The aim of this work is to carry out an exploratory study on the situation of employee share ownership in Morocco in order to detect the effects induced by ownership on motivation, organizational involvement, and the intention to leave. To this end, the authors have used agency theory, which offers an interesting framework for analyzing the practice of employee share ownership, and they have proposed a synthesis of empirical work on the organizational effects of property. Subsequently, they set out their empirical approach in order to explain the progress of the field survey, which relates to the description of the situation of employee shareholding in Morocco. The results obtained confirm the empirical studies analyzed and show that employee share ownership improves the feeling of belonging to the company, motivation, and organizational involvement. On the other hand, ownership makes it possible to lower the departure intention of employee shareholders.
TopIntroduction
Employee share ownership is a growing practice that has developed in most industrialized and emerging countries because of its notorious and virtuous effects on the labor climate, employee attitudes and earnings sharing. This has attracted considerable interest both in academia and among politicians and practitioners.
Employee profit-sharing aims to achieve a twofold objective, the first is to provide equity financing to companies and the second is a way to better share wealth with employees. Beyond this win-win agreement between the company and its employees, the reconciliation between capital and work is in-depth and allows radical changes to be made to businesses and affect both workplace behavior and financial and stock market performance of the companies that set it up.
In Europe, employee share ownership is a firmly anchored practice and in 2018, European employee shareholding reaches for the first time € 384 billion, representing a stake in the capital of 3.11%1.
Indeed, according to the same study, nearly 87.3% of large European companies already have employee share ownership plans, with an average increase of 3% to 4% each year. And the average holding by non-executive employee reached 28,000 Euros in 2018.
And France is the European leader in the democratization of employee ownership this place is mainly due to French laws favorable to participation and tax incentives. Indeed, France is the only European country which has decreed the obligation of profit sharing for all companies employing at least 50 employees.
This mutual commitment of governments and companies in favor of the expansion of employee share ownership reflects the economic interest of the practice, which constitutes both a fair device for sharing profits and a lever for organizational behavior aimed at increasing employee inclusion, commitment and satisfaction.
In Morocco, the practice of employee share ownership remains largely unknown and companies do not easily offer capital shares to employees. Indeed, Employee shareholding operations are generally reserved for large groups and large market capitalizations. Recently, La Banque Centrale Poulaire (BCP) and Attijariwafa bank are strengthening their employee shareholding through capital increases reserved for employees. At Attijariwafa bank, the share of employees is increased to 3.65% after the operation of 2.4 billion DH. The leaders highlight the desire to consolidate ties with employees and improve their sense of belonging.
Also, the Moroccan telephony leader (Maroc Telecom) announced a recent public sale offer worth 0.3% of its capital (i.e. 16.7% of the size of the operation) at a price of DH 117.7 against 125.3 DH for the general public.
The subsidiaries of foreign groups are clearly distinguished in the practice of employee share ownership with good recurrence, around 8 to 9 offers per year over the last 4 years.
In the first six months of 2019, 7 international groups activated this shareholding mode. These are Crédit Agricole, Veolia, Société Générale, Tui, Vinci, Total, Airbus SE.
For example, on September 24, 2019 The Moroccan Capital Market Authority (AMMC) informed the public that Veolia Environnement had implemented a major employee shareholding campaign for 140,000 employees in the groups in 40 countries including Moroccan subsidiaries. The leaders highlight the desire to strengthen the ties of employees with their company by associating them with its capital and its performance.
Employee share ownership does not seem to be a device rooted in the practices of Moroccan companies despite the legislative texts that encourage it.
According to the Finance Act 2013 and the General Tax Code, the Moroccan legislator devotes several tax incentives to companies that apply employee ownership.
And to encourage the spread of employee share ownership in Morocco, academic work must, further, highlight the positive effects of employee share ownership on organizational performance and behavior at work.
Our research has invested this objective by conducting an exploratory study on the attitudinal effects of employee share ownership in Morocco.