Comparing Worker Ownership and Control Across Countries

The recent financial crisis has intensified discussions about prevailing modes of economic governance, including the degree to which they are inclusive or promote the rule and enrichment of a narrow set of elites. Within contemporary workplaces, there are important questions that remain unanswered about the involvement of individuals across different parts of the workforce in the ownership and control structures of firms. In this paper, we offer the first analysis of a special module on broad-based worker ownership and control that we developed in collaboration with the Wage Indicator Foundation. Administered to more than 17,000 people in 17 countries as part of the International Wage Indicator Survey, the survey provides several advantages over existing data sources, covering a broader range of countries and allowing the interactions among various dimensions of ownership and control to be addressed.