Interactions on job and employee effort within Italian social cooperatives

The aim of this paper is to analyse, using a standard ordered probit model, the correlates of worker effort within Italian social cooperatives. The main assumption of the paper is that employee effort depends not only on standard variables that explain effort but also on employees’ interpersonal relationships on the job. The analysis adds a new piece of evidence to the extant literature on effort, i.e. the impact of on-the-job interpersonal relationships on effort. The results show that there exists a positive correlation between the quantity and quality of worker relations within the social enterprise with customers, volunteers, colleagues and superiors and effort.