Employee ownership in U.S. companies has grown substantially in the past 20 years. This paper reviews and provides some meta-analyses on the accumulated evidence concerning the prevalence, causes, and effects of employee ownership, covering 25 studies of employee attitudes and behaviors, and 27 studies of productivity and profitability (with both cross-sectional and pre/post comparisons).
Many of the most important practices at this company exist in large part because Wall Street and the banks have applied so much pressure. If the financial community had gone easier on us, we might not be where we are today.
McKay Nursery Co., founded in 1897 in Waterloo, WI, had a longstanding history of commitment to employees. The close-knit organization was a pioneer in the agricultural industry of several employee-friendly policies. But in the early 1980s, as McKay’s owners grew older and senior management neared retirement, the next generation of managers feared for the future of the profitable, debt-free company…
Colt Industries is a conglomerate that is considering undertaking a leveraged recapitalization.
A company nears the end of a long multiyear turnaround and now must consider how to “cash out” so its management can realize a financial return on investment. The privately held company has several options, including a leveraged ESOP and a leveraged recapitalization.
Profit-sharing and employee ownership in companies have attracted considerable interest, yet there has been little research on factors predicting the adoption and maintenance of these plans. This study uses new data from a survey of 500 US public companies, and panel data on corporate financial variables, to examine factors predicting the presence and adoption of profit-sharing and employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) in the 1975–91 period.
Connor Formed Metal Products was a small, privately owned manufacturer of custom metal springs and stampings. Since becoming president in 1984, Bob Sloss had implemented many changes to the company’s organizational structure, management control systems, and information systems.
In the largest attempted employee-buyout in history, a large U.S. commercial airline seeks substantial wage concessions from its employees in return for 53% stake in the airline’s common stock and guaranteed seats on the board of directors.
This book that has, since 1992, become the primer for open-book management, a new method based on the concept of democracy, the spirit of sports, and the reality of numbers.
William Apfelbaum, president and CEO of Transportation Displays, Inc., must restructure both the company’s method of doing business and its liabilities to keep it from bankruptcy. The value he hopes to receive from the reorganized company will be an important issue in the restructuring negotiations with creditors.
Transportation Displays, Inc. has gone through a series of restructurings. This case describes the last few stages, which substantially reduced debt and increased the ownership of management.
In the late 1980s Howard Schultz led the Starbucks Coffee Co. to explosive growth, transforming a small whole-bean coffee company into a national retail power. Starbucks success hinged on its reputation for quality and personal service…
This case describes the innovative approach to organizing and managing employees by People Express and describes the company’s eventual demise.
This paper investigates whether employee participation in ownership or profit-sharing in publicly held firms through an ESOP or profit-sharing plan was positively associated with productivity measures. The sample consists of firms that adopted such plans during 1982 through 1987.
In global competition, where investment increasingly determines a company’s capacity to upgrade and innovate, the U.S. system does not measure up.
A long-time community development worker creates hundreds of jobs for low-income women and minorities by forming a for-profit home health care cooperative, Cooperative Home Care Associates…
Assessing the applicability of employee stock ownership plans for a family firm requires a basic understanding of their characteristics, followed by a careful analysis of the costs and benefits in the specific case. This note provides general information and offers guides for the critical, specific questions an adviser or owner should ask.
This Video Collection presented by the Foundation for Enterprise Development with the Employee Ownership Foundation and Aspen Institute contains videos from well-respected professors, students and business owners who speak about ways to use employee ownership as a resourceful business tool. They discuss the culture, participation and practices of employee ownership, as well as the facts and statistics of ESOP companies in the world today.
Find a complete archive of the Owners At Work newsletter from the Ohio Center for Employee Ownership at Kent State University (1989-2019).
This study examines the correlates of individual employee satisfaction with stock ownership in a sample of 37 employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) companies.
With ESOPs performing so well more American managers should consider adopting this approach.
This case covers the strategy and management practices of the world’s largest manufacturer of welding equipment. Discusses the compensation system and company culture, and the leadership style of management.
Presents findings of a survey of corporations in the United States which show that employee ownership may be associated with better attitudes and higher productivity and profits.
Mr. William Cooper Procter’s successful plan under which hundreds of employees that make less than $1500 a year in wages have acquired stock that is worth thousands of dollars.