Working Paper: NBER ID: w14233
Authors: Douglas Kruse; Richard Freeman; Joseph Blasi
Abstract: This paper examines how shared capitalism compensation systems - those that link employee pay to company performance - affect diverse employee outcomes. It uses two data sets: the national GSS survey that provides a broad representative view of the extent of the programs; and the NBER Shared Capitalism Project surveys of workers in 14 companies that use shared capitalism programs extensively. We find that greater involvement in the programs is generally linked to greater participation in decisions, higher quality supervision and treatment of employees, more training, higher pay and benefits, greater job security, and higher job satisfaction. We also find positive interactions of shared capitalism with high-performance policies in predicting participation in decisions and overall job satisfaction, and negative interactions of shared capitalism with close supervision in affecting almost all of the outcomes. Overall the results support the idea that workers can gain by sharing, but whether this happens is contingent on other workplace policies.
Keywords: shared capitalism; employee ownership; profit sharing; job satisfaction; employee outcomes
JEL Codes: J33; J54; L23
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| greater involvement in shared capitalism programs (J54) | increased participation in decision-making (D70) |
| profit sharing intensity (D33) | participation in decisions (D70) |
| shared capitalism (P12) | higher training levels (M53) |
| higher training levels (M53) | higher pay and benefits (J33) |
| shared capitalism (P12) | greater job security (J28) |
| greater job security (J28) | lower likelihood of job loss (J63) |
| shared capitalism (P12) | higher overall job satisfaction (J28) |
| high levels of supervision (M54) | diminish positive effects of shared capitalism on employee outcomes (M52) |