Monitoring Colleagues at Work: Profit-Sharing, Employee Ownership, Broad-Based Stock Options and Workplace Performance in the United States

Abstract

This study seeks to increase our understanding of worker reactions to shirking by analyzing two new questionson shirking from the 2002 General Social Science Survey (GSS). We developed the questions in order toilluminate the factors that enable some shared capitalist enterprises to overcome the free rider or 1/N dilemma.Our guiding principle is the notion that for profit-sharing, worker ownership, and broad-based stock options toproduce economic benefits, workers must "buy into" shared arrangements and create a workplace culture thatdiscourages shirking.