ESOPs and employee attitudes: The importance of empowerment and financial value

This paper examines how management approaches to employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) implementation affects such employee work-related attitudes as job satisfaction, ESOP satisfaction, and job involvement. Structural-equation modeling assesses the responses of 321 airline pilots who were employed by one of three major US-based airlines. The results indicated positive linkages between the instrumentally and extrinsically satisfying aspects of employee ownership and ESOP satisfaction, job satisfaction, and job involvement.