The Role of Employee Ownership in Corporate Governance

This article is a special issue piece published in Corporate Governance: An International Review, focusing on the role of employee ownership, financial participation, and decision-making in corporate governance. The authors, Elisa Del Sordo and Alessandro Zattoni, present a multilevel review and research agenda that synthesizes five decades of research across these interconnected domains. The analysis integrates theory and evidence from 184 articles, revealing complex relationships between employee financial participation and decision-making, influenced by various contextual factors at individual, company, and country levels. The findings suggest that the allocation of ownership rights to employees can significantly impact stakeholder behaviors and organizational outcomes. The article invites further investigation into the antecedents and consequences of employee ownership and recommends a multilevel understanding of the phenomenon. It also discusses the implications for practitioners and policymakers in designing plans that enhance employee participation in ownership and decision-making processes.