The variety in the types and extent of employee ownership makes it difficult to obtain consistent estimates across countries. In the US about 20% of private sector employees report owning company stock, while about 32% of British employees had some form of employee ownership scheme in 2004 [3] . Data from the European Company Survey show that 5.2% of companies offered employee share ownership in 2013, and European Working Conditions Survey data show that 3.3% of employees participated in employee ownership in 2010 [2] . Employee ownership in Europe is more common in large firms and countries with more developed capital markets. There has also been considerable experience and study of employee ownership in Russia and eastern European countries, Japan, and Latin America.

The extent of employee ownership within a firm can vary by the proportion of the company owned by employees, the percentage of employees who are owners, and the distribution of shares among employee-owners. Common types of employee ownership include: (i) worker cooperatives, where all or nearly all workers share in ownership and typically make decisions based on one-person/one-vote rather than number of shares owned; (ii) US Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), where employees have accounts in a collective pension trust, and the trust may borrow money to finance stock purchases (paid back by the company) so employees do not have to put up their own money; (iii) employer stock in other retirement plans, where companies may match pre-tax employee contributions with company stock or workers buy the stock themselves; (iv) employee stock purchase plans, which allow employees to buy company stock at a discount; (v) stock held after the exercise of granted stock options.

What does the evidence on employee ownership show?

Many types of studies have been conducted on employee ownership. Some compare employee-owners to non-owners in the same or different firms, some compare firms with and without employee ownership plans, some compare firms before and after adoption of employee ownership relative to firms that have not adopted employee ownership at all, and others employ laboratory experiments to examine the link between financial participation and performance outcomes. But overall, what does the evidence on employee ownership show?

Company performance A new meta-analysis of existing studies, with 102 samples covering 56,984 firms, finds that employee ownership has a small but significant positive relation, on average, with firm performance [4]. The positive relation exists across firm size, and has increased in studies over time, possibly because firms are learning to implement employee ownership more effectively. This is consistent with earlier reviews and meta-analyses, including one which found that two-thirds of 129 studies concluded that employee ownership is positively related to performance or employee attitudes, while only one-tenth found negative relationships (see Figure 1 for one illustration of a positive relationship). As an example, a study sponsored by the UK Treasury analyzed data from confidential tax records on tax-advantaged share schemes at over 16,000 UK firms and found that broad-based employee ownership was linked to improved firm performance measures, such as value-added and turnover [5]. In addition, a study of French cooperatives found that employee-owned firms were at least as productive as conventional firms [6]. Of course, correlation does not imply causation. To address causality issues many studies have used pre/post comparisons to adjust for any unknown fixed factors, and have used a variety of statistical corrections to adjust for any unknown factors related to the firm’s choice of when to adopt employee ownership. Still, the generally positive relationships remain. It is unlikely that these positive results simply reflect higher-quality workers in employee-ownership firms, since pre/post evidence from two studies showed that average worker performance improved under group incentives (as employees directly benefited from higher productivity). In addition, laboratory experiments with random assignment found higher productivity among subjects organized into groups that functioned as employee-owned “firms,” suggesting positive effects even among those who do not initially choose to take part in employee ownership. While a field experiment on profit sharing with random assignment showed favorable effects on performance and turnover, there have not been true field experiments to clearly demonstrate a causal effect of employee ownership. Note that while profit sharing and employee ownership are related, in that both tie worker pay to business outcomes, “profit sharing” simply provides workers a share of profits, while “employee ownership” also provides ownership rights and an addition to employee wealth. The available evidence therefore goes against the idea that free-riding overwhelms any possible positive effect of employee ownership. Workers themselves report behaviors that counter free-riding: a study of over 40,000 workers found that those with company stock and other group incentives were more likely to say they would take action if they saw a fellow worker not working well, by talking to the worker, supervisor, or members of the work team [3]. When asked why, many of these workers reported that “poor performance will cost me and other employees in bonus or stock value.” This, and other studies, also indicate that employee owners generally have lower turnover and absenteeism, more company pride and loyalty, greater willingness to work hard, and more suggestions of how to improve performance. There is clearly no simple automatic relationship between employee ownership and performance—while the average performance effect of adopting employee ownership is positive, there is dispersion around the average, and some firms adopting employee ownership do not see improvements. Counteracting the free-riding problem appears to depend on workplace norms and policies that encourage cooperation and higher effort. Employee owners are most likely to take action against shirking when they are part of employee involvement teams, have received company training, and have job security, although some research finds that majority employee ownership is positively related to productivity even when there is little or no employee involvement in decision-making.

