earticle

영어

This paper studies how to utilize shared capitalism(SH) such as profit sharing, gain sharing and stock sharing in Korea which has been faced with the stagnation of economic growth as well as workers’ earning. It compares the features and prevailance of SH in US and EU especially focusing on UK and France with those of Korea. These countries had experienced the limit of capital and labor-led growth and then has transformed toward technology-driven growth which requires innovations of both organization and human capital. These innovations have been facilitated by the adoption of SH. The governments of those countries have strongly supported SH with litigations as well as tax incentives making SH rapidly widespread since late 1990s. SH has became established across all industries even though the differences of prevailance have existed by the form of SH and the characteristics of labor. Profit sharing is found to be most popular, gain sharing commonly utilized even in nonprofit sector and stock sharing popularly adopted in high-tech industries. SH has been found to contribute both workers’ welfare and firms’ performance with high performance work practices and employees’ representation practices. Korea has introduced SH with performance sharing plan and employee stock ownership plan but their utilization has been low. The performance sharing plan, which is mixed with both profit sharing and gain sharing, has been emphasized to easing unstable labor-management relations in early 1990s with tax incentive for firms introducing the plan. The employee stock ownership plan had been introduced to foster capital market and employees’ welfare in late 1960s providing privileged right to purchase the company's stock and then it has been modified to focus on employees’ wealth formation with providing tax incentive for both company’s contribution and employees’ return. The effect of the performance sharing plan on both firm’s performance and employees’ benefit has been found to be low and that of the employee stock ownership plan to be insignificant. This paper finds Korea to have big possibility to develop SH since it has highly educated workers abundantly while firms’ need to motivate employees as human assets for innovation is enormous and the government is obliged to make SMEs(small and medium enterprises) and service industries competitive to sustain growth. It suggests the reform of Korea SH institutions and practices as well as that of tax incentive system to catch the rising social demand of SH. Korea needs to divide the current performance sharing plan into profit sharing and gain sharing and at the same time raise connectedness among stock sharing, profit sharing and gain sharing plans. It emphasizes the utilization of profit sharing plan with tax incentive for workers and encourages the government sector to adopt gain sharing plan. It is important to raise the role of SH related tax incentive system making it comply with the principles of SH. In order to raise SME’s utilization of SH, the government financial aid policy needs to be strategically upgraded by including its adoption of SH as an evaluating factor for financial aid. The government needs to make SH develop systematically by promoting the introduction of high performance work practices at firm level and supporting surveys and researches on the prevailance of SH at national level.

한국어

본 논문은 미국과 영국 및 프랑스 등에서 급속하게 확산되는 공유자본주의의 발전 경험을 비교분석해 한국 공유자본주의의 성공 조건을 찾는다. 공유자본주의는 주식공유제, 이윤공유제, 성과공유제 등 기업이나 작업 단위의 성과를 주식이나 현금 등으로 근로자들에게 집단적으로 보상하는 제도를 의미한다. 이들 국가에서는 자본과 노동 투입에 의한 성장이 한계에 부딪치고 기술혁신이 성장을 주도하고 조직과 인적자원혁신의 역할이 커지면서 공유자본주에 대한 재인식이 확산되고 있다. 기업의 성과가 인적자원에 대한 의존도가 큰 서비스기업이나 첨단 중소기업에서 공유자본주의의 활용도가 높다. 한국의 공유자본주의는 성과배분제도와 우리사주제를 주축으로 하는데 법제도와 노사정의 인식 때문에 활용이 저조하다. 그러나 한국은 교육수준이 높은 인적자원이 풍부하고 고기술고숙련 근로자의 역할이 큰 서비스산업과 중소기업의 경쟁력 제고가 경제성장의 관건이 되고 있기 때문에 공유자본주의에 대한 잠재적 수요가 크다. 이러한 현실과 목표의 괴리를 극복하기 위해서 한국은 공유자본주의 개혁이 필요하다. 우리사주제 일변도의 공유자본주의에서 벗어나 성과배분제도를 성과공유제와 이윤공유제로 구분하고 이윤공유제를 보상의 방식에 따라 성과공유제와 주식공유제와 접목되도록 개편해 노사의 선택 범위를 확대해야 한다. 또한 공유자본주의에 대한 세제 지원은 중점을 기업에서 근로자로 전환하고 중소기업에 대한 자금 지원을 고기술고숙련 근로자들에 대한 공유자본주의 보상과 연계하며 고성과 작업관행과 근로자참여활용 등도 지원의 요건에 포함시켜야 한다. 공유자본주의 실태를 체계적으로 조사해 공유자본주의 철학이 기업은 물론 사회 전반에 확산될 수 있도록 만들어야 할 것이다.