Shared Capitalism at Work: Employee Ownership, Profit and Gain Sharing, and Broad-Based Stock Options
This collection of papers provides background on a number of employee ownership issues.
Shared Capitalism at Work: Introduction
Almost half of American private-sector employees participate in shared capitalism — employment relations where the pay or wealth of workers is directly tied to workplace or firm performance.
The Political Economy of Employee Ownership in the United States: From Economic Democracy to Industrial Democracy?
This study examines the development of economic democracy in the United States since the 1700s with particular emphasis on the last 30 years. The particular focus is on employee ownership…
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.
Does Employee Ownership Enhance Firm Survival?
Research on employee ownership has focused on questions of productivity, profitability, and employee attitudes and behavior, while there has been little attention to the most basic measure of performance: survival of the company. This study uses data on all U.S. public companies as of 1988, following them through 2001 to examine how employee ownership is related to survival.
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.
In the Company of Owners: The Truth About Stock Options and Why Every Employee Should Have Them
The string of business scandals that recently engulfed America painted a picture of corporate chieftains lining their pockets by cutting corners, cooking the books, and duping gullible investors. In doing so, greedy CEOs have hijacked what could be one of the most important business innovations in decades: stock options for all employees.
Motivating Employee-Owners in ESOP Firms: Human Resource Policies and Company Performance
The growth of ESOPs over the past 25 years is part of a general growth in compensation arrangements linking worker pay to company performance, including profit sharing, gain-sharing, and broad-based stock options in addition to the various methods of employee ownership.
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.
Research Evidence on Prevalence and Effects of Employee Ownership
The idea of employee ownership has attracted support across the political spectrum, often being seen as a form of economic democracy that complements our political democracy. Along with these positive views, however, there have been many concerns expressed about employee ownership particularly that it can expose workers to excessive risk and may in some cases increase labor management conflict and lower economic performance.
Broad-Based Employee Stock Options – A Union-Nonunion Comparison
Until recently, stock options were primarily reserved for senior executives and selected managers in most American corporations. In the last decade or so, however, stock options have become part of the compensation package for an increasing number of rank-and-file employees.
Public Companies with Broad-Based Stock Options: Corporate Performance from 1992-1997
This report compares the performance of corporations that offer their employees broad-based stock option plans to those that do not offer their employees broad-based stock option plans.
Largest Study Yet Shows ESOPs Improve Performance and Employee Benefits
The results of this study showed that ESOP companies perform better in the post-ESOP period than their pre-ESOP performance would have predicted.
Sharing Ownership via Employee Stock Ownership
This paper summarizes the findings from over 50 large-sample empirical studies that have been done on employee ownership and broad-based stock option plans in the past 25 years, covering studies on plan adoption, employee attitudes and behaviours, firm performance, and employee wages and wealth.
Employee Ownership: An Unstable Form or a Stabilizing Force?
In this paper, we take on a seemingly very simple set of empirical questions that we hope will shed light on whether employee ownership of firms ‘works’…
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 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).
Employee Stock Ownership and Corporate Performance Among Public Companies
This study compares the corporate performance in 1990/91 of two groups of public companies: those in which employees owned more than 5% of the company’s stock, and all others.
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.
The New Owners: The Mass Emergence of Employee Ownership in Public Companies and What It Means to American Business
Employees, always considered important stakeholders in American corporations, are today emerging as a key shareholder group.
Employee Ownership and Employee Attitudes: Two Case Studies
Douglas Kruse’s carefully executed study of two companies owned by the workers through Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), examines the hopes and anxieties that have been articulated by many of the participants in one of America’s fastest growing types of work experiments.