Employee Ownership

The psychology of sharing: an evolutionary approach

by David Erdal

This thesis takes an evolutionary perspective on human psychology. To the extent that inherited tendencies shape... more This thesis takes an evolutionary perspective on human psychology. To the extent that inherited tendencies shape behaviour, their design will be fitted to the social environments prevailing as Homo sapiens evolved, in foraging groups, the
nearest modern equivalent being hunter-gatherers. From ethnographies of hunter-gatherers, food-sharing and counter-dominance were identified as universal. Food-sharing was more thorough than is explicable purely by kinship or reciprocation; one functional effect was to even out the supply of valuable high-variance food. In contrast with the social systems of the other great apes, counter-dominance spread influence widely, preventing the emergence of dominant individuals who could obtain resources disproportionately. Potential paths for the evolution of egalitarian tendencies are discussed.
Two falsifiable hypotheses were generated from this perspective. First, sharing will facilitate risk-taking. The predicted effect was confirmed at high risk levels, similar to those faced by hunters. Given that during evolution risk was reduced primarily by social means, social as well as rational factors are treated by the evolved brain as relevant to risky decisions. It is argued that this result may suggest
a new perspective on the Group Polarisation experiments.
The second hypothesis tested was that an egalitarian environment will produce beneficial effects on individual and social behaviour. The data collected were consistent with the hypothesis: a comparison between three Italian towns showed that measures of health (including cardiovascular mortality), education, social involvement, crime and social perceptions were significantly more positive where cooperatives
employed a larger percentage of the population.
The evolutionary perspective showed its value as a means of generating novel testable hypotheses.

Cognitive aspects of participation: Evidence from 3 studies

by Ryszard Stocki

Submitted for publication

Participation always has three aspects: physical, legal and cognitive - related to the cognitive structures of persons... more Participation always has three aspects: physical, legal and cognitive - related to the cognitive structures of persons involved in participative behavior. The trouble of proving the effects of participation lies in the mismatch between the three aspects. In economic studies we usually rely on the physical or legal aspects and real participation's consequences can hardly be measured, as they do not necessarily coincide with the declarations. In our studies, we decided to construct a formal model of ownership, assuming that the relation „A owns B” is only one of 10 similar relations on a spectrum from „A is a part of B” - greatest involvement to „A does not know about B” - the least involvement. Participation in management may be described by means of this model as various instances of „ownership spectrum” where „A” and „B” take different values of: a person, an institution, a community, a group, an object (material, energetic, informational, purchasing).
Once formalized we can view the studies in participation from one, system theory point of view, and formulate the hypotheses related to both aspects of ownership as it is revealed in a variety of participation forms. In our studies we have applied multiple measures of both participation and effectiveness. We measured various aspects of organization functioning, we also asked employees to fill in questionnaires related to their perception of various forms of participation. We also conducted similar studies in non-profit organization, where there is no possibility of legal ownership, yet different levels of cognitive ownership may be noticed. The possible consequences of this approach to participation for future research and managerial practice will be presented.