Job security, firm survival, and economic stability While not as widely studied as company performance, employee owners appear to have greater job security. This is shown by smaller employment cutbacks among employee ownership firms compared to similar firms without employee ownership over the past two recessions [1], as well as by employee owners’ greater perceptions of job security and lower reports of having been laid off in the past year (see the Illustration). Consistent with the idea that employee ownership firms lay off fewer workers in a recession, their relative productivity advantage declines in recessions, which may be due to retaining workers who receive new training or otherwise invest in activities that bolster long-term but not short-term productivity [1]. Employee ownership firms also appear to have higher survival rates [1]. Publicly traded US companies with employee ownership are about 20% more likely than closely matched comparable firms to survive over a 12-year period, and closely held companies with employee ownership plans are only half as likely as comparable firms to go bankrupt or close down over a 12-year period. In addition, studies of worker cooperatives have found high survival rates compared to conventional firms in the UK, France, Uruguay, and other countries. The reasons for greater stability and survival among employee ownership firms have not been well explored. It is possible that more stable firms are more likely to adopt employee ownership, or that other factors are responsible. If employee ownership is responsible, this may happen through: (i) increased productivity from greater cooperation, information-sharing, and commitment; (ii) reduced dysfunctional workplace conflict; (iii) increased employee investments in valuable firm-specific skills; and/or (iv) creation and maintenance of a workplace culture that instills a sense of ownership, with a corresponding commitment to preserve employee jobs whenever possible.

Inequality and broadly-shared prosperity Employee ownership will not enhance worker incomes or reduce inequality if it substitutes for standard worker pay or benefits. In this case it presents serious issues of financial risk, since workers are likely to have more variable pay and wealth (although financial risk may be reduced by greater job security, as described above). Despite the few cases of wage concessions and the economic logic that employee ownership must substitute for other forms of compensation, almost all studies in this area indicate that employee ownership tends to come on top of market levels of pay. A comprehensive study of all ESOP adoptions over 1980−2001 found that employee wages, apart from the ESOP, either increased or remained constant after adoption, so that ESOP contributions came on top of existing pay [7]. Consistent with this, comparisons of matched ESOP and non-ESOP firms found similar levels of pay and other benefits, apart from the ESOP in the two types of firms. Employee owners in general reported higher levels of annual earnings, and were more likely to say they are “paid what they deserve” and that their fringe benefits are good [3]. One study finds that an extra dollar of employee ownership value is associated with an extra 94 cents of wealth, indicating that employee-owned stock appears to add to wealth in general [3]. The evidence from worker cooperatives is more mixed, with higher wages in Uruguayan cooperatives but lower wages in Italian cooperatives compared to conventional firms. How can this be? How is it possible in most cases that employee ownership can simply add to, rather than substitute for, other forms of pay or wealth? One interpretation that integrates the accumulated evidence on company performance, worker behavior, and pay is based on ideas of reciprocity and the economic model of “gift exchange,” developed by the Nobel Prize winner George Akerlof. Workers may respond to a “gift” of employee ownership, on top of market compensation, with a reciprocal “gift” of high effort, cooperation, and work standards. The collective incentive nature of employee ownership may make it an especially effective “gift” for creating and reinforcing a sense of common purpose, and encouraging higher commitment and productivity [3]. The consistent finding that employee ownership tends to be ‘gravy’ on top of other pay and wealth means that it may be a promising means for increasing worker incomes and wealth in general, which may help to reduce inequality (Figure 2). The limited evidence indicates that pay and wealth appear to be distributed more equally in employee ownership firms than in other firms, although at current levels of employee ownership this has only a minimal effect on the overall societal income and wealth distribution. The more equal distribution of pay in cooperatives may lead high-ability workers to find jobs elsewhere, but also encourage productive cooperation among employees, as shown by evidence that worker cooperatives perform at least as well as conventional firms.