Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the likely impact of AI robotics technology on the labor market through the lens of comparative advantage. Design/methodology/approach The first section reviews the recent success of AI in outperforming humans in cognitive intense activities such as Go, poker and other strategic games, which portends a shift … Read More
Haier Group and MLab organized the 1st International Rendanheyi Model Forum in Qingdao, China, in 2017, to explore the transformation of business models in the current era. Dr. Frank Shipper, the author of numerous case studies on employee owned companies and editor of the book Shared Entrepreneurship: A Path to Engaged Employee Ownership, gave this … Read More
The primary aim of this course is to provide an understanding of how organizational systems and individuals interact. In specific, there is a focus on employee ownership structures and business models that contribute to shared prosperity because they are more effective than alternative models.
Businesses interested in transitioning into employee ownership are often presented with a structural dilemma: convert into an ESOP or a cooperative? Go for the democratic worker control and participation of a cooperative, or the tax benefits of an ESOP? In this article the author describes how he helped a company, Sun Light & Power, combine … Read More
This chapter maps existing patterns of broad-based worker ownership and control in contemporary advanced capitalism and considers future possibilities for expanding democracy within firms. Section one discusses worker ownership and control arrangements in relation to different theories of the firm and shows how these arrangements map onto different national systems. Section two compares Germany, which … Read More
This two-page Business Action Guide describes the nation’s largest worker owned cooperative, Cooperative Home Care Associates, and its approach to effective onboarding and mentorship.
In 2009, United Steelworkers (USW) and Mondragon signed an agreement to promote union co-ops: firms that combine democratic worker ownership and union membership. Eleven U.S. initiatives now seek to implement the USW-Mondragon union co-op model, prompting a debate about whether unions and worker cooperatives are stronger together. This article draws on a case study of … Read More
We use an experiment to evaluate the effects of participatory management on firm performance. Participants are randomly assigned roles as managers or workers in firms that generate output via real effort. To identify the causal effect of participation on effort, workers are exogenously assigned to one of the two treatments: one in which the manager … Read More
This handbook investigates ‘member-owned’ organizations, whether consumer co-operatives, agricultural and producer co-operatives, worker co-operatives, mutual building societies, friendly societies, credit unions, solidarity organizations, mutual insurance companies, or employee-owned companies. Such organizations can be owned by the consumers, producers, or employees—whether through single-stakeholder or multi-stakeholder ownership. ‘Employee-owned’ business means businesses where a significant proportion of the … Read More
Synopsis Carris Reels, a reel-manufacturing company headquartered in Vermont, had long-standing goals of being employee owned and governed. They also had a strong organizational (ownership) culture. The Corporate Steering Committee (CSC), a committee composed of representatives from management and non-management employees, and the board of directors had a decision to make about adding two new … Read More
Union–management relations in the U.S. are best described as adversarial. However, under certain circumstances, they can become cooperative. One example of the latter was the role of trade unions in the conversion of firms to employee ownership. Firm ownership (entrepreneurship, capitalism) by employees has increased in recent years. Specifically, we focus on the use of … Read More
In this article, Zak reviews his research and that of others to link trust, the production of oxytocin in the brain, and performance. Furthermore, he identifies eight managerial behaviors that lead to building a culture of trust. By doing so the organization lowers stress sick days, and burnout; and increases productivity, engagement, and collaboration among … Read More
I examine how different distributions of ownership and governance rights in firms affect the optimal organization of cross-functional project teams for knowledge-intensive work. I analyze multi-method data from two competing automated manufacturing equipment engineering firms with contrasting formal power structures, one a worker cooperative with ownership and governance rights distributed across occupations and the other … Read More
Employee ownership is a situation in which employees have an ownership stake in the firm where they work, through holdings of firm stock. It is a channel through which employees share in the profits of the firm and can vote on important firm decisions and otherwise have increased participation in workplace decisions.
This easy-to-read guide to employee ownership introduces what employee ownership means and how it works, interspersing information with company profiles. Also see the companion website at www.esopinfo.org.
This special section of The Sociological Quarterly, edited by Joyce Rothschild includes the following articles: The Logic of a Co-Operative Economy and Democracy 2.0: Recovering the Possibilities for Autonomy, Creativity, Solidarity and Common Purpose by Joyce Rothschild When Freedom is Not an Endless Meeting: A New Look at Efficiency in Consensus-Based Decision-Making by Darcy K. Leach “Plan … Read More
This research report from the United Kingdom shows that the arrival of millennials in the workplace is not a threat to the employee owned business model. On the contrary, employee ownership works well to meet the aspirations of millennials, as it does for other generations. The ability of the employee ownership model to harness the … Read More
When Workers Become Owners Professors Joseph Blasi, Richard Freeman, and Douglas Kruse explain how sharing the ownership or profits of a company with workers can improve productivity, pay, and work life quality – all while reducing economic inequality. Bonus – Jump on the Bandwagon Professors Blasi, Freeman, and Kruse stay post-interview to discuss why trade unions, business schools, and … Read More
The “ESOP-Owned S corporation” structure offers truly remarkable advantages that can transform a business into a tax-exempt, for-profit entity. An S corporation whose stock is held in an ESOP, of course, pays no federal income tax (and little or no state income tax) at the corporate level…
When structured and maintained properly, the 100 percent ESOP-owned S Corporation can be a powerful force of employee ownership…
In December, my family finalized a very personal, and we hope impactful, gift titled, J.R. Beyster Papers, to UCSD Library’s Special Collections. After about one year of pre-processing, the collection includes more than 200 boxes of documents covering more than 50 years of hundreds of advanced scientific innovations, small- to billion-dollar business experiments, and discontinued to transformational government program development.
In 1993, Mack Hembree, a successful real estate businessman, was invited to invest in opening a business that he had some commonly held reservations about. The business was a pawn shop… By fostering and aligning employee satisfaction, collaboration, and commitment at every level, Mack has developed an ownership culture that differentiates Gems N’ Loans from its peers and has been instrumental in the company’s success.
This Fortune Magazine video describes employee ownership at Publix Super Markets, the largest employee-owned company operating in the United States.
This article analyses the linkages among group incentive methods of compensation (broad‐based employee ownership, profit sharing and stock options), labour practices, worker assessments of workplace culture, turnover and firm performance in firms that applied to the ‘100 Best Companies to Work For in America’ competition from 2005 to 2007. Although employers with good labour practices … Read More
Two major shifts in contemporary work organizations—“employee participation” and “diversity management”—have typically been studied in isolation from one another. Building on theoretical work by Acker (2006a,b), we ask how the interaction of these two constructs has affected the pursuit of workplace democracy at two worker cooperatives in Northern California. Using qualitative methods, we find that … Read More