The Impact of Founding-Family Ownership on Labor Relations : Evidence from French Workplace-Level Data.

We investigate the influence of founding-family ownership on labor relations using workplace-level data from France. Based on data from labor conflicts during 2004 in workplaces of listed companies, we find that family ownership significantly reduces the duration and the percentage of employees involved in major conflicts as well as the likelihood that a workplace experiences a strike. These results are robust to different definitions of founding-family ownership and control for endogeneity. We also show that there is a significant reduction in the number of protected employee layoffs, sanctioned employees, individual law disputes handled by an employment tribunal, and the annual number of works council or union delegate meetings when a family member serves as the CEO of the firm. We document the impact of employee ownership and representation on corporate boards of directors on labor relations and find a significant and negative relationship for dependent variables. Overall, these findings suggest that ownership structure is an important determinant of labor relations within firms.Labor relations; Employee ownership; Employee representation; Family ownership;

Employee Ownership, Board Representation, and Corporate Financial Policies.

French law mandates that employees of large publicly listed companies be allowed to elect two types of directors to represent employees. First, partially privatized companies must reserve two or three (depending on board size) board seats for directors elected by employees by right of employment. Second, employee-shareholders in any public company have the right to elect one director whenever they hold at least 3% of outstanding shares. These two rights have engendered substantial employee representation on the boards of over one-quarter of the largest French companies. Using a comprehensive sample of firms in the Société des Bourses Françaises (SBF) 120 Index from 1998 to 2005, we examine the impact of employee-directors on corporate valuation, payout policy, and internal board organization and performance. We find that directors elected by employee shareholders unambiguously increase firm valuation and profitability, but do not significantly impact corporate payout (dividends and share repurchases) policy or board organization and performance. Directors elected by employees by right significantly reduce payout ratios, increase overall staff costs, and increase board size, complexity, and meeting frequency—but do not significantly impact firm value or profitability. Employee representation on corporate boards thus appears to be at least value-neutral, and even value-enhancing in the case of directors elected by employee shareholders.Employee Ownership; Corporate Boards; Privatization; Payout Policy;

Employee ownership, board representation, and corporate financial policies

French law mandates that employees of publicly listed companies can elect two types of directors to represent employees. Privatized companies must reserve board seats for directors elected by employees by right of employment, while employee-shareholders can elect a director whenever they hold at least 3% of outstanding shares. Using a comprehensive sample of firms in the Société des Bourses Françaises (SBF) 120 Index from 1998 to 2008, we examine the impact of employee-directors on corporate valuation, payout policy, and internal board organization and performance. We find that directors elected by employee shareholders increase firm valuation and profitability, but do not significantly impact corporate payout policy. Directors elected by employees by right significantly reduce payout ratios, but do not impact firm value or profitability. Employee representation on corporate boards thus appears to be at least value-neutral, and perhaps value-enhancing in the case of directors elected by employee shareholders.Employee ownership Payout policy Privatization Corporate boards