What Does Codetermination Do?

Jäger, Simon; Noy, Shakked; Schoefer, Benjamin

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3870196

Cited by 8 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 57 publications

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“…Our causal estimates also complement existing evidence on the positive correlation between cooperation or trust within firms and productivity (see, e.g., Krueger and Mas, 2004;Bloom, Sadun, and Van Reenen, 2012;Hjort, 2014). We also contribute to the literature on codetermination, which studies institutions that combine worker voice with formal decision-making rights for workers, and has found some evidence for positive productivity effects (Addison, 2009;Jäger, Schoefer, and Heining, 2020;Jäger, Noy, and Schoefer, forthcoming). Our study uniquely provides quasi-experimental evidence from A separate literature cautions that increasing worker voice, to the extent that it goes along with shift in bargaining power, may instead have negative effects, e.g., by exacerbating agency conflicts or discouraging capital formation (Jensen and Meckling, 1979).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 70%

“…Yet, there is little causal evidence on how organizational cultures of worker voice affect firm and worker outcomes. While many countries mandate some form of worker voice (Hall and Soskice, 2001;Jäger, Noy, and Schoefer, forthcoming), these voice mandates are typically bundled with other rules-such as strong labor regulations or re-allocations of formal corporate decision-making power-making the effects of voice difficult to disentangle. As one prominent example, Garicano, Lelarge, and Van Reenen (2016) estimate negative effects of a complex set of regulations kicking in at a firm size threshold in France, but primarily attribute them to firing regulations rather than the works council mandate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Voice at Work

Harju

Jäger

Schoefer

2021

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We estimate the effects of worker voice on productivity, job quality, and separations. We study the 1991 introduction of a right to worker representation on boards or advisory councils in Finnish firms, designed primarily to facilitate workforce-management communication. The reform only affected firms with at least 150 employees, permitting a difference-in-differences design to analyze its causal effects. Consistent with information sharing theories, worker voice slightly raised labor productivity, firm survival, and capital intensity. In contrast to the exit-voice theory, we find no effects on voluntary job separations, and at most small positive effects on other measures of job quality (job security, health, subjective job quality, and wages). A 2008 introduction of shop-floor representation had similarly limited effects.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Voice at Work

Harju

Jäger

Schoefer

2021

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“…These nascent corporate policies remain severely constrained in their power and independence from management, but that could change. Governments might impose a variant of Germany's requirement of worker codetermination through participation on corporate boards (Jäger et al, 2021); in this case, platforms of a certain size might need to have user-elected representatives on their boards or moderation teams.…”

Section: For Communitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Governable Spaces: A Feminist Architecture for Platform Policy

Schneider

2022

Preprint

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Feminist tradition reveals with particular clarity how the online economy has contrived to be both apparently open and persistently unaccountable. Diverse feminist critiques amount to an overlapping insistence that the systems that organize our technology should be governable by the people who rely on them. This article extrapolates from feminist insights and experiences toward a policy agenda for vexing challenges in three domains of the online economy: social-media communities, platform-mediated work, and network infrastructure. The agenda calls for crafting “governable spaces” through diverse and accountable forms of user participation.

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“…We draw on surveys, interviews, and case studies to answer these questions. Finally, in Part IV, we briefly survey the existing quantitative evidence on the economic impacts of codetermination, drawing heavily on a recent survey article by Jäger, Noy, and Schoefer (2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Codetermination and Power in the Workplace

Jäger¹,

Noy²,

Schoefer³

2022

JLPE

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How does codetermination-entitling workers to participate in firm governance, either through membership on company boards or the formation of works councils-affect worker welfare and corporate decision-making? We critically discuss the history and contemporary operation of European codetermination arrangements and review empirical evidence on their effects on firms and workers. Our review suggests that these arrangements are unlikely to significantly shift power in the workplace, but may mildly improve worker welfare and firm performance, in part by boosting information-sharing and cooperation and in part by slightly increasing worker influence.

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What Does Codetermination Do?

Cited by 8 publications

References 57 publications

Voice at Work

Voice at Work

Governable Spaces: A Feminist Architecture for Platform Policy

Codetermination and Power in the Workplace

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