Employee ownership and employee sentiment: A comparative study

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Abstract

The purpose of this study is to determine the impact of employee ownership on employees’ behaviour. We explore how financial gains can influence employee satisfaction, motivation, and the reduction of absenteeism and turnover. Our study, conducted using French and Canadian companies as examples, focused on the dynamics of contributions, discounts, and the percentage of employee shares over a five-year period. The results of the study show that employee motivation, satisfaction, and the reduction of absenteeism and turnover are explained by the evolution of discount, matching contribution, and percentage of employee shares. Employee shareholders were more cooperative, involved, motivated, and satisfied with the simple fact of being employee shareholders. This work can be considered as one of the pioneer studies of the effect of employee ownership on the psychological behaviour of employee shareholders.

Keywords: Employee Ownership, Motivation, Satisfaction, Absenteeism, Turnover

Authors’ individual contribution: The Author is responsible for all the contributions to the paper according to CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) standards.

Declaration of conflicting interests: The Author declares that there is no conflict of interest.

JEL Classification: G28, G38, G41

Received: 25.10.2025
Revised: 20.11.2025; 03.12.2025; 10.12.2025
Accepted: 22.12.2025
Published online: 24.12.2025

How to cite this paper: Ben Ahmed, D. (2025). Employee ownership and employee sentiment: A comparative study. Corporate Ownership & Control, 22(4), 160–167. https://doi.org/10.22495/cocv22i4art14