The Power of Participation? Power Relations and Processes in Employee-Owned Companies**/Die Macht Der Partizipation? Machtbeziehungen Und Machtprozesse in Mitarbeiterkapitalbeteiligungs-Unternehmen

Zusammenfassung

---

Introducing employee participation in a company can be expected to change the

power relations and the power processes within the organization. This is particularly true when the majority ownership of a company moves into the hand of its employees. Drawing on three case studies of East German companies this paper describes how the introduction of employee ownership interrelates with power relations and processes in the company. Moreover, some overarching patterns were derived from the analysis finally resulting in seven propositions about how employee ownership and power are linked to each other.

Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes

Auszug

---

The Power of Participation? Power Relations and Processes in Employee-Owned Companies**/Die Macht Der Partizipation? Machtbeziehungen Und Machtprozesse in Mitarbeiterkapitalbeteiligungs-Unternehmen

1. Introduction

Introducing employee participation in a company may be expected to change the power relations and the power processes within the organization. As participation usually results in a certain gain in power for the employees, other actors, e.g. the middle management, may be threatened by a loss of power. This is particularly true if the (majority) ownership of a company moves into the hand of its employees creating an employee-owned company (EOC) (Voß et al. 2003; Stracke et al. 2007).

In spite of a few studies in this context (e.g. Hammer/Stern 1980; French/ Rosenstein 1984), the process and character of the power relations in and around EOCs are still largely unexplored. This holds particularly true for the context of Germany where this kind of companies is still quite rare (AGP/GIZ 2007; Bellmann/Möller 2006). Moreover, we do know little about the impact of the particular framework in which employee ownership (EO) is introduced on those relations which can be expected to differ considerably between different countries and economic systems (Schuler/Rogovsky 1998; Poutsma et al. 2003), but also according to different situations in the company life cycle (Pajunen 2006).

This constitutes the starting point of our paper. It draws on three case studies of East German companies that tried to escape bankruptcy by means of introducing considerable EO. A broad range of data from qualitative interviews, company visits, company documents, and media articles were analysed following the case study methodology introduced by Eisenhardt (1989). It will be described how those companies managed their (economic) crisis and the hence resulting conflicts. We particularly highlight how and to what extent the introduction of employee ownership is driven by and shapes power relations and processes in the companies. Seven overarching propositions are derived from the analysis providing a more general picture of how employee ownership and power are linked with each other.

2. Literature review

The use of EO dates back to the first half of the 19th century (Fiedler- Winter 2000; Gaugler 2002). Since then, a broad range of different forms and models have been developed (Table 1).

We need to note, ho...

Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes

---