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Beyond the Short-Term: the Effects of Broad-Based Employee Ownership on Labor Productivity in Family and Nonfamily Firms

Frank Mullins | August, 2022

Purpose This study investigates whether broad-based employee ownership (BBEO), in isolation and in conjunction with cash profit sharing (CPS), can enhance labor productivity in family firms over nonfamily firms. Design/methodology/approach Hypothesis testing was conducted using cross-sectional time-series regression with a matched sample of 393 family and nonfamily firms listed on the US S&P 500 over … Read More

A Social Enterprise’s Hybridising Journey to Reconcile Goals and Structure with Identity

Nancy Kurland, William D. Schneper | November, 2021

This study highlights how a mismatch between an organisation’s goals and its legal form and structure can develop over time, and how a hybrid model may present a solution. This longitudinal qualitative study details the hybridising process by which a traditional for-profit company transformed into an employee-owned benefit corporation: the company implemented ownership and control … Read More

Cooperative Enterprise at Scale: Comparative Capitalisms and the Political Economy of Ownership

Jason Spicer | October, 2021

Under what conditions do cooperatively owned enterprises scale to stand alongside investor-owned firms? This article measures and attempts to explain large cooperatives’ variable prevalence across high-income capitalist democracies. Controlling for other known social, economic and geographic factors, statistical models confirm that state-mediated institutional arrangements, as operationalized through two comparative capitalism frameworks (Varieties of Capitalism and … Read More

Case Study: Central States Manufacturing, Inc.

Adria Scharf | October, 2021

This case study examines employee share ownership at Central States Manufacturing, where the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) shares stunning sums of wealth with employees. Central States designs its ESOP to allow participants to access a portion of their ownership wealth while they are still employed at the company, through hardship and service withdrawals. This … Read More

Can Cooperatives/Employee-Owned Businesses Improve ‘Bad’ Jobs? Evaluating Job Quality in Three Low-Paid Sectors

Sarah Jenkins, Wil Chivers | September, 2021

Job quality has received increased attention from academics and policy makers across industrialized countries. Yet, there has been limited assessment of how job quality is impacted by different organizational forms, including cooperatives and employee-owned businesses (EOBs). Although there has been growing interest in how cooperatives/EOBs impact on employee outcomes, comprehensive assessments of the range and … Read More

The Gender Equity Gap: A Multistudy Investigation of Within-Job Inequality in Equity-Based Awards

Aaron Hill, Felice Klein, Ryan Hammond, Ryan Stice-Lusvardi | May, 2021

Laws in many countries mandate paying men and women equally when in similar jobs. Such laws, coupled with considerable organizational efforts, lead some scholars to contend that within-job pay inequality is no longer a source of the gender pay gap. This article argues important differences in a widely used form of pay heretofore overlooked in … Read More

Employee Ownership and Industrial Innovation: Huawei in the U.S.-China Technology Rivalry

Kaidong Feng, Yin Li | November, 2020

Huawei Technologies, the Chinese telecommunication technology giant that was put into the U.S. government’s Entity List from May 2019, has become a contested issue in the emerging U.S.-China technology rivalry. In particular, the U.S. government and Western academics have viewed Huawei’s unique employee ownership as an opaque structure subject to the influence of the Chinese … Read More

Broad-Based Employee Stock Ownership: What Makes It Effective in the Management of Human Resources?

Dan Weltmann, Douglas Kruse, Frank Mullins, Joseph Blasi | November, 2019

Research linking broad‐based employee stock ownership (BESO) with firm performance continues to receive considerable attention both in and outside the field of management. Despite the evidence being generally positive regarding the BESO–firm performance relationship, there has been a relative dearth of research providing insights into the circumstances surrounding the effectiveness of BESO. With this research … Read More

Employee Stock Ownership and Financial Performance in European Countries: The Moderating Effects of Uncertainty Avoidance and Social Trust

Andrea Kim, Saehee Kang | November, 2019

This study investigates how the effect of employee stock ownership on financial performance may hinge on the diverse cultural and societal contexts of European countries. Based on agency and national culture theories, we hypothesize that the positive relationship between employee stock ownership and return on assets (ROA) is stronger in those nations with lower uncertainty … Read More

