The Employee Representation Plan Movement in the United States 1913 -1935

In this paper, we develop our understanding of employee voice by analyzing the rise and fall of employee representation plans in the United States in the interwar period. Using original archival research and an exploration of the literature we examine why American managers had previously embraced the idea of creating elaborate systems of non-union employee representation. We argue that the employee representation movement of 1913-1935 enjoyed widespread support because it promised to help solve many of the problems that confronted American managers in the wake of the emergence of Big Business in the late nineteenth century. These problems included reduced legitimacy in the eyes of workers and other key stakeholders and a variety of technical challenges related to inefficiency and the dispersed nature of knowledge in large firms.