As a growing number of employers hire contractors and staffing agencies to build and run their business, some worker rights advocates view staffing cooperatives as a strategy to advance job quality, firm performance, and social outcomes. However, with only a few staffing co-ops and limited past research, a successful strategy requires close study of cooperative … Read More
This study attempts to answer questions about the success of companies with employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) in getting more wealth and income into the hands of employees. By comparing retirement assets and wages in Washington State ESOP companies with those in matched similar non-ESOP firms, the analysis shows that ESOP companies provide significantly higher … Read More
When owners of family-owned and other closely held businesses think about retirement or exit, they weigh several considerations. They often ask themselves and their advisors such questions as: How do I cash out? How do I best handle succession, estate, and tax issues? What will happen to the business that my family members or partners, … Read More
This paper, presented at the Rutgers-Oxford Employee Ownership Research Symposium in 2023 held at Kellogg College, University of Oxford, discusses the current state of employee ownership research and where it needs to go. The paper is written in an informal manner where the authors write in the first person.
The field of broad-based employee ownership within corporations is a specific application of the foundational topic of property ownership. It is situated at the intersection of a broad range of scholarly disciplines including economics, law, finance and management. Each discipline contributes vocabulary and distinctions describing this field. That broad spectrum of disciplinary inquiry is a … Read More
There has been a great variety of employee ownership models in Europe. Some of the best examples are Marcora in Italy, Sociadades Laborales in Spain, Le FCPE de Reprise in France, and many unregulated ad hoc models set up by individual owners without any institutional support. None of those models, however, offers an effective and … Read More
Worker cooperative practitioners and developers often claim that democratic worker ownership advances egalitarianism within and beyond the workplace, but most of the empirical evidence in the U.S. is based on ethnographic case studies or small-scale surveys. We leverage the first national survey about individuals’ experiences in these unique firms to ask if claims that co-ops … Read More
The concentration of ownership by the very wealthy is supported by a financial system that enables them to acquire income-producing capital basically on credit whereas no such financing strategy is available to the mass of the population. A solution lies in creating a system whereby every individual has the right and opportunity to acquire income-producing … Read More
This mini-case study examines employee share ownership at National Van Lines, where an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) provided a family-run business a succession plan that ensured the continuation of the company and protected employee jobs. Just one-third of family businesses successfully transition from the first to the second generation of ownership and only 12% … Read More
This mini-case study examines ComSonics, which first adopted an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) in 1975, introducing its culture and its unusual Employee Advisory Committee.
At Max Auto Supply Co., a Toledo-based chain of 113 automotive repair stores, CEO Randy Katz’s main motivation for adopting an ESOP was “to cash out family owners and avoid estate tax.” It also “felt like the right thing to do” for the company’s employees, most of whom are mechanics and technicians.
This mini-case study examines S&C Electric Company, the storied Chicago-based employee-owned company that was founded in 1911. The mini-case study introduces the company’s history and describes how employee ownership preserved the company and its jobs during a key generational transition.
This case study examines employee share ownership at Parksite, Inc., where the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) is paired with a strong company culture and high job quality. For the company’s co-founders, the ESOP provided a solution to a major transition challenge. The company’s long-term employees accumulate considerable stock wealth through the ESOP. Discussion questions … Read More
This case study examines employee share ownership at North State Grocery, where the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) solved a transition challenge in a company owned by two siblings. Thanks to the ESOP, long-term employees, including frontline staff such as cashiers and bakery workers, build a larger cushion of retirement savings than is typical in … Read More
This paper examines the impact of an economy-wide shift to broad-based employee ownership on wealth concentration in the United States. Relying on government data, we show that if all private firms became 30% employee-owned, the wealth distribution would be profoundly altered. Those currently in the bottom 90% of the wealth distribution would see substantial gains, … Read More
The mainstream economic theory that guides corporations in the US only works if markets are perfectly efficient. This flawed theory has led to corporate decision-making that centers shareholders above all else, including other stakeholders (e.g., workers), long-term business growth, and economic health. This shareholder-first ideology is referred to as “shareholder primacy,” which does not reflect … Read More
In this paper, we first examine whether Huawei has an advantage over ZTE following the strategic restructurings in 2011, and then retest the hypothesis on the positive effect of an ESOP on Huawei’s competitive position…
The ideas of employee ownership and various forms of profit sharing in corporations have been around for a long time. The shorthand proposition under study is this: If employees observe that they have a meaningful stake in the fortunes of the enterprise, they create value. More specifically, if they have a financial and emotional stake in the performance of the venture, then as individuals and as a workplace community they will raise the level of their performance and productivity.
The authors found that companies with broad-based stock option plans (here, defined as those where most nonmanagement employees receive option grants) had statistically significant higher productivity levels and annual growth rates than public companies in general and their peers.
We examine how employee ownership is used to solve the agency problem between institutional investment management firms and employees.
This paper reviews the main strands of research on employee share ownership over the last forty years.
Should Wachovia Bank and Trust lend the ESOP of Starrett the money to purchase shares? The required tasks involve a standard credit analysis and the valuation of Starrett’s shares.
Samuel Zell’s acquisition of the Tribune Company in December 2007 using an S corporation employee stock ownership plan (S ESOP) brought S ESOPs to national attention.
This paper summarizes new evidence from the “Shared Capitalism” Project on the extent to which workers’ earnings depend on the performance of their firm or work group in the US and advanced European countries and on the impact of sharing arrangements on economic behavior.
How employee share ownership plans affect employee compensation and shareholder value depends on the size.