Summary
This teaching case study explores the dynamics and evolution of employee ownership in HDR, a large multinational professional services firm. Broad-based employee ownership has strong affinities with professional services firms, whose success largely depends on the knowledge and capabilities their employees bring to their work. As HDR grew and expanded internationally, it had to address important issues like managing the distribution of shareholdings, cultivating and maintaining a vibrant culture of employee ownership, finding the right balance between risk and innovation, and tailoring its employee ownership model the unique institutional context of different countries. As such, its experiences are useful for understanding how employee ownership in large, multinational professional services firms evolves. Discussion questions are included.