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The purpose is to review the effects of employee participation (EP) in decision-making, ownership and profit on job quality, worker well-being and productivity, and derive policy recommendations from the findings.

The authors summarise results of “declining labour power”, plus theoretical arguments and empirical evidence for the benefits of EP for job quality, satisfaction and productivity.

Worker well-being and job satisfaction are ignored unless they contribute directly to profitability. EP is needed to remedy this situation when employers have market power and unions are weak. The result can be a rise in both productivity and well-being.

The chief issue here is that there are data limitations, particularly on the well-being effects of participation.

Lots of encouraging examples in many countries need legislative help to multiply.

It is quite possible that there could be major implications for welfare and employment.

The authors make the case for public sector subsidies for employee buyouts and new cooperative start-ups, as well as legislation for works councils and profit sharing.

Cutting staff is a common response during economic downturns, but if staffing plans aren't linked to business strategy, rightsizing can go badly wrong.

This paper investigated the effect of employee share ownership, mediated through psychological ownership, on organizational citizenship behavior. The analysis included the possible complementary role of High Performance Ownership systems. This paper investigated these relationships by analyzing employee survey data from a Dutch organization that has implemented employee share ownership. We used PLS, a variance-based structural equation model to test the hypotheses. The results showed a direct influence of employee ownership on organizational citizenship behavior, but the relationship was not mediated by psychological ownership. Unexpectedly, the results show that a High Performance Work System bundle without employee ownership generates psychological ownership, but this does not influence organizational citizenship behavior. This research could not confirm the comprehensive model in which employee ownership, HRM system, and psychological ownership are positively related to each other. We choose a deliberate set of HR practices on theoretical grounds, but future research could investigate other sets of HR practices that may produce the expected effects. This research showed that employee ownership has a positive influence on organizational citizenship behavior. Organizations are therefore advised to consider implementing employee ownership. The results also show that a set of HR practices positively influences psychological ownership. The results suggest that organizations should strive for a consistent message, which makes the employees feel that they are taken serious as and deserve to be owners. We analyzed the influence of a configuration of high performance ownership system on psychological ownership and organizational citizenship behavior that is not done before.

Provides a literature synthesis on the impact of downsizing on the survivors and examines the experiences of three large Canadian companies. Results confirm trends that are generally reported in the literature regarding the negative aspects of downsizing. It suggests that where the company had a clear strategy to implement the downsizing, which included scheduling and a well‐specified operational plan, the impact on those dismissed as well as the survivors was buffered. The use of a downsizing plan also mitigated the negative responses on behalf of the remaining personnel. On the other hand, when the company adopts a reactive approach towards the downsizing process, numerous problems associated with the survivors are reported. The firm that applied seniority to layoff decisions received more favorable responses than firms that used criteria other than seniority.

Not only has the number of management buyouts increased rapidly in the last few years, but the actual size of the buyouts has also significantly increased.

Management′s perception towards buyouts, the impact that various forms of the buyout are having on the marketplace, and how buyout popularity effects the economy are discussed. The buyout has also become a popular alternative for entrepreneurs, who in the past have founded companies rather than buying existing firms. The advantages that buyouts offer the entrepreneur compared to the traditional approach are also discussed. A survey of managers who have been involved in buyouts is discussed and correlated to current literature involving the new entrepreneur and his/her involvement in the buyout phenomenon.

To demonstrate that different approaches to commercialisation can determine the nature of intangible resources that managers can develop.

A framework linking political strategy, financial capitalisation and business strategy is developed to analyse the management of intellectual capital in the commercialisation of air navigation services in New Zealand and Fiji. Case study evidence is organised as an intellectual capital portfolio and links are drawn to subsequent business outcomes for each organisation.

Explains how key decisions about financial capitalisation and business strategy at the time of commercialisation influence the subsequent management and development of intangible resources in the organisation. Identifies how political assumptions about commercialisation can constrain or enhance subsequent management success in developing intellectual capital to pursue business growth.

The interpretations offered, although plausible in the context of the case studies, may not generalise to other situations.

Key decision makers need to design commercialisation arrangements that will resource the desired intellectual capital portfolio of the commercialised organisation.

The paper provides a framework for establishing a linkage between strategic management decisions and the development of an intellectual capital portfolio in the context of commercialisation. The paper develops the theoretical extent of intellectual capital concepts and provides practical analysis to decision makers contemplating commercialisation issues.