All For One and One For All: A Mechanism Through Which Broad‐Based Employee Stock Ownership and Employee‐Perceived Involvement Practice Create a Productive Workforce

Andrea Kim, Kyongji Han | November, 2019

Drawing on social identity theory, this research frames a multimediational model that delineates how broad‐based employee stock ownership (BESO) and employee‐perceived involvement practice in tandem yield a productive workforce at the organization level. In our theoretical model, we propose that social cohesion and voluntary turnover are collective attitudinal and behavioral outcomes resulting from the shared … Read More

The Relational Production of Workplace Equality: The Case of Worker-Recuperated Businesses in Argentina

Katherine Sobering | August, 2019

Work organizations are commonly studied as sites that produce and reproduce inequality. But we know much less about how organizations promote equality. This article examines efforts to broaden access to power, opportunity, and resources in Hotel Bauen, a worker-recuperated business that was converted from a privately-owned company into a worker-run cooperative. Drawing on extensive ethnographic … Read More

Journal of Participation and Employee Ownership

The Journal of Participation and Employee Ownership (JPEO) seeks to publish original empirical and theoretical research in the broad area of employee participation and shared capitalism. In particular, the journal calls for rigorous analysis of: employee participation in decision making at the top and grassroots levels; high-performance, high-involvement work systems; cooperatives; employee ownership; profit sharing; team incentives; broad-based stock … Read More

Uncertainty Avoidance and the Timing of Employee Stock Option Exercise

Francesco Bova, Marshall Vance | January, 2019

We examine the impact of the cultural norm of uncertainty avoidance on employee stock option (ESO) exercise behavior using proprietary data from a multinational firm. We find that employees from countries with higher levels of uncertainty avoidance exercise their stock options earlier. These findings lend support to a maintained assumption in the ESO literature that … Read More

Beyond Dichotomy: The Curvilinear Impact of Employee Ownership on CEO Entrenchment

Abdelmehdi Ben Abdelhamid, Nicolas Aubert, Victor Prieur, Xavier Hollandts | December, 2018

Employee stock ownership gives employees a voice and therefore may have a major impact on corporate governance. Thus, employee stock ownership may be a powerful mean to protect CEOs from both market for corporate control and dismissal threat. In this paper, we examine the relationship between employee stock ownership and CEO entrenchment. Following the recent … Read More

Do Consumers Value Employee Ownership? Evidence from an Experimental Auction

Philip Mellizo | September, 2018

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to evaluate how the public at large perceives employee ownership, and how public perceptions of employee ownership translate into consumer valuation of goods and/or services produced by employee-owned firms. To the extent that consumer interest regarding the governance and ownership structure of firms matters in their purchasing decision, … Read More

A Piece of the Pie? The Effects of Familial Control Enhancements on the Use of Broad‐Based Employee Ownership Programs in Family Firms

Frank Mullins | September, 2018

While family firms tend to be highly committed to their employees, scholars contend that founding family owners are likely hesitant when it comes to sharing ownership broadly with non-family employees. Taking a heterogeneous view of family firms, this study investigates the implications of different familial control‐enhancing mechanisms on the use of broad‐based employee ownership programs … Read More

Profit Sharing and Firm Profitability: The Differential Impact of Underlying Firm Profitability on the Wage-Profit Elasticity

Matthias Strifler | September, 2018

Purpose This purpose of this paper to examine how profit sharing depends on the underlying profitability of firms. More precisely, motivated by theoretical research on fair wages and unionized labor markets, profit sharing is estimated for six different profitability categories: positive, increasing, positive and increasing, negative, decreasing and negative or decreasing. Design/methodology/approach The paper exploits … Read More

Works Councils and Employer Attitudes Toward the Incentive Effects of HRM Practices

Uwe Jirjahn | September, 2018

Purpose A growing number of econometric examinations show that works councils substantially shape the personnel policy of firms in Germany. Firms with works councils make greater use of various human resource management (HRM) practices. This gives rise to the question of whether employers view the shaping of personnel policy positively or negatively. Against this background, … Read More

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