The Effects of Employee Ownership on Organizational Identification,Employee Job Attitudes,and Organizational Performance: A Tentative Framework and Empirical Findings

Abstract

Noting a paucity of research on the subject, this article attempts to explore the effects of employee ownership, concentrating on possible relationships between ownership and such variables as organizational identification, employee job attitudes, and organizational performance, and on identifying variables which may moderate these relationships. After development of a conceptual framework, empirical data obtained from study of a trucking company recently purchased by most of its employees are presented and discussed. These data support the plausibility of many of the hypothesized relationships, but do not permit strong causal inferences. Although the author tentatively concludes that employee ownership appears to have improved employee attitudes and organizational performance in this case, he stresses that much further research, in a variety of settings, specifically designed to permit causal testing of the propositions suggested here, is badly needed before firm conclusions can be drawn.