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{{Short description|Plan where employees share in profits}}{{About|a type of business incentive plan for employees|a method of finance used in Islamic banking|Profit and loss sharing|the retirement plan|Profit-sharing pension plan}}Profit sharing refers to various incentive plans introduced by businesses which provide direct or indirect payments to employees, often depending on the company's profitability, employees' regular salaries, and bonuses.JOURNAL, Monroe, Paul, 1896, Profit Sharing in the United States,weblink American Journal of Sociology, 1, 6, 685–709, 0002-9602, JOURNAL, Monroe, Paul, 1899, Profit-Sharing and Cooperation. I,weblink American Journal of Sociology, 4, 5, 593–602, 0002-9602, JOURNAL, Monroe, Paul, 1899, Profit-Sharing and Cooperation. II,weblink American Journal of Sociology, 4, 6, 788–806, 0002-9602, In publicly traded companies, these plans typically amount to allocation of shares to employees.The profit sharing plans are based on predetermined economic sharing rules that define the split of gains between the company as a principal and the employee as an agent.Moffatt, Mike. (2008) About.com Sharing Rule {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303234314weblink |date=2016-03-03 }} Economics Glossary; Terms Beginning with S. Accessed June 19, 2008. For example, suppose the profits are x, which might be a random variable. Before knowing the profits, the principal and agent might agree on a sharing rule s(x). Here, the agent will receive s(x) and the principal will receive the residual gain x-s(x).Profit-sharing tends to lead to less conflict and more cooperation between labor and their employers.JOURNAL, Dean, Adam, 2015, The Gilded Wage: Profit-Sharing Institutions and the Political Economy of Trade,weblink International Studies Quarterly, 59, 2, 316–329, 10.1111/isqu.12200, 0020-8833, BOOK, Dean, Adam,weblink From Conflict to Coalition, 2016, Cambridge University Press, 978-1-107-16880-0, en,

History

American politician Albert Gallatin had profit-sharing institutions on his glass works in the 1790s. Another of early pioneers of profit sharing was English politician Theodore Taylor, who is known to have introduced the practice in his woollen mills during the late 1800s.NEWS, 21 October 1952, Obituary - Mr Theodore Taylor, a Pioneer of Profit Sharing, The Times, In the United Kingdom, profit-sharing became prominent in the 1860s.JOURNAL, Church, R. A., 1971, Profit-Sharing and Labour Relations in England in the Nineteenth Century,weblink International Review of Social History, en, 16, 1, 2–16, 10.1017/S0020859000003989, 1469-512X, JOURNAL, Perks, Robert B., 1982, Real Profit-Sharing: William Thomson & Sons of Huddersfield, 1886–1925,weblink Business History, en, 24, 2, 156–174, 10.1080/00076798200000025, 0007-6791, Economists debated profit-sharing in major economic journals in the 1880s.JOURNAL, Giddings, Franklin H., 1887, The Theory of Profit-Sharing,weblink The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1, 3, 367–376, 10.2307/1882764, 0033-5533, JOURNAL, Aldrich, Richard, 1887, Some Objections to Profit-Sharing,weblink The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1, 2, 232–242, 10.2307/1880773, 0033-5533, William Cooper Procter established a profit-sharing plan in Procter & Gamble in 1887.{{britannica|477828|William Cooper Procter}}Profit-sharing has historically been a prevalent practice in the Hollywood motion picture industry.JOURNAL, Weinstein, Mark, 1998, Profit‐Sharing Contracts in Hollywood: Evolution and Analysis,weblink The Journal of Legal Studies, en, 27, 1, 67–112, 10.1086/468014, 0047-2530, Profit-sharing partnerships are also prevalent in industries such as law, accounting, medicine, investment banking, architecture, advertising, and consulting.JOURNAL, Levin, Jonathan D., Tadelis, Steven, 2005, Profit Sharing and the Role of Professional Partnerships,weblink The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 10.1162/0033553053327506, The Harvard economist Martin L. Weitzman was a prominent proponent of profit-sharing in the 1980s, influencing governments to incentivize the practice.JOURNAL, Matthews, Derek, 1989, The British Experience of Profit-Sharing,weblink The Economic History Review, 42, 4, 439–464, 10.2307/2597095, 0013-0117, Weitzman argued that profit-sharing could be a way to reduce unemployment without increasing inflation. Economists have debated the effects of profit-sharing on different outcomes.JOURNAL, Cahuc, Pierre, Dormont, Brigitte, 1997, Profit-sharing: Does it increase productivity and employment? A theoretical model and empirical evidence on French micro data,weblink Labour Economics, 4, 3, 293–319, 10.1016/S0927-5371(97)00008-0, 0927-5371, JOURNAL, BLANCHFLOWER, DAVID G., OSWALD, ANDREW J., 1987, PROFIT SHARING—CAN IT WORK?,weblink Oxford Economic Papers, 39, 1, 1–19, 10.1093/oxfordjournals.oep.a041771, 1464-3812, JOURNAL, Meade, J. E., 1972, The Theory of Labour-Managed Firms and of Profit Sharing,weblink The Economic Journal, 82, 325, 402, 10.2307/2229945, 0013-0133, JOURNAL, Kruse, Douglas L., 1992, Profit Sharing and Productivity: Microeconomic Evidence from the United States,weblink The Economic Journal, 102, 410, 24, 10.2307/2234849, 0013-0133, JOURNAL, Azfar, Omar, Danninger, Stephan, 2001, Profit-Sharing, Employment Stability, and Wage Growth,weblink ILR Review, en, 54, 3, 619–630, 10.1177/001979390105400305, 0019-7939, JOURNAL, FitzRoy, Felix R., Kraft, Kornelius, 1986, Profitability and Profit-Sharing,weblink The Journal of Industrial Economics, 35, 2, 113–130, 10.2307/2098353, 0022-1821,

