Wawa Inc.
The Wawa associates have an ESOP which plays a key role in Wawa’s culture of ownership. This case explores the role of incentives and levers of control to create a successful retail chain.
ESOP Governance Collaborators: The Board of Directors
Many closely held company boards only meet in the virtual world of corporate counsel’s template minutes and perform their important functions without much more thought than what is required to make a signature. In ESOP-owned companies (or any structure that provides for broad ownership among employees of the company) the landscape changes, and the independent role of the board of directors as well as its oversight function become significantly more important.
The Benefits of Outside Directors in ESOP Companies
Selling a business to an ESOP often requires significant changes to the company’s governance structure. If your board of directors has consisted solely of family members, or close friends, you may not welcome this change, but outside directors can help you run the business more judiciously and effectively…
The SAIC Solution: Built by Employee Owners
This book is a guide to implementing principles and practices developed and used by SAIC to drive exponential growth, global expansion, and diversification across science and technology customers and markets…
Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice
In Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century. Many of … Read More
The Millionaire Truck Driver And Other ESOP Miracles
I hate to say it, but here goes: too many Americans, including highly-educated and experienced business people, have just plain given up on this country’s manufacturing industries, believing low-cost producers in China and elsewhere are unbeatable. And many of these same knowledgeable people would also tell you that solving the country’s retirement savings crisis is … Read More
Workplace Democracy in the Lab
While intuition suggests that empowering workers to have some say in the control of the firm is likely to have beneficial effects, empirical evidence of such effects is hard to come by because of numerous confounding factors in the naturally occurring data. We report evidence from a real‐effort experiment confirming that worker performance is sensitive … Read More
Mary Ann Beyster
Engineer and philanthropist Mary Ann Beyster discusses free enterprise, broad-based ownership, innovation and the documentary film ‘We the Owners’ with Harold Channer in this two-part video interview.
Money Left on the Table: An Analysis of Participation in Employee Stock Purchase Plans
This paper analyzes participation decisions in employee stock purchase plans. These plans allow employees to buy company stock at a discount from the market price and resell it immediately for a sure profit. Although an average employee stands to gain $3,079 annually, only 30% of individuals take advantage of this risk-free opportunity. Participation is more … Read More
Taking an Employee-Owned Company to the Next Level
All employee-owned companies must pay attention to succession planning. BL Companies has elected to face this challenge head-on…
“We The Owners” Film Garners Awards, Attention and National Distribution
Most people know either first-hand or through someone close to them what it feels like to not be valued, to not have a say, to not have control, or to be demotivated at work. A feel-good movie about three companies – New Belgium Brewery, Namasté Solar, and DPR Construction – that strive for the opposite is a welcome relief.
Choosing Between Government Procurement Preferences and Employee Ownership
Adworkshop currently is considering a transition to 100 percent employee ownership over the next 10 years. Unfortunately, employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) companies have encountered obstacles when trying to participate in procurement programs…
Sometimes EXIT is Spelled ESOP
In this 20-minute radio interview, Martin Staubus, executive director, Beyster Institute at the Rady School of Management is interviewed by host, Bill Black on ExitCoachRadio.com.
The Better Exit Strategy: ESOPs Satisfy Business Owners And Preserve Their Legacy
On Chicago’s North Side, decades after other manufacturing companies went bust, migrated to the South or outsourced everything to China, S&C Electric – a $700 million-a-year maker of equipment for utilities – stood independent, profitable and debt free. Then, its controlling stockholder, John C. Conrad, died at age 89, and like so many family companies … Read More
Building Community at Terra Nova Consulting
This case describes the challenges faced by the president of an engineering and environmental services consulting firm (Terra Nova Consulting) as it seeks to address deep internal cultural divisions…
SRC Holdings: Winning The Game While Sharing The Prize
SRC Holdings Corporation, formerly Springfield Remanufacturing Corp., is a well-known manufacturing enterprise comprised of numerous companies spread across 12 Business Units…
Can Group-Incentives Without Participation Survive the Free-Rider Problem? A View from the Lab
While intuition suggests that empowering workers to have some say in the control of the firm is likely to have beneficial effects, empirical evidence of such effects is hard to come by because of numerous confounding factors in the naturally occurring data. We report evidence from a real‐effort experiment confirming that worker performance is sensitive … Read More
Ethics Make Us Better
Recently, I read that Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of TYCO who has been in prison for more than six years for stealing from his former employer is eligible for parole in 2014. Kozlowski had asked the parole board for mercy (early release), which was denied. While he is serving this sentence because of criminal acts, it raised again for me the importance of practicing ethics in business and in life. I’m also reminded that being an employee-owner/owned company doesn’t make us immune to ethical problems.
ESOP and 401(k) Coordination Tips in a Post-Disclosure World
After several postponements, 401(k) fee disclosure was mandated by the Department of Labor (DOL) before July 1st of 2012. So what kind of impact have we seen in the ESOP world? Has it been successful in helping plan sponsors and participants understand the costs of their 401(k) plans?
Wunnerful, Wunnerful! The Lawrence Welk ESOP
In 1964, the famous television bandleader Lawrence Welk went for a drive in the country north of San Diego, Calif. planning to invest in a grove of orange trees. Instead he bought a motel and a nine-hole golf course. One of the keys to their business success has been their philosophy of treating their employees like family…
Can Employee-Owned Companies Reboot the Economy?
If owners of businesses are reaping the rewards of economic growth at the expense of workers, then why not just try to increase the number of workers who also own a piece of the firms that employ them?
Zingerman’s Community of Businesses: Broad-Based Ownership, Governance, & Sustainability
Inc. Magazine’s “coolest small company in America,” Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (ZCoB), is an exemplar positive organization known for its culture and award-winning food. This case covers the ZCoB’s decision in 2013 to migrate toward broad-based employee ownership and the iterative, inclusive process by which Zingerman’s Partners Group researched and crafted a new ownership design … Read More
The End of Illth: In Search of an Economy That Won’t Kill Us
In the wake of the 2010 Massey mining disaster in West Virginia, the author asks whether employee ownership could improve workplace safety, and how such cooperatives might serve as a model for an alternative form of capitalism based on the sustainable use of natural and human resources.
Doing Well and Doing Good: Pioneer Employers Discover Profits and Deliver Opportunity for Frontline Workers
A new study of business practices reveals powerful ways to create strategic and financial gains. Lower-wage workers, when supported by effective policies, boost productivity, quality, innovation, and revenues from new markets…
MBC Ventures, Inc.: An Employee Stock Ownership Plan With a Union Partner
In an unusual partnership, the United Steelworkers of America union helped the firm’s new owner-managers convert to an ESOP as part of a reorganization. This effort saved jobs and the company. Since that time, the firm’s employees have proven to be its most valuable asset and a key source of its competitive advantage…