Employee Satisfaction, Labor Market Flexibility, and Stock Returns Around the World
Management Science, Forthcoming
Jacobs Levy Equity Management Center for Quantitative Financial Research Paper
European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) - Finance Working Paper No. 433/2014
65 Pages Posted: 2 Jul 2014 Last revised: 19 Sep 2023
There are 3 versions of this paper
Employee Satisfaction, Labor Market Flexibility, and Stock Returns Around the World
Employee Satisfaction, Labor Market Flexibility, and Stock Returns Around the World
Employee Satisfaction, Labor Market Flexibility, and Stock Returns Around the World
Date Written: August 11, 2023
Abstract
Studying 30 countries, we find that the link between employee satisfaction and stock returns is significantly increasing in a country’s labor market flexibility. This result is consistent with employee satisfaction having greater recruitment, retention, and motivation benefits where firms face fewer hiring and firing constraints and employees have greater ability to respond to satisfaction. Labor market flexibility also increases the link between employee satisfaction and current valuation ratios, future profitability, and future earnings surprises, inconsistent with omitted risk factors and identifying channels through which employee satisfaction may affect stock returns. The findings have implications for the differential profitability of socially responsible investing strategies around the world – in particular, the importance of considering institutional factors when forming such strategies.
Keywords: Employee Satisfaction, Labor Market Flexibility, Socially Responsible Investing, Corporate Social Responsibility, ESG Investing
JEL Classification: G12, G23, G38, J53, J81, J83, J88, K31
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation