Every Employee an Owner. Really.
Study after study proves that broad-based ownership, when done right, leads to higher productivity, lower workforce turnover, better recruits, and bigger profits. ‘Done right’ is the key.
Shareholder Value and Employee Interests: Intersections Between Corporate Governance, Corporate Law and Labour Law
It has been observed that corporate law and labour (or employment) law are in essence separate fields of legal scholarship and regulatory policy. This separation does not mean that there has been no interest by company lawyers in labour law or vice versa; nor does it mean that the two fields do not have relevance to one another. Clearly both corporate law and labour law have provided certain fundamental starting points for analysis which have helped shape the regulatory scope of each other.
Broad-Based Employee Stock Options in the U.S.: Company Performance and Characteristics
This paper analyses data on 490 companies with broad-based stock option plans, matched to data from Compustat in order to compare their characteristics and performance to that of other public companies.
Broad-Based Stock Options: Before and After the Market Downturn
We examine labor productivity in small, medium, and large firms that broadly distribute stock options under starkly different market conditions – during the bull (1995-1997) and bear (2000-2002) stock markets. We find greater labor output in both upward and downward markets in all firm size categories, with the exception of small firms in a declining market, where the productivity is also greater, but the statistical significance of the result is weak.
Executive and Broad-Based Stock Options: Evidence from U.S. Panel Data
This paper examines the productivity effect of the adoption of executive and broad-based stock options. The findings include a positive impact on productivity after the introduction of both executive and broad-based stock options.
Intellectual Capital, Monitoring and Risk: What Predicts the Adoption of Broad-Based Employee Stock Options?
In this paper, we use empirical analysis to analyze company characteristics associated with the adoption and maintenance of broad-based stock option plans. Overall, our results provide support to the claim that higher monitoring costs prompt firms to adopt and maintain employee stock option plans.
Employee Governance and the Ownership of the Firm
By law, shareholders have an exclusive right to make certain corporate decisions, and this arrangement is generally justified by the shareholder’s role as the owner of the firm. However, many thoughtful observers hold that such a privileged position for shareholders is morally objectionable, in part because it neglects the important role played by employees.
The United Airline Bankruptcy and the Future of Employee Ownership
UAL suffered from particular design flaws in its stock ownership plan and, more seriously, the absence of complementary institutions focused on the distinctive problems of employee-owned firms.
An Assessment of Employee Ownership in the United States With Implications for the EU
There is a significant gap in the incidence and development of employee ownership between the European Union (EU) and the US when both sectors are examined.
Taking Stock of Equity Compensation
This article describes several forms of stock purchase plans in Canada and examines participation using the Workplace and Employee Survey. Some U.S. statistics are presented as well.
Strategic Stakeholder Perspective to ESOP Negotiations: The Case of United Airlines
Employee stock ownership programs (ESOP) may become a source of competitive advantage but a threat to a firm’s survival as well. Strategic stakeholder negotiation, on the other hand, is a process through which an organization negotiates with multiple stakeholders in order to achieve a strategic goal. Such perspective helps to illustrate the importance of understanding, balancing, and managing stakeholder demands in ESOP-related negotiations. The airline industry provides an interesting arena in which to study this process.
Working Toward Transparency and Accountability: Carris Companies Governance
This conceptual paper based on a case examines some of the devastating impacts of the recent spate of corporate wrongdoing, noting the widespread interconnectivity and interrelationships these demonstrate; revisits the roots of capitalism and the underpinnings of corporate citizenship; and explores the efforts of the Carris Companies as they implemented their plan for 100% employee ownership and governance, working toward full transparency and accountability in their decision-making.
Broad-Based Employee Stock Options in US ‘New Economy’ Firms
This paper compares the performance of 229 `New Economy’ firms offering broad-based stock options to that of their non-stock option counterparts. A simple comparison of these firms reveals that the former have higher shareholder returns, Tobin’s q and new knowledge generation.
Carris Companies’ Practice of Employee Governance
Distinguishing the Carris Companies’ transition to 100% employee ownership was its more unusual movement towards 100% employee governance. This paper examines the Carris Companies’ practice of governance and the process used to prepare stakeholder citizens for their changing roles and relationships.
Company Stock in Pension Plans: How Costly is it?
The high-profile collapse of Enron has focused attention on just how much employees stand to lose when they invest retirement savings in company stock.
Stock Ownership and Work Motivation
Topics include: ownership and motivation, different ways to become an owner, and does ownership make a difference?
Creating the Most Frightening Company on Earth: An Interview with Andy Law of St. Luke’s
Though only five years old, employee-owned St. Luke’s Communications has become one of the most talked about advertising agencies in the United Kingdom, increasing its profits eightfold.
The Effect of ESOP Adoptions on Corporate Performance: Are There Really Performance Changes?
Employee Stock Ownership Programs (ESOPS) have long been promoted as a motivational tool: employees become profit-minded owners. Latterly, however, more ESOPs are being used as part of a takeover defense: here, the ESOPs main purpose is to put more company stock in friendly hands – the employees – who, like existing management, could suffer layoffs, ect. in a hostile takeover.
Employee Ownership in Enterprises in Africa and Asia
This paper examines wider employee share ownership in developing and newly industrializing countries with particular emphasis on Africa and Asia. The first section reviews the available evidence on the extent of wider employee share ownership. The second identifies the key issues relating to the implementation of wider employee share ownership: the objectives for employee ownership, … Read More
Carris Companies’ Long and Winding Road to Employee Ownership and Values Based Governance
A rapidly expanding entrepreneurial company, the Carris firm is—by its owner’s design—gradually becoming an employee-owned and-directed organization…
Stock Price and Operating Performance of ESOP firms: A Time-Series Analysis
Prior literature suggests that the impact of employee ownership on employee behavior may depend on the financial rewards associated with ownership. As the financial value of ownership accounts increases, employee attitudes become more positive, which, in turn, improves organizational performance. In this paper, we explore this financial perspective of employee ownership by examining the relationship between stock price and operating performance of ESOP firms.
Worker Capitalists? Giving Employees an Ownership Stake
This article analyzes the emergent role of employees as a key shareholder group. The authors discusses four major drivers of the trend: tax incentives, decreased vulnerability to takeover, human resources management, and employee motivation.
Employee Buyouts and Industrial Relations under Employee Ownership: A Case Study of Karabuk Steel Mill
This article examines the employee buyout process and industrial relations under employee ownership based on the case study of the Karabuk steel mill.
Cooperative Firms in Theory and Practice
Cooperatives are not, as everyone at this conference knows, just a peripheral or incidental or anachronistic or culturally limited form of organization. Rather, they are big business of a distinctly modern type.
The New Math of Ownership
In order to solve high-tech’s employee retention problems, Bill Gross, the chairman and founder of Idealab, proposes a radical solution: give all workers a significant equity stake.