Participation and Productiviy: A Comparison of Worker Cooperatives and Conventional Firms in the Plywood Industry

John Pencavel and

JP

John Pencavel Stanford University

Ben Craig

BC

Ben Craig Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland

Alan B. Krueger and

Alan B. Krueger Bendheim Professor of Economics and Public Affairs - Princeton University

Henry S. Farber

HSF

Henry S. Farber Princeton University

A PERENNIAL ISSUE in the study of organizational behavior is the impact on productivity of participation by workers in a firm’s decisionmaking. The question has returned to the foreground in the recent debate over policies to increase U.S. productivity growth. A large literature is aimed at quantifying the impact of worker participation on productivity though the results from this research fall somewhat short of being fully persuasive. There are several difficulties in this research, not least that worker participation can mean various things in different contexts.