Ｗorkplace democracy per se enhances work productivity (per‐work‐time production)

What is it about?

In a new economic experiment, human subjects were randomly assigned to a team of three, and they then jointly solved a collaborative real-effort task. They exhibited significantly higher productivity (per-work-time production) when they decided whether to reduce the return from shirking by voting than when the policy implementation was randomly decided from above.

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Why is it important?

The significant dividend of democracy on work productivity means that the workers can achieve the same goal in less work time. This collaborates with recent work style reform in our societies. There is a trend to transform the traditional workplace into an employee-centered workplace in many countries. Having higher work productivity in a democratic environment certainly helps firms achieve the same or potentially better outcomes with fewer working hours. This boost to productivity is achieved through enhanced self-determination and signaling effects; workplace democracy provides the workers with the ability to foster trust with each other and to indicate their intentions or desire to cooperate through democratic procedures such as voting, and the recipients can then respond to these signals.