Deck the Malls!
A tale of entrepreneurship – and a leading holiday decoration company becomes employee owned…
Opinion: Looking for the Perfect Buyer?
With all the news about company bankruptcies, increased government regulations, higher equipment costs and economic uncertainty, some motor-carrier owners are looking for options…
Don’t Wait for a Crisis, Fix it Now
When things go wrong at work, as they occasionally do, a common first reaction is to look for the culprit(s). This can lead to punishment which may result in the ‘evildoer(s)’ being severely reprimanded, or even terminated. Unfortunately, not only does the problem often remain unsolved, the organization is left with another challenge of replacing a person or two. There may be a better way that doesn’t result in a lose-lose situation…
Millionaire Grocery Clerks: The Amazing WinCo Foods Story
In Corvallis, Oregon, a couple miles north of the Oregon State University campus, sits a WinCo Foods discount supermarket and, unless you’re in need of groceries, you might drive by without noticing it. I assure you, however, it’s an extraordinary building, a laboratory of capitalism worthy of pilgrimages by the world’s great business schools. It … Read More
Nypro Inc. (A): The Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
Nypro, Inc., a global leader in manufactured precision plastic products headquartered in Clinton, Massachusetts, had one of the largest employee stock ownership plans in the United States and was often held up as an example of best practices in that area. However, in early 2012, its president and chief executive officer became increasingly concerned that … Read More
How Do I Get More Employees to Actively Participate in Our Plan?
You just received the dreaded call from your friendly 401(k) third-party administrator – your average deferral percentage (ADP) test is failing…again! Some of your highly compensated employees will be disappointed to learn that money they deferred will be returned to them and is taxable.
Requirement, Guidance, Advice and Implication: A Brief Look at a Couple of Recent ESOP Legal Events
Several recent legal events have given the ESOP community a great deal to consider…
Shared Capitalism: Lessons from the 6th Annual Beyster Summer Fellowship Symposium
What are the best strategies for aligning equity incentives for all stakeholders, and what lessons can be drawn from cutting-edge research in the area?
The Role of Management in an Employee-Ownership Company
What is the function of senior management in the governance of ESOP companies? Simply put, the function of management in an ESOP company is the same as in any other company – to manage very well to achieve strategic objectives and to participate in the strategic operation of the company by giving the board feedback on how the strategic plan is being successfully implemented and, more important, where it is failing.
The Wealthy and Powerful Discover Inequality
Even the rich are admitting that inequality is bad for business…
Shared Entrepreneurship: A Path to Engaged Employee Ownership
In many ways the persistent top-down command and control theme that supports established leadership thought and practice prevents organizations from fully tapping into their human resources, in turn limiting their flexibility to meet the challenges of increasingly dynamic, complex, and competitive environments. Shared Entrepreneurship replaces the top-down approaches of the past with a new framework that draws strengths and innovation from collaboration and sharing.
Equal Exchange: Doing Well by Doing Good
In 1983, Rink Dickinson, Jonathan Rosenthal, and Michael Rozyne were all recent college graduates and working for a food co-op warehouse in the Boston area. They began to question the system: What if food could be traded in a way that is honest and fair, a way that empowers both farmers and consumers? What if … Read More
W. L. Gore & Associates: Developing Global Teams to Meet Twenty-First-Century Challenges
In 2008, W. L. Gore & Associates celebrated its fiftieth year in business. During the first four decades of its existence, Gore became famous for its products and for its use of business teams located in a single facility. To facilitate the development of teams, corporate facilities were kept to 200 associates or fewer. Due … Read More
Herman Miller: Unrelenting Pursuit of Reinvention and Renewal
Herman Miller is widely recognized as the leader in the office furniture industry and has built a reputation for innovation in products and processes since D. J. De Pree became president over 90 years ago. Herman Miller is one of only four companies and the only non-high-technology enterprise named to Fortune’s “Most Admired Companies” and “The 100 … Read More
Got Stock? Employers Take Note – Future Employees Want Their Share
New research from Fidelity shows that over 80 percent of employees say that a company stock plan influences their decision to change employers…
Wawa Inc.
The Wawa associates have an ESOP which plays a key role in Wawa’s culture of ownership. This case explores the role of incentives and levers of control to create a successful retail chain.
ESOP Governance Collaborators: The Board of Directors
Many closely held company boards only meet in the virtual world of corporate counsel’s template minutes and perform their important functions without much more thought than what is required to make a signature. In ESOP-owned companies (or any structure that provides for broad ownership among employees of the company) the landscape changes, and the independent role of the board of directors as well as its oversight function become significantly more important.
The Benefits of Outside Directors in ESOP Companies
Selling a business to an ESOP often requires significant changes to the company’s governance structure. If your board of directors has consisted solely of family members, or close friends, you may not welcome this change, but outside directors can help you run the business more judiciously and effectively…
The SAIC Solution: Built by Employee Owners
This book is a guide to implementing principles and practices developed and used by SAIC to drive exponential growth, global expansion, and diversification across science and technology customers and markets…
Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice
In Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century. Many of … Read More
The Millionaire Truck Driver And Other ESOP Miracles
I hate to say it, but here goes: too many Americans, including highly-educated and experienced business people, have just plain given up on this country’s manufacturing industries, believing low-cost producers in China and elsewhere are unbeatable. And many of these same knowledgeable people would also tell you that solving the country’s retirement savings crisis is … Read More
Workplace Democracy in the Lab
While intuition suggests that empowering workers to have some say in the control of the firm is likely to have beneficial effects, empirical evidence of such effects is hard to come by because of numerous confounding factors in the naturally occurring data. We report evidence from a real‐effort experiment confirming that worker performance is sensitive … Read More
Mary Ann Beyster
Engineer and philanthropist Mary Ann Beyster discusses free enterprise, broad-based ownership, innovation and the documentary film ‘We the Owners’ with Harold Channer in this two-part video interview.
Money Left on the Table: An Analysis of Participation in Employee Stock Purchase Plans
This paper analyzes participation decisions in employee stock purchase plans. These plans allow employees to buy company stock at a discount from the market price and resell it immediately for a sure profit. Although an average employee stands to gain $3,079 annually, only 30% of individuals take advantage of this risk-free opportunity. Participation is more … Read More
“We The Owners” Film Garners Awards, Attention and National Distribution
Most people know either first-hand or through someone close to them what it feels like to not be valued, to not have a say, to not have control, or to be demotivated at work. A feel-good movie about three companies – New Belgium Brewery, Namasté Solar, and DPR Construction – that strive for the opposite is a welcome relief.