We compare two prominent explanations of employee ownership’s influence on pro-organizational behaviors—psychological ownership and alignment of financial interests—by testing the effects of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and current profit sharing on promotive voice. ESOPs give employees an ownership stake through granting shares to a trust. Current profit sharing gives employees a portion of profits as a cash payment. To differentiate between the mechanisms, we propose that employee decision influence moderates only the relationship between ESOPs and psychological ownership.
Using a National Bureau of Economic Research dataset of employees of 14 USA companies with shared capitalism practices, we conducted a path-analysis of a moderated multiple-mediation regression model using the PROCESS macro. Our sample included 16,557 participants.
Psychological ownership partially transmits the effects of ESOP participation and current profit sharing on promotive voice. Employee decision influence strengthens the relationship between ESOP participation and psychological ownership. Perceived alignment of interests does not mediate the relationships between employee ownership and promotive voice.
Employee ownership increases promotive voice. ESOPs must be combined with employee decision influence to produce psychological ownership. Offering current profit sharing with ESOPs is related to additional psychological ownership and voice.
In a single model, we test the most prominent explanations for the effects of employee ownership on pro-organizational behavior, in the context of two of the most common forms of employee ownership.
