A Social Network Analysis in a Labour Managed Firm: an Empirical Study of Management Team''s Power

Abstract

The difficulty of directing self-managed companies has been one of the arguments put forward in economic literature to show the unfeasibility of this model. There are not many people with the necessary talent who are willing to direct owner-worker, and to take on collective decisionmaking proceedings, with the implications regarding unsustainable incentives for this very particular type of business. However, the growth of self-managed businesses has shown that it is possible to achieve, thus the facts give the lie to the unfeasibility argument. This paper endeavours to make an analysis of corporate governance in a labour managed firm with an organizational methodology: the network social analysis (Granovetter, 1973; French, 1956; Fombrun, 1983; Waserman, 1994; Hanneman, 2001). It is divided into four sections. The first summarises the findings of socio-economic studies concerning the perspectives for analysing corporate governance in employee-owned enterprises - worker cooperatives and other labour managed firms. The second explains the main topics of the network analysis and the approaches to empirical research. The third deals with empirical research applying this methodology to a SAL with thirty-three workers. Finally, the scope of these ideas from the empirical analysis is evaluated and possible lines of useful research are suggested.