Participation, cooperatives and performance: an analysis of Spanish manufacturing firms

Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze the effects that shopfloor participation has on firm performance and examine if cooperatives show better results than capitalist firms. Moreover, it tries to study if the impact of participation on performance is different in cooperatives and capitalist firms. To fulfill these objectives information about 965 Spanish manufacturing plants with at least fifty employees is used. The results indicate that there are not significant differences in the performance of cooperatives and the rest of companies. Our findings also show that the introduction of participatory practices generates positive outcomes both for capitalist firms and cooperatives, without differences in the magnitude of the impact.