Abstract

The Aim of the paper is to analyze the most recent theoretical literature about flexible wages, with a specific attention to the role of workers participation inside the firm. The core question is whether workers participation is simply related to economic factors (through the adoption of a flexible wage) or it includes also organizational factors, through workers involvement in the decision making process of the firm. The economic literature considers three different schemes of flexible wages: the "gain-sharing" schemes, the "profit-sharing" schemes and the "participation" schemes. The analytical frameworks of each of the three kinds of schemes are investigated with the aim of showing the basic assumptions about the kind of workers participation considered. The analysis shows that only the "participation" schemes include an "organizational" participation of workers. In these schemes flexible wages are thought and designed for sharing, among workers and firm, the rent deriving by new organizational investments, based on workers involvement in the decision making processes of the firm.