Employee ownership has attracted growing attention for its potential to improve economic outcomes for companies, workers, and the economy in general, and help reduce inequality. Over 100 studies across many countries indicate that employee ownership is generally linked to better productivity,...

Examinations on the determinants of profit sharing usually focus on objective firm characteristics. Using data from manufacturing firms in Germany, this study shows that managers' subjective attitudes towards profit sharing also play an important role in the adoption and termination of this...

A growing number of econometric examinations show that works councils substantially shape the personnel policy of firms in Germany. Firms with works councils make greater use of various HRM practices. This gives rise to the question of whether employers view the shaping of personnel policy...

Profit sharing can lead to higher productivity and thus to higher firm profitability and employee wages. It may also enhance employment stability by enabling firms to adjust wages during downturns rather than lay off workers. While adoption of profit sharing increases earnings fluctuations, it...

Als wichtigstes Instrument zur Motivation von Verkaufsaußendienstmitarbeitern (VADM) werden finanzielle Anreize angesehen (Ford/Walker/Churchill, 1985). Deshalb wird der Ausarbeitung von effektiven Entlohnungsplänen seit jeher in der Praxis hohe Bedeutung beigemessen und viel Zeit gewidmet....

Despite the "1/N problem" associated with profit sharing, the empirical literature finds that sharing profits with workers has a positive impact on work team and firm performance. We examine one possible resolution to this puzzle by observing that, although the incentive to work harder under...

This study provides evidence from a laboratory experiment showing that managerial bonuses can affect adversely a manager’s subordinates. In our set up, managers compete to obtain a large bonus which depends partly on the effort exerted by their subordinates. Managers can suggest an effort...

In the past decades the role of profit sharing schemes (PSS) as a way to foster innovation in a principal-agent context, and more generally of innovation in economic growth, have been widely acknowledged and studied. However, surprisingly little has been done to analyze the interactions between...

This paper is an overview of the achievements in the area of employee financial participation (EFP) during the last fifty years. It addresses the question of the extent to which EFP is relevant in today's world. EFP is distinguished from participation in management (industrial democracy), and...

Using linked employer-employee data from Germany, we examine the role of foreign owners in employees' perceptions of job insecurity. Our estimates show that there tends to be a positive link between foreign owners and perceived job insecurity. The link is specifically strong for foreign-owned...

A principal-agent multitasking model is used to explore the effects of different tax schemes on innovation in a pure knowledge economy. Corporate taxes and labor income taxes can affect both the firm owner’s and the employee’s incentives to commit to innovative tasks, when the former...

We investigate the effect of profit-sharing on product and process innovation. Profit-sharing is a credible commitment of the companies to let the employees participate in any efficiency gain. Resistance against technical progress becomes less plausible. Moreover, employees are stimulated to...

The conditions under which profit sharing affects workplace productivity have never been fully understood. Using panel data, this paper examines whether there is any link between adoption of an employee profit sharing plan and subsequent productivity growth in Canadian establishments, and...

We use a representative sample of German establishments to show that those with foreign ownership are more likely to use performance appraisal, profit sharing and employee share ownership than are those with domestic ownership. Moreover, we show that works councils are associated with an...

We analyze optimal labor contracts when the worker is inequity averse towards the employer. Welfare is maximized for an equal sharing rule of surplus between the worker and the firm. That is, profit sharing is optimal even if effort is contractible. If the firm can make a take-it-or leave-it...

Using panel data from a large sample of Canadian establishments, this paper examines whether employee earnings increase, decrease, or do not change in the period subsequent to adoption of profit sharing, relative to establishments that do not adopt profit sharing. Our research contributes to...

A principal uses security bid auctions to award an incentive contract to one among several agents, in the presence of hidden action and hidden information. Securities range from cash to equity and call options. 'Steeper' securities are better surplus extractors that narrow the gap between the...

Rent-sharing between firm owners and workers is a robust empirical finding. If workers bargain with firms, information on the actual surplus is essential. When the firm can use profit shifting to create private information on the surplus, it can thereby reduce its wage bill. We study how rent...

Traditionally, it has been argued that profit sharing can increase employment and welfare because it lowers marginal labour costs without reducing labour income. In this paper, we show that profit sharing can also represent a Pareto-improvement if labour supply is excessive due to relative...