The Perceived Influence of Employee Board Members on Decisions in Denmark and Norway

Codetermination through board-level employee representation has a long tradition in Denmark and Norway. Since employee representatives are in a minority on the board, do they have a real say in decisions? Using survey data, we find a relatively large proportion of employee representatives who state that they have little or no influence on the decision-making process. A small minority claim to have significant influence on major strategic issues such as company restructuring. Neither gender nor length of board membership is related to perceived influence, which is also the case for board size. However, the more frequent the board meetings, the higher the level of perceived influence. The findings suggest that the present system does not empower board-level employee representatives.