Abstract
Romania has undergone a gradual reform. The corporate ownership has been impacted by a
privatization process based on various methods. Following a decade of transition,
the
shareholding
of the largest Romanian companies confirms that some ownership forms that were
initially considered as temporary have survived.
Such
conditions allow conducting
research on
the links between ownership and firms’ adjustments. Some
restated
financial data related to a
sample of Romanian furniture companies
are used to assess ownership effects on firms’ performance.
The impact of macroeconomic instability is
taken into account
. The labour and wages
adjustments are determined. Management-Employee Buy-Out companies have achieved a
significant performance and the expected dissipation of added value is not observed. The
outsider-owned
companies’
performance is highly variable, which may be explained by the
unselective privatization process. The analysis goes more in-depth by comparing employee-
owned firms to newly-established and outsider-controlled companies. A sample of 730 firms
is analyzed. The behaviour patterns in terms of production, labour, surplus distribution and
financing
strategies
are analyzed over a five years period. The labour force and wages
adjustments do not confirm the risks that are often associated to employee-owned companies.
Those firms
are less profitable than
the
n
ewly-established and outsider-controlled ones
, while their
performance is less variable. Their financing strategies are less risky too. Employee
ownership should not be neglected under conditions that can be compared to transition.