Beyond Dichotomy: The Curvilinear Impact of Employee Ownership on Firm Performance

Abstract

ABSTRACTManuscript type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: This study examines the impact of employee stock ownership and board employee representation on firm performance.Research Findings/Results: Results drawn from a longitudinal analysis of a sample of 230 French firms over the period 2000–2005 provide support for an inverted U‐shaped relationship between employee ownership and accounting‐based performance measures. However, this relationship is not supported when a market‐based performance measure is used. We also found that the inflection point of the inverted U‐shaped relationship between employee ownership and firm performance does not depend upon the level of employee representation on the board.Theoretical Implications: This study addresses the inconsistency of results found so far in the literature examining the performance implications of employee ownership by proposing a theoretical framework and providing empirical support for the hypothesis suggesting that the relationship between employee ownership and firm performance is not linear, but indeed, has an inverted U‐shape.Practical Implications: In a governance context characterized by a spectacular increase in employee ownership fostered by a pervasive support from both managers and government, our results suggest that performance implications of employee ownership are positive up to a certain point, after which the marginal effect of employee ownership on firm performance becomes negative. As a result, our findings suggest that managers and shareholders should be careful when launching and increasing the level of employee ownership to not go beyond specific inflection points.