Workers' Financial Participation: An East-West Comparative Perspective

Abstract

This article compares the recent developments of financial participation schemes in the West and in Central and Eastern Europe. Its first aim is to identify the different legislative experiences, forms and extent of financial participation. The promotion of financial participation intervenes in a totally different context in these two groups of countries. In the West, its main objective is to enhance workers' motivation whilst in Eastern European countries, it appears as a form of privatization. Since financial participation also varies according to the features of the national system of industrial relations, the attitudes of social partners are particularly analysed in a cross-country perspective. Finally, from company examples and a brief survey of empirical research, the author studies the economic and social potentials of these schemes.