Inc. Magazine’s “coolest small company in America,” Zingerman’s Community of Businesses (ZCoB), is an exemplar positive organization known for its culture and award-winning food. This case covers the ZCoB’s decision in 2013 to migrate toward broad-based employee ownership and the iterative, inclusive process by which Zingerman’s Partners Group researched and crafted a new ownership design … Read More
In the wake of the 2010 Massey mining disaster in West Virginia, the author asks whether employee ownership could improve workplace safety, and how such cooperatives might serve as a model for an alternative form of capitalism based on the sustainable use of natural and human resources.
Change initiatives are notorious for their failure rate…
Best practice is to remember that and to never stop watching outcomes so that you can adjust your process to stay on course no matter how often the course needs to change.
Trust in all organizations is a key to cultural cohesiveness and teamwork…
One argument against employee stock ownership plans is that they invest primarily in a single asset, company stock, which puts too many eggs in one basket. That argument makes sense in theory, but in practice it does not apply to the vast majority of ESOPs for three reasons…
A new study of business practices reveals powerful ways to create strategic and financial gains. Lower-wage workers, when supported by effective policies, boost productivity, quality, innovation, and revenues from new markets…
Employee Ownership 101 is designed as a concept exploration two unit elective course. After completing the course, students will have an understanding of the role of private capital in the development of wealth and the evolution of private capital from its earliest forms to our modern capitalist system.
After completing the course, students will have an understanding of the philosophical and theoretical bases for broadening access to capital among wider ranges of the population as a way of strengthening the capitalist model.
After completing the course, students will have the capacity to understand and evaluate the various tools and techniques available under current law and practice for applying corporate equity as a compensation and motivation vehicle for employees as well as a tax and cost effective vehicle for assisting in business succession and capital expansion.
After completing the course, students will have an understanding of the governance structures that control modern corporations, the relationship between ownership of equity of a corporation and its control.
After completing the course, students will have an understanding of the factors that affect the long and short term lifespan of an employee owned company.
After completing the course, students will have an understanding of the numerous techniques of information sharing and participative management which seem to define an ownership culture.
How could the managing director maintain the firm’s cooperative structure, address the nutritional needs of all Indians, make use of emerging technology, and navigate the country’s dairy policies in the coming years?
One of the common misconceptions about employee stock ownership plan companies among the general public is that they are inefficient…
Take-aways from an international tour featuring the documentary film, “We the Owners: Employees Expanding the American Dream.”
After hearing so much about how employee stock ownership plans (ESOP) and other ownership plans in the U.S. transform companies, it seemed logical to think that other countries, like Mexico, should have similar incentive plans in place. This assumption, however, turned out to be incorrect….
In order to better understand what inspires employees in the workplace, three entrepreneurs share what motivates them to get in the office everyday and put in those long hours to turn their dreams into reality…
Monique Leroux led a major transformation, overcoming resistance, at a large Canadian financial cooperative based in Quebec that competed with top Canadian banks…
Equal Exchange is a cooperative organization that taps into the full capacities of everyone involved in a socially responsible way. This article describes how it has used the wisdom of its multiple stakeholders to create a collaborative community, to be profitable, and to have significant positive impact on people’s lives and the environment in approximately 20 countries.
This note discusses the complex topic of motivation, including the issue of contingent compensation…
It is by now common for large corporations to employ several sustainability officers, occasionally in high-ranking positions. A less frequently used tool – employee ownership – may prove a more powerful sustainability over the long term…
This Review looks at ‘short-termism’ within British business: the pressure to focus on short-term results to the possible detriment of the long-term health of a company, or even a whole industry. The investigation confirmed that short-termism constrains the ambition of UK business, holding back its development and inhibiting economic growth…
To make an economy that serves us, we need to own the jobs and the businesses—together. How cooperatives are leading the way to empowered workers and healthy communities…
Why is Southwest so uniquely able to succeed where others can’t? The thing that makes Southwest employees a powerful force for success is that they are autonomous workers working toward a common goal…