The economics of Participation and Employee Ownership (PEO): an assessment

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to discuss diverse matters concerning the field of Participation and Employee Ownership (PEO) coinciding with the launch of the JPEO.Design/methodology/approachThis paper used mixed methods including bibliometric analysis.FindingsSignificant gaps exist in our knowledge of the scope and nature of PEO. Citation counts illustrate both the changing composition of research within PEO and faster relative growth than terms used to describe related fields such as labor unions and trade unions. Based on manually collected citation data I identify the most highly cited studies within PEO. Few of these studies attain a “home-run” citation count. However, PEO scholars are cited 19 percent more than economists in top 30 schools and the median C5 (total citations for the author’s five most highly cited papers) is more than 260 percent of the median for economists in “top 30” institutions. There is also some weak evidence that the citation bias in economics against female scholars is not as marked in PEO as elsewhere. A qualitative assessment of PEO studies suggests markedly uneven progress in empirical work across types of PEO.Originality/valueNo similar review has been done before.