The impact of employee involvement on small firms' financial performance

The author examines the relationship between employee involvement (EI) and small firms' financial performance using statistical analyses of establishment-level data from the 1990 Workplace Industrial Relations Survey. The author finds EI practices and EI combinations which 'work' for small-firm establishments are very different from those that work for large-firm establishments. The least bureaucratic and least costly EI methods have the potential to benefit small firms most. Whether they actually do so depends on the array of other EI and non-EI practices in operation: an inappropriate configuration can have a negative effect on performance. The findings take account of factors associated with being an 'EI firm'.