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Can employee ownership and human resource management policies clash in worker cooperatives? Lessons from a defunct cooperative
Author(s) -
Basterretxea Imanol,
HerasSaizarbitoria Iñaki,
Lertxundi Aitziber
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
human resource management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.888
H-Index - 94
eISSN - 1099-050X
pISSN - 0090-4848
DOI - 10.1002/hrm.21957
Subject(s) - business , absenteeism , dominance (genetics) , disengagement theory , human resource management , job satisfaction , human resources , nepotism , marketing , management , economics , political science , politics , law , gerontology , medicine , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
The article analyzes the interaction between employee ownership, HRM policies and practices, and HRM outcomes in what was the world's biggest industrial worker cooperative for decades, and now defunct, Fagor Electrodomésticos. Using longitudinal internal data and detailed interviews with key stakeholders, this paper sheds light on how employee ownership conditioned HRM policies. HRM outcomes—such as job satisfaction and absenteeism—are also analyzed over a long period of time. Chronic nepotism when recruiting new members, failures in the training policy, impoverished and Taylorist working systems, and reverse dominance hierarchies are analyzed as factors that increased free riding and caused low satisfaction and the disengagement of working members. This case study contributes to the literature on HRM and worker cooperatives as it provides some insights that are rarely found in that literature. It also provides guidance to worker cooperatives about increasing the fit between employee ownership and HRM policies and outcomes.