KCI, a multi-disciplined engineering firm, has undergone a number of transformations over the last several decades. It started as a basement dream, was acquired and sold-off by a larger firm, and has emerged as a multi-million dollar employee-owned organization.
The folks at our Lexington, Ky. plant are well on their way to becoming owners of their company, all part of our plan to turn the operation around and make it profitable again.
The case introduces students to the concepts of employee stock options, stock-splits and buybacks, multiple share classes, and the basics of equity investment and diversification.
Should a fast-growing, employee-owned solar electric company accept a buyout offer from a private equity investor? Could it do so without sacrificing its distinctive, high-involvement culture? Namaste Solar, a 55-person firm based in Boulder, Colorado, designed and installed solar electric systems for residential, commercial, non-profit and government customers. In 2008, the company had been growing … Read More
Frieda Takaki took a deep breath, filling her senses. She was about to make a very difficult decision. She took off her shoes, placed them next to her desk and started pacing her office barefoot as she was thinking aloud. “I can’t let this business close down,” she whispered. “I have to do something about it.” The answer was now abundantly clear: why wouldn’t the employees buy the business from the owners?
The ESOP – Employee Stock Ownership Plan – is, slowly, on the rise. These worker-owned businesses are more productive and could benefit the American economy.
Technically, an ESOP is a retirement plan and serves the purpose of accumulating retirement savings for the company’s employees. In practice, however, they can act as a cash buyer of private company stock, thus creating a source of liquidity for the company’s owners.
Maui Divers established its employee ownership plan in 1997. Maui Divers store managers/employee owners embrace the business as their own. Although the final decision belongs to the company management team, store managers excel in increasing sales and they continuously come up with business plans in order to make the business better.
Netflix was among a small group of Silicon Valley companies to emerge from the technology bubble of the late 1990s a clear winner in terms of growth, market share, and profitability. That Netflix was able not only to prevail over this competition but also to thrive was largely attributable to the culture of freedom and … Read More
The first ESOP (employee stock ownership plan) came into being in 1956. This article describes the origin and history of the ESOP and explains why ESOPs will increasingly become the business succession tool of choice for many owners of privately held businesses.
The FED was established to promote the concept of broad-based, participative employee ownership and entrepreneurism and actively funds inter-disciplinary research and development of business school and engineering curricula.
What is workplace democracy? Workplace democracy is generally understood as the application of democratic practices, such as voting, debate and participatory decision-making systems, to the workplace.
At Coast Citrus, the employees are eligible to participate in the ESOP after completing 500 hours and/or three months of service. Currently the company is 70 percent employee owned.
Curriculum material for Beyster Institute’s Employee Ownership Management Program, a seminar presented at the Rady School, UCSD.
The Vermont Employee Ownership Center works to promote and foster employee ownership of Vermont businesses. We provide information and resources to owners interested in selling their business to their employees, employee groups interested in purchasing a business, and entrepreneurs who wish to start up a company with broadly shared ownership.
The Center for Economic and Social Justice is a non-profit, non-partisan education and research organization dedicated to promoting economic justice on a global scale by expanding capital ownership to a broader segment of society.
The great potential of employee ownership to improve business performance lies in its capacity to bring people together to work as a team toward shared success.
Louis O. Kelso (1913-91) was a political economist in the classical tradition of Smith, Marx and Keynes. He was also a corporate and financial lawyer, author, lecturer and merchant banker who is chiefly remembered today as the inventor and pioneer of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), the prototype of the leveraged buy-out which Kelso invented to enable working people without savings to buy stock in their employer company and pay for it out of its future dividend yield.
Employee ownership plans transform a company’s culture, because employees adopt the mentality of owners; they work harder and become more involved in process improvement and cost management, causing their company’s net income to increase at a faster rate.
The Beyster Institute at UC San Diego’s Rady School of Management works to advance the understanding and practice of employee ownership as an effective and responsible business model. We focus on education, research and consulting to promote employee ownership and the creation of effective ownership cultures.
Ask Don about what it’s like to run a company where the employees are stockholders, and he can wax warm and fuzzy.
The National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) is a private, nonprofit membership and research organization that serves as the leading source of information on employee stock ownership plans, equity compensation plans such as stock options, and ownership culture.
Kevin Cleary, President and COO of Emeryville, California based Clif Bar & Company, explores how this privately held, employee owned company is also socially responsible. Series: ‘UC Davis Graduate School of Management’s Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series’
Since its inception in 1978, The ESOP Association has represented the interests of all corporations that sponsor employee stock ownership plans, or ESOPs.
CEO Michael Mendes has transformed a grower-owned cooperative into a publicly traded top marketer of snack foods. Diamond’s organization, culture, product development process, advertising and promotion strategy, and specifically its marketing department have been built ‘from the ground up’ to address fundamental changes in retail structure and consumer behavior. Can the Diamond model be successfully applied to other food categories?