The PEPPER report : promotion of employee participation in profits and enterprise results in the member states of the European community

Abstract

Two different types of employee participation in enterprises can be distinguished. The first includes various forms of employee participation in decision-making, usually referred to as "industrial democracy", which ranges from information disclosure and consultation, to minority or full parity codetermination. The second group includes various forms of employee participation in enterprise performance, usually referred to as "economic democracy", "financial participation", or, following recommendations of the 1990 Workshop in Florence, "PEPPER" (Promotion of Employee Participation in Profits and Enterprise Results). Whereas employee participation in decision-making has been vastly discussed in the literature, research on PEPPER has been more limited, and has been prevalently theoretical. In particular, little is known about the concrete application of PEPPER schemes in practice - the principal types, their diffusion over time, existing legislation, and the effects of PEPPER schemes have on enterprise performance.