Vote and Voice: An experiment on the effects of inclusive governance rules

We present an experiment that examines three mechanisms through which the extent of inclusivity in an organization’s governance arrangements might affect its performance. We distinguish extent of inclusivity along two dimensions: members of the organization may or may not be able to a) vote on collective decisions (‘vote’) and b) discuss with others what should be done (‘voice’). We find that the inclusivity can affect performance and that each dimension of inclusivity matters, but for different decision problems within an organization. The ‘voice’ matters for motivation whereas ‘voting’ matters for processing and aggregating information; and the decisive difference for performance comes from ‘voice’, not ‘voting’.