisions regarding equity control of their subsidiaries. Our results indicate that different policies are adopted by Japanese firms with respect to domestic and foreign subsidiaries.     

The Determinants of Employee Productivity and Earnings

This paper uses data on employee wages and characteristics drawn from a nationwide sample of firms to re-examine the determinants of employee productivity and earnings. The results show that previous experience and tenure in the current job have significant, positive effects on wages and productivity. Hours of training are positively related to productivity and wage growth but generally not to levels of either. Lastly, gender effects are evident. Productivity growth and current productivity levels are slightly higher for females while their wages are significantly lower.     

Foreign Ownership and Productivity in the United Kingdom Estimates for U.K. Manufacturing Using the ARD

Review of Industrial Organization - There is a general assumption in much of the literature on FDI that foreign owned plants have higher productivity. The purpose of this paper is to answer the...     

Comparison of Organization Communication Effectiveness on Construction Firms and Manufacturing Firms

基于用先进的制造业改造传统建筑业的现实需求,在对影响组织沟通的核心要素分析的基础上,设计问卷及测量问题,并进行了数据收集及其信度、效度检验,应用数理统计方法对建筑业和制造业企业的组织沟通有效性进行了比较研究.研究结果表明:制造业企业信息交流的准确性、及时性和充分性均明显好于建筑业企业;而制造业企业的信息交换量虽大于建筑业企业,但差异并不显著.该研究有助于建筑业企业借鉴制造业的先进经验,通过组织沟通有效性水平的提升促进与其他联盟企业的合作.     

Employee Share Ownership: Safeguarding Investments in Human Capital

Valuable investments in human capital, it has been argued, may be at risk in much the same way as shareholder equity capital. In this paper, we develop and test the hypothesis that employee share ownership (ESO) may be used to encourage and safeguard investments in human capital. Using the Workplace Employee Relations Survey 1998, we examine the empirical link between the likelihood of ESO and the presence of valuable human capital. Adjusted for possible structural influences, empirical evidence suggests considerable support for our hypothesis.     

投资者法律保护、所有权结构与困境公司高层管理人员变更

在投资者法律保护较差的国家里,集中所有权结构被看成是能够替代投资者法律保护,有效发挥公司治理作用的机制。本文以2000—2004年上海证券交易所和深圳证券交易所152家ST公司为样本,实证检验当公司已陷入困境、被特别处理的情况下,集中所有权结构对公司高层管理人员变更产生的积极影响。实证结果表明,大股东持股比例与公司高层管理人员变更之间存在显著的正相关关系,不同的大股东持股比例对高层管理人员变更产生不同的影响作用。检验证据支持了LaPorta等人(2000)提出的关于投资者法律保护与公司治理的主流理论。     

Unions and Employee Ownership: A Road to Economic Democracy?*

In the relationship between unions and employee share ownership, neither threatened the other, and their combination led to benefits for employees, particularly where unionized employees were majority owners. Companies adding communication, training, and participation reported performance gains. These practices were more common among majority‐owned companies and in companies facing economic threats. Economic performance and benefits were comparable, whether unionized employees owned a majority of the stock, a minority, or none at all.     

我国企业人力资源管理模式与所有制类型之间的关系研究

本文通过比较分析发现传统国有企业与民营企业在人力资源管理的基础工作和企业内部程序公平两个方面都显著落后于外资企业,传统国有企业在工作组织方式和外部人才引进两个方面都显著落后于民营企业与外资企业。进一步分析发现我国企业人力资源管理模式内部政策措施之间存在着结构性失调现象,揭示出我国企业人力资源管理模式与所有制性质之间的关系反映了权变主义和制度环境的联合影响。     

Levels of Employee Share Ownership and the Performance of Listed Companies in Europe

We investigate the effects of employee share ownership (ESO) on three alternative measures of firm performance in a panel of 1,115 companies from the five largest European economies. The results show that firms with ESO enjoy significantly higher levels of capital market performance and of accounting performance than firms without ESO; however, the marginal effects of ESO are declining with increasing ESO levels. ESO does not have a clear effect on productivity. These findings hold for all countries except Spain. Variations in ESO levels within firms over time exert few performance effects.     

The Effects of Non‐Expensed Employee Stock Bonus on Firm Performance: Evidence from Taiwanese High‐Tech Firms

The choice of whether to expense broad‐based stock incentives has been a highly controversial debate in both academic research and practice circles. We provide insightful findings to reconcile certain debates regarding the effectiveness of non‐expensed, broad‐based stock incentives. Using a unique longitudinal dataset from Taiwanese high‐tech firms over the 1997–2008 period, our results indicate that non‐expensed employee stock bonus incentives exerted positive effects on short‐term organizational value added creation. The dilution effects of broad‐based stock incentives in Taiwan, however, exerted a negative influence on profitability and eroded share return. The negative effects were even more severe in the following year, and overexploitation of employee stock bonus also damaged the long‐term organizational performance of Taiwanese high‐tech firms. This negative aspect of non‐expensed employee stock incentives resulted in more evidence for changing the regulatory context of broad‐based stock incentives in Taiwan.     

Employee Participation and Equal Opportunities Practices: Productivity Effect and Potential Complementarities

The relationships between employee participation, equal opportunities practices and productivity are explored. Data from the British Workplace Employee Relations Survey of 1998 provide strong evidence that equal opportunities practices improve productivity overall, and increasingly so as the share of female and ethnic minority employees increases. However, short‐term effects may be negative in segregated workplaces. Non‐financial participation schemes are negatively associated with productivity, but in most cases the joint presence of these participatory schemes and equal opportunities practices significantly increases productivity. Interactions between participatory and equal opportunities schemes are also affected by work‐force composition and by the level of equal opportunities policies implemented.     

Employment Adjustments in Japanese Firms During the Current Crisis

In this article we describe the severity of the current recession and depict the resultant harsh modes of employment adjustments. As a benchmark for comparison, we refer as frequently as possible to the recession that followed the first oil crisis. Macro indices include the extent of various employment adjustments, the roles of "shock–absorbing" industries, and the impact of public employment polices. As sources of micro–level data, we examine some 30 publicly owned, large–scale firms during both the current recession and the 1970s crisis. To further clarify the situation, we detail employment adjustments carried out by two "seriously wounded" firms.