Employee involvement in family and non-family-owned businesses in Great Britain

Richard I.d. Harris, Renee S. Reid, Rodney McAdam

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    20 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Nationally representative data on family businesses is available in the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey, alongside comparable information for other types of firms. We use this data to compare differences in the use of different consultation and communication procedures. We cover such practices as the use of direct communication schemes (e.g. briefings, the provision of information on financial performance to the workforce) as opposed to indirect methods such as the use of joint consultative committees. There is an a priori expectation in the literature that family-owned businesses are either more likely to use direct forms of communication (vis-à-vis indirect forms) or that they will not be involved in direct communication or consultation with their employees, and we test this using multivariate techniques. Finally, we consider whether the type of consultation/communication structure matters in terms of establishment performance, and what differences exist with respect to family-owned businesses. In particular this short paper reports the outcome of testing if those firms that consult directly with staff, as apposed to those that consult through joint consultative committees or trade unions, have higher productivity and/or other measures of performance.

    Original languageEnglish
    Pages (from-to)49-58
    Number of pages10
    JournalInternational Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research
    Volume10
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished (in print/issue) - 1 Feb 2004

    Bibliographical note

    Copyright:
    Copyright 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.

    Keywords

    • Economic performance
    • Employees involvement
    • Family firms

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