Complementarity of Shared Compensation and Decision-Making Systems: Evidence from the American Labor Market

Abstract

This paper examines the relationship between shared capitalist modes of pay and shared modes of decision-making via employee involvement and related committees and between them and measures of productivity and worker well-being in two data sets: the employee based Worker Participation and Representation Survey and the California Establishment Survey. It finds in both data sets that the forms of shared compensation are complementary in the sense that they are more likely to be found together than if firms chose them separately; that shared compensation systems are positively associated with shared decision-making; and that combining shared compensation systems and employee involvement has greater impacts on outcomes than each system by itself.