This paper examines R&D and innovation patterns of firms in a mixed industry as a possible explanation of relative scarcity of worker cooperatives in market economies. In a set of simulations of a dynamic evolving industry, cooperatives and investor-owned firms are contrasted with regard to their attitudes toward research and development in their controlling inputs, and the non-controlling inputs. We investigate the conditions under which networking according to the principle of cooperation among cooperatives helps cooperative firms maintain significant market share in the industry. It turns out that forming close networks is a good policy for cooperative survival, even when investor-owned firms have the innovation rate advantage.

The purpose of this study was to examine the moderating role of institutional ownership on the relationship between board gender diversity and earnings management (EM) among listed firms in East African Community (EAC) partner states.

The study used a sample of 71 firms listed in the EAC partner states over 2011–2020. Data were handpicked from the individual firm's audited annual financial reports. Based on the results of the Hausman test, the study used the results of the fixed-effect regression model to test the hypotheses. To test the robustness of the results, the study employed an alternative measure of EM and two additional econometric techniques, including the pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) and the system generalized method of moments (GMM).

The empirical findings revealed that female directors improve the board's effectiveness in monitoring managerial roles. Specifically, the results showed a significantly negative relationship between the proportion of women in the corporate board and EM (as measured by discretionary accruals (DAs)). The findings further revealed an inverse relationship between the proportion of institutional ownership and EM. Finally, the results further demonstrated that institutional ownership enhances the role of board gender diversity in mitigating EM among listed firms in the EAC.

The findings of this study may be useful to managers, investors and regulators in assessing the role of institutional ownership and women's participation on corporate boards as a strategy for alleviating unethical manipulation of earnings.

The findings of this study contribute to the growing concern on gender inequality, especially the marginalization of women from the paid labor force and decision-making. The findings highlight the importance of having more women in the corporate board since this may help in mitigating corporate fraud. Similarly, the findings highlight the importance of institutional ownership as a corporate governance (CG) tool.

Previous studies have reported mixed empirical results on whether board gender diversity mitigates EM. To the best of the author's knowledge, this is the first paper to fill the existing gap by exploring whether institutional ownership moderates the relationship between board gender diversity and EM among listed firms in the EAC.

This viewpoint will present some statistical information about employee ownership in the US and interpret and analyze this information in order to address the barriers question using material from qualitative interviews that the authors have conducted over the last ten years with practitioners in the field. There have been few actual empirical studies that sort out the different barriers to employee ownership. The authors have chosen to focus on employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) in the US because this is the principal example from which people could learn from, and the high prevalence of ESOPs plays an important role in the US. This overview will present interpretations of these interviews with conceptual arguments that cannot always be supported with either overwhelming empirical studies or arguments that conclusively eliminate one or other explanation. This is an initial attempt to bring some comprehensive treatment and data to this incipient discussion. This is based on an interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews without quantification or social survey methods used for measurement. The advantage of this approach is that it lays out a completely different level of analysis of the barriers to employee ownership in the US that is “closer to the ground” and more based in the views of front-line practitioners who are actually implementing it.

Analysis and interpretation of qualitative interviews.

The list of barriers that has been identified is not exhaustive. The preliminary conclusions are that (not necessarily in this order) limitations of investment banking models, poor supportive infrastructure, complexity and cost and regulatory issues, the lack of support by political parties and social movements, the sale of companies due to financial considerations and legal complexities and lack of clarity and resistance by Federal agencies are major barriers in the US. Various sectors of Wall Street has been amenable to employee ownership with the proper government and private sector support. What is needed now is a series of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews of retiring business owners in closely held companies and of CEOs and CFOs in stock market companies in order to gauge the barriers that they believe are blocking their own action in the employee share ownership area. The Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing is working on such a research agenda at this time. In addition, with the future size of the US employee ownership sector at stake, a more intensive one-year interview project would make sense in order to present these different explanations to key actors and practitioners and ask them to provide evidence to prove or disprove the relevance of the different barriers.

Empirical research which can resolve which barriers are more important than others is presented, when possible; however, studies that provide metrics to compare different barriers are not available and need to be carried out.

Other countries considering employee ownership policies can learn from the US experience. US policymakers and legislators can learn from an original, recent discussion of barriers.

If employee ownership sectors are to be developed, a careful discussion of barriers is most relevant.

Original document by the authors based on original interviews.