Ownership Structure and Employee Effort: Evidence from Family Firms

, University of 黑料传送门 Booth

We analyze the role of ownership structure on worker effort. We measure effort by
using a novel data set for employee absenteeism in a sample of 2,600 private Danish
firms. We find that employee workplace absenteeism in family firms is 14% lower
compared to non-family firms. We confirm the lower absence of family firm
employees even when we condition on identical health shocks. Furthermore,
exploiting employees that switch firms, we decompose the variation in absence into
an individual employee effect and a firm effect. We find that the firm specific
component accounts for 72% of the difference in absenteeism. Finally, we explore
potential mechanisms behind these results