Taken on Board: An Evaluation of the Influence of Employee Board-level Representatives on Company Decision-making across Europe

Employee board-level representation is a significant feature of industrial relations systems in the majority of EU member states. Even so, analyses of its impact on company board-level decision-making remain sparse, and very few focus on how employee board-level representatives conduct their relationships with shareholder representatives and maintain their independence from management beliefs, norms and values. This article examines the findings from interviews with 20 unionized representatives in 13 European countries. Representatives reflect on their influence on the board, their relationship with other board members and their achievements and disappointments. The article concludes that employee representation contributes towards a more broadly based corporate strategy by ensuring that it takes into account at an early stage the views and interests of organized labour.