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Workplace Democracy in the Lab

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Mellizo, Philip

    ()

    (College of Wooster)

  • Carpenter, Jeffrey P.

    ()

    (Middlebury College)

  • Matthews, Peter Hans

    ()

    (Middlebury College)

Abstract

While intuition suggests that empowering workers to have some say in the control of the firm is likely to have beneficial incentive effects, empirical evidence of such an effect is hard to come by because of numerous confounding factors in the naturally occurring data. We report evidence from a real-effort experiment confirming that worker performance is sensitive to the process used to select the compensation contract. Groups of workers that voted to determine their compensation scheme provided significantly more effort than groups that had no say in how they would be compensated. This effect is robust to controls for the compensation scheme implemented and worker characteristics (i.e., ability and gender).

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Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 5460.

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Length: 15 pages
Date of creation: Jan 2011
Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp5460
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Keywords: real-effort experiment; workplace democracy; decision control rights;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
  • J33 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Compensation Packages; Payment Methods
  • J54 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Labor-Management Relations, Trade Unions, and Collective Bargaining - - - Producer Cooperatives; Labor Managed Firms

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  1. van Dijk, Frans & Sonnemans, Joep & van Winden, Frans, 2001. "Incentive systems in a real effort experiment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(2), pages 187-214, February.
  2. Pedro Dal Bo & Andrew Foster & Louis Putterman, 2010. "Institutions and Behavior: Experimental Evidence on the Effects of Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(5), pages 2205-2229, December.
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Cited by:

  1. Jörg Franke & Ruslan Gurtoviy & Vanessa Mertins, 2014. "Workers' Participation in Wage Setting and Opportunistic Behavior: Evidence from a Gift-Exchange Experiment," IAAEU Discussion Papers 201407, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).
  2. Gabriel Burdín, 2016. "Equality Under Threat by the Talented: Evidence from Worker‐Managed Firms," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(594), pages 1372-1403, 08.
  3. John Pencavel, 2013. "Worker cooperatives and democratic governance," Chapters,in: Handbook of Economic Organization, chapter 24 Edward Elgar Publishing.
  4. Gabriel Burdín, 2014. "Are Worker-Managed Firms More Likely to Fail Than Conventional Enterprises? Evidence from Uruguay," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 67(1), pages 202-238, January.
  5. Mellizo, Philip & Carpenter, Jeffrey P. & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2017. "Ceding Control: An Experimental Analysis of Participatory Management," IZA Discussion Papers 10576, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
  6. Sabrina Jeworrek & Vanessa Mertins, 2014. "Wage Delegation in the Field," IAAEU Discussion Papers 201408, Institute of Labour Law and Industrial Relations in the European Union (IAAEU).
  7. Marco Faillo & Costanza Piovanelli, 2017. "Wage delegation and intrinsic motivation: an experimental study," CEEL Working Papers 1701, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
  8. repec:ilr:articl:v:67:y:2014:i:1:p:202-238 is not listed on IDEAS
  9. Franke, Jörg & Gurtoviy, Ruslan & Mertins, Vanessa, 2016. "Workers’ participation in wage setting: A gift-exchange experiment," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 151-162.
  10. Claudia Keser & Claude Montmarquette, 2011. "Voluntary versus Enforced Team Effort," Games, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 2(3), pages 1-25, August.
  11. Köhler, Katrin & Pagel, Beatrice & Rau, Holger A., 2015. "How worker participation affects reciprocity under minimum remuneration policies: Experimental evidence," Center for European, Governance and Economic Development Research Discussion Papers 267, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
  12. Samuel Bowles & Sandra Polania-Reyes, 2011. "Economic incentives and social preferences: substitutes or complements?," Department of Economics University of Siena 617, Department of Economics, University of Siena.

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