Marco Caramelli , Alain Briole

Cet article en ligne dans sa version intégrale :  http://www.ifge-online.org/docftp/Caramelli2007.pdf

Centre de Recherche en Gestion des Organisations (CREGO), (Research Center in Business Administration), University of Montpellier II,

Batiment 19-Case Courrier 28, Place Eugene Bataillon, 34095 Montpellier Cedex 5, France

Abstract

The large majority of the existing research on the attitudinal effects of employee stock ownership is Anglo-Saxon by nature.

Considering that the cultural relativity of management practices is largely documented in the cross-cultural management literature, the international external validity of existing evidence can be questioned. Since virtually no past studies have addressed this issue, it seems important to wonder to what extent cultural values determine the attitudinal effects of employee stock ownership. According to the Lytle et al. [Lytle, A. L., Brett, J. M., Barsness, Z. I., Tinsley, C. H., & Janssens, M., (1995). A paradigm for confirmatory cross–cultural research in organizational behavior. Research in Organizational Behavior, 17, 167–214] paradigm, four cultural dimensions have been identified as likely moderators of the employee ownership–attitudes relationships and some theoretical propositions have been generated. Finally, some adaptations in the employee stock ownership plan's design and communication are recommended in order to improve its attitudinal effects in different cultural settings.

© 2007 Published by Elsevier Inc.

Keywords: Employee stock ownership; Cultural values; Attitudinal effects

1. Introduction

Employee stock ownership (EO) is a phenomenon that has developed since the mid-1980s in most industrialized

countries and in some of the emerging market economies and that has aroused a considerable interest both in scholars and practitioners (Kuvaas, 2003, pp. 193; Pendleton, Wilson, & Wright, 1998, pp. 99). There is a variety of ways by which employees may own stocks in their company: EO is not a simple, unidimensional concept. A company may be, for example, 100% owned by only 25% of employees, or only 25% owned by all employees or 100% owned by all employees but one person holds a majority of the stock (Kruse & Blasi, 1997, pp. 114). Many typologies of EO companies have been proposed (e.g. Ben-Ner & Jones, 1995, pp. 534; Toscano,

1983) but one of the most relevant distinctions is between worker cooperatives and capitalistic firms which have

implemented some EO scheme (Kruse & Blasi, 1997, pp. 115). Such practices may therefore yield varying combinations of owner/manager/worker roles, rights, and responsibilities, and workers can hold anything from a

nominal stake to full collective ownership (Rousseau & Shperling, 2003, pp. 554). There is no obviously correct

universal definition of the concept. The National Center for Employee Ownership (in the United States) defines EO as “a plan in which most of the company's employees own at least some stock in their company, even if they cannot vote it, and even if they cannot sell it till they leave the company or retire.” (Rosen, Klein, & Young, 1986, pp. 13–14). TheFrench Federation of the Associations of Employee Shareholders, defines the employee stockholder as “a stockholder who has purchased some shares of his/her employing company during a broad-based stock offering and who holds these shares both directly of through a fund.” (FAS, 2006, pp. 43).

Academic research has typically studied the effects of EO on corporate performance. A first body of research concerns mainly financial and econometric studies which suggest overall that EO tends to have some positive effects on corporate performance assessed through different indicators (Arcimoles (d') & Trébucq, 2003; Bradley, Estrin, & Taylor, 1990; Jones & Pliskin, 1988; Kruse & Blasi, 1997). Concerning the suggested processes, authors mostly explain the effects of EO on performance by changes in employees' work attitudes and behaviors (Ben-Ner & Jones, 1995; Blasi, Conte, & Kruse, 1996; Kruse, 1996; Welbourne & Cyr, 1999). A second body of research consists of studies in psychology and human resource management that have addressed particularly the attitudinal effects of EO. Since her seminal article of 1987, the three “models of satisfaction” of Klein are widely accepted as well-grounded approaches for distinguishing the ways EO may affect attitudes (Klein, 1987). The “Intrinsic Satisfaction Model” suggests that ownership itself is the critical variable in explaining the psychological impact of EO. According to the “Instrumental Satisfaction Model”, EO has some attitudinal effects if it enhances the employees' rights to information and participation in decision making. Finally, the “Extrinsic Satisfaction Model” suggests that EO has positive attitudinal effects if it is financially rewarding to employees (Klein, 1987, pp. 320–321). In about 30 years of empirical research the three models of Klein have been tested in several ways with different ways of conceiving the mere ownership of stock (comparisons between employee owners and non-owners working in the same company, individual or collective levels of stock ownership...), the financial value of stock ownership (stock return, size of the company's contribution, financial value of individual ownership...) and the rights to information and participation in decisionmaking (perceived participation, actual voting rights...). Overall, the majority of existing evidence suggests that EO may have positive attitudinal effects, while some studies found no effects or negative effects (Kaarsemaker, 2006, pp. 44). Concerning the processes by which EO operates, three main conclusions may be drawn: first, stock ownership itself rarely appears to lead to major changes in individual work attitudes (Pendleton, 2001, pp. 155), second, the positive effects of EO seem to be related more to the capacity of such a management practice of being rewarding in terms of financial returns (extrinsic model) and rights of participation (instrumental model), and third, some studies underline the importance of psychological ownership as a moderating variable (Pierce, Rubenfeld, & Morgan, 1991; Van Dyne & Pierce, 2004; Wagner, Parker, & Christiansen, 2003). Kaarsemaker (2006) has reviewed most of the relevant literature on the attitudinal effects of EO: among the 58 cited studies, 30 were from the United States, 8 from the United Kingdom, 7 from English-speaking Canada, 3 from Australia, 2 from New-Zealand and 1 from South-Africa. Overall, 51 out of 58 studies (88%) have been done by Anglo-Saxon scholars and were based on Anglo-Saxon employees. This certainly implies a lack of external validity in the existing knowledge about the attitudinal effects of EO. In fact, research evidence (Gupta, Hanges, & Dorfman, 2002, pp. 13; Ronen & Shenkar, 1985, pp. 449) shows that the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand can be clustered into an “Anglo Cluster” according to attitudinal data. However, the cultural relativity of the attitudinal effects of management practices is largely documented in the cross-cultural management literature (Adler, 1983, pp. 226; Hofstede, 1983, pp. 75–76; Steers, 1989, pp. 23). It seems therefore important to wonder whether the principles of the literature on the attitudinal effects of EO can be applied are related to the dominant values of Anglo-Saxon countries. Such a knowledge would be relevant both for managers of non-Anglo-Saxon countries and in multinational corporations where EO schemes are usually proposed to the majority of the employees worldwide.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest that employees' cultural values may moderate des effects of EO on key work attitudes. To illustrate this idea, we will first briefly present some theoretical explanations of the way by which EO may affect employees psychologically.We will then present some propositions about the moderator impact of some cultural values on the employees' emotional reactions to EO.