In recent years American businesses have shown increasing interest in employee participation in a number of forms. Such innovations as employee stock ownership plans, profit sharing, labormanagement committees, quality circles, and work redesign all appear to be substantially more popular in the contemporary United States than they have been in the past. Research on the impact of these programs, however, suggests that they tend to have either negligible or at best only short-lived effects. And American managers continue to shy away from the major commitments that appear needed to increase the likelihood that these efforts to increase employee participation will have both significant and lasting effects.
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