Institutional regimes and employee influence at work: a European comparison

Employee's ability to exercise influence over their work tasks has long been seen as a critical aspect of the quality of work. Using comparative representative surveys, the paper examines how well the contrasting power resource and production regime theoretical perspectives account for the empirical differences between countries – taking Denmark, Finland, Germany, the United Kingdom and Sweden as paradigmatic cases of different regime types. It examines individual task discretion, collective team decision-making and consultative influence through management. It reveals the distinctively high level of influence at work of employees in the Nordic countries, a pattern that is most consistent with power resources theory.