Corbin Motors
Explores the raising of capital to finance the growth of a spinoff business from Corbin-Pacific, a leader in motorcycle accessories.
Lucent Technologies
Lucent was created in 1994 as part of AT&T’s tri-vestiture. This case focuses on the dilemma faced by a new company that inherited a labor-management consultation structure developed by AT&T, a structure that has broken down in many respects, and that does not seem adequate to the challenges of the new company in a new and highly competitive market…
United Airlines
In 1994 United Airlines became the largest employee majority-owned enterprise in the United States, with various groups of employees – most represented by unions – having purchased 55% of its stock in exchange for various concessions. The employees accepted pay cuts and made other concessions, but were also granted representation on the company’s board of directors…[newline]
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.
Employee Ownership and Unions: Lessons from the Airline Industry
The U.S. airline industry has, in recent years, offered some conspicuous examples of a phenomenon that has now become familiar, both in the U.S. and abroad, among firms that face economic difficulties: the granting to employees of a substantial ownership stake in return for wage and work rule concessions necessary to maintain the firm’s viability.
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, specializing in network systems that link computers and provide Internet communications, was founded in 1990. Employee compensation is closely tied to company and individual performance through stock ownership and profit-sharing, and performance is focused on customer satisfaction. Cisco has grown mainly by acquisition, always trying to stay ahead of the next best technological … Read More
Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success
Southwest Airlines has created a culture where employees are treated as the company’s number one asset.
The Perception and Effects of Share Ownership: Empirical Evidence from Employee Buy Outs
This paper explores the impact of employee ownership on employee attitudes, using additional data obtained from four UK bus companies which had adopted the ESOP form of employee share ownership. After reviewing the recent UK literature, the paper highlights findings from US literature that a ‘sense of ownership’ is an important intervening variable between actual ownership and additudinal change, and that opportunities for participation in decision-making are more important that ownership per se in generating feelings of ownership.
Carris Corporation: Incentive Plan Program
For several years, William H. (Bill) Carris (President and CEO) looked for ways to bring employees into the business. From the beginning Michael (Mike) Curran (Vice-President and COO) had been not in favor of implementing short-term incentives at that time. But having worked with Bill for 20 years, Mike knew when Bill’s mind was set on proceeding…
Sealed Air Corp.’s Leveraged Recapitalization (A, B)
Less than a year after Sealed Air embarked on a program to improve manufacturing efficiency and product quality, the company borrowed almost 90% of the market value of its common stock and paid it out as a special dividend to shareholders.
Own It, Grow It, Trade It
How do you share the wealth with your employees without going public? SAIC created an internal stock market that outperforms Wall Street.
Corporate New Ventures at Procter & Gamble
Procter & Gamble’s top executives form a small, autonomous, cross-functional Corporate New Ventures team led by a young former brand manager. The team invents a systematic approach to gathering information and producing creative ideas for radically new product categories.
Transportation Displays, Incorporated (D): Exiting from a Successful Restructuring
Following a successful corporate turnaround and, more recently, a leveraged recapitalization, management of a highly profitable, fast–growing outdoor advertising company must consider alternative ways to harvest cash flow from the company without jeopardizing the turnaround or incurring significant tax liabilities.
Employee Ownership, Employee Attitudes, and Firm Performance: A Review of the Evidence
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).
My Struggle with Wall Street
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 Company (A, B)
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
Colt Industries is a conglomerate that is considering undertaking a leveraged recapitalization.
Transportation Displays, Incorporated (C): The Case for a Preemptive Restructuring
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.
Why Do Firms Adopt Profit Sharing and Employee Ownership Plans?
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
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.
UAL Corporation
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.
The Great Game of Business: the Only Sensible Way to Run a Company
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.
Transportation Displays, Incorporated (A)
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, Incorporated (B)
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.
Howard Schultz (A, B)
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…