Corporate Governance and the Voice of Labour

Description

The ETUI has just launched a new research project, co-funded by the Hans-Böckler Foundation, on board-level employee (BLE) representation in Europe and Norway

The overall aim of the project is to investigate the roles, activities, decision-making criteria and networking of specific BLE representatives.

Currently eighteen out of the 27 EU member states have developed legal provisions on BLE representation. However, up until now, little research has been undertaken on this issue especially from a European perspective.

The project will be analysing four key questions:

  • which roles and activities do BLE representatives undertake within different national systems of corporate governance?;
  • what elements influence BLE representative behaviour when carrying out their job?;
  • what priorities do BLE representatives establish and how do they react to sensitive issues raised at board level i.e. relocation, restructuring ?;
  • what links have BLE representatives established especially with trade unions?

The primary research instrument will be a large-scale survey using questionnaires that workers’ board-level representatives, serving at board level throughout the EU, will be asked to complete. Key to the distribution of the questionnaires will be the access to, or the assembly of, data-bases of addresses of board-level employee representatives.

The survey will be supplemented with interview-based material. Approximately 30 interviews with workers’ board level representatives will be conducted to further deepen and elaborate on the qualitative aspects of the research obtained and bring together overall findings.

Researchers

Jeremy  Waddington

Project Co-ordinator of the ETUI, Research
phone: + 44 161 306 8797

Dr. Norbert  Kluge

Senior researcher. Head of the ETUI SEEurope project
phone: +32 (0) 2 224 05 08

Aline  Conchon

Researcher, ETUI
phone: +32 (2) 224 05 90
Last modified: 12 Feb 2009