Relationship of Employee Ownership to the Technological Adaptiveness and Performance of Companies

摘要

The relationships between employee ownership and industrial modernization and productivity are explored. Data were collected from approximately 200 firms, some of which were employee-owned. The data included information about profitability, level of technological sophistication, and other characteristics of modernization. Analyses indicate that employee-owned companies are likely to be more participative than their non-employee-owned counterparts, but this association is explained entirely by one component of the participation index--the company's sharing of information with its employees about company profits. It is shown that companies that score high on several criteria of technological modernization also show a relatively high ratio of profits to sales. However, employee-owned companies do not score higher than non-employee-owned companies on technological modernization or on performance. Evidence reveals a small negative relationship between the percent of equity owned by workers and the technological modernness and growth of a company. Nonetheless, employee-owned companies demonstrated a higher rate of survival during the years 1976-1982, a period of economic recession.