TY - JOUR

T1 - Worker Participation and Firm Performance

T2 - Evidence from Germany and Britain

AU - Siebert, Standley W.

AU - Wagner, Joachim

AU - Wei, Xiangdong

AU - Addison, John T.

PY - 2000/3/1

Y1 - 2000/3/1

N2 - The Freeman-Lazear works council/worker involvement model is assessed over two distinct industrial relations regimes. In non-union British establishments our measures of employee involvement are associated with improved economic performance, whereas for unionized plants negative results are detected. The suggestion is that local distributive bargaining can cause the wrong level of worker involvement to be chosen. Also consistent with the model is our finding that mandatory works councils do not impair, and may even improve, the performance of larger German establishments. Yet smaller plants with works councils under-perform, illustrating the problem of tailoring mandates to fit heterogeneous populations.

AB - The Freeman-Lazear works council/worker involvement model is assessed over two distinct industrial relations regimes. In non-union British establishments our measures of employee involvement are associated with improved economic performance, whereas for unionized plants negative results are detected. The suggestion is that local distributive bargaining can cause the wrong level of worker involvement to be chosen. Also consistent with the model is our finding that mandatory works councils do not impair, and may even improve, the performance of larger German establishments. Yet smaller plants with works councils under-perform, illustrating the problem of tailoring mandates to fit heterogeneous populations.

KW - Economics

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0034340706&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1111/1467-8543.00150

DO - 10.1111/1467-8543.00150

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 38

SP - 7

EP - 48

JO - British Journal of Industrial Relations

JF - British Journal of Industrial Relations

SN - 0007-1080

IS - 1

ER -