Employee participation and involvement in korea: evidence from a new survey and field research

This paper provides evidence on the incidence, scope and nature of employee participation in Korea. The key findings include: (i) the incidence of works councils (WCs) is higher than in most other countries; (ii) not all WCs are functioning well with a little less than 70% of Korean firms having functioning WCs; (iii) WCs may be a substitute for traditional collective bargaining; (iv) there are complementarities between EI (Employee Involvement) programmes and trade unions (especially FKTU-affiliated unions); between EI programmes and training; and between representative participation at the top and direct participation at the shopfloor; (v) there is evidence of dysfunctional and weak quality circles; and (vi) consistent with our hypotheses, firms with EI programmes (especially effective EI programmes) are generally larger, more capital intensive, spend more on training and more productive than other firms. Finally, we use qualitative data from two large manufacturing firms to explore further the use of employee participation and involvement programmes in Korea.