Europe

Management's share of profits

The share of profits paid to the management or to the board of directors is sometimes called the tantième.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}} This French term is generally applied in describing the business and finance practices of certain European countries, including Germany, France, Belgium, and Sweden. It is usually paid in addition to the manager's (or director's) fixed salary and bonuses (bonuses usually depend on profits as well, and often bonuses and tantieme are treated as the same thing); laws vary from country to country.

United States

In the United States, a profit sharing plan can be set up where all or some of the employee's profit sharing amount can be contributed to a retirement plan. These are often used in conjunction with 401(k) plans.

Gainsharing

Gainsharing is a program that returns cost savings to the employees, usually as a lump-sum bonus. It is a productivity measure, as opposed to profit-sharing which is a profitability measure. There are three major types of gainsharing:

• Scanlon plan: This program dates back to the 1930s and relies on committees to create cost-sharing ideas. Designed to lower labor costs without lowering the level of a firm's activity. The incentives are derived as a function of the ratio between labor costs and sales value of production (SVOP).
• Rucker plan: This plan also uses committees, but although the committee structure is simpler the cost-saving calculations are more complex.Rucker, A. W. et al., Re: "Management's Attitude toward Wage Incentive Systems", ILR Review, Vol. 5, No. 3 (April 1952), pp. 422-425, accessed 29 March 2023 A ratio is calculated that expresses the value of production required for each dollar of total wage bill.
• Improshare: Improshare stands for "Improved productivity through sharing" and is a more recent development. With this plan, a standard is developed that identifies the expected number of hours to produce something, and any savings between this standard and actual production are shared between the company and the workers.{{Citation

See also

• Co-determination
• Employee stock ownership
• Joint venture
• Mutualization
• Retirement plans in the United States
• Social dividend

Further reading

• Weitzman, Martin L. (1985). "The Simple Macroeconomics of Profit Sharing". The American Economic Review. 75 (5): 937–953. ISSN 0002-8282.
• Weitzman, Martin L. (1985). "Profit Sharing as Macroeconomic Policy". The American Economic Review. 75 (2): 41–45. ISSN 0002-8282.
• Weitzman, Martin L. (1987). "Steady State Unemployment Under Profit Sharing". The Economic Journal. 97 (385): 86–105. doi:10.2307/2233324. ISSN 0013-0133.

References

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External links

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