The challenges of employee-appointed board members for corporate governance: The Danish evidence

This article presents some evidence concerning the nature of co-determination using a sample of Danish employee-appointed board members. Even though Danish employee representatives only occupy one third of the seats and by design are always in a minority, they argue that they have a relatively high degree of influence on the decision-making process. This is especially profound in listed flrms, where nearly 30 per cent state that they have much influence on the decision-making process, compared to 7 per cent who argue that they have no influence at all. For reasons that remain unclear, the results also document that male employee representatives claim a higher degree of influence than their female colleagues. It is shown that employee representatives have a dispersed educational background and that their occupations vary greatly in both listed and non-listedflrms. The many different legalfaces ofEuropean co-determination are also described Finally, the article demonstrates that Danish employee representatives say that they care less about shareholder value compared to the supervisory board as a whole.