The employee representation plan movement in the United States 1913–1935: The attempted legitimation of novel organizational forms

Abstract

How managers collaborate across firm boundaries to legitimate novel institutional arrangements in the eyes of the public is a topic that has attracted the interest of a wide range of researchers. This article, which is informed by this literature, explores the rise and fall of the employee representation movement in the United States. The period 1913–1935 saw intense interest on the part of American managers in the creation of non-union employee representation plans (ERPs) such as works councils and shop committees. The article uses archival and other primary sources to argue that the employee representation movement of the pre-1935 era was an attempt to legitimate big business in the eyes of a wide range of stakeholders, not just workers.