This paper reviews the conflicts of interests introduced by employee participation in the governance of a firm and how these can be constructively resolved by introducing a division of power between investors and employees and/or between management and workers.
Though only five years old, employee-owned St. Luke’s Communications has become one of the most talked about advertising agencies in the United Kingdom, increasing its profits eightfold.
Delphi not only makes catalytic converters; it has also converted itself. Its factory in Oak Creek, Wisconsin has become a fast, flexible, future-focused operation. The result is a new-economy factory in the heart of the old economy.
This case describes Microsoft’s human resource philosophies and policies and illustrates how they work in practice to provide the company with a major source of competitive advantage. Discusses employee development, motivation, and retention efforts in one of Microsoft’s product groups.
A rapidly expanding entrepreneurial company, the Carris firm is—by its owner’s design—gradually becoming an employee-owned and-directed organization…
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…
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]
This article examines the employee buyout process and industrial relations under employee ownership based on the case study of the Karabuk steel mill.
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.
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…
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.
How do you share the wealth with your employees without going public? SAIC created an internal stock market that outperforms Wall Street.
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.
This article identifies several key factors as mediating links between employee ownership plans and organizational effectiveness: the initiator’s purpose of the employee ownership plan; perceptions of ownership; level of participative decision-making systems; and organizational culture.
In mid-1993, representatives of Rhone-Poulenc, a leading nationalized French firm, worked with the French government to plan the imminent privatization of the firm.
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.
St. Lukes, a rebellious young agency spun out of the once-revolutionary Chiat/Day, practices what it preaches — the gospel of total ethics and common ownership.
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…
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.
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.
This book points to the need for flexibility to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions and cogently summarizes and evaluates the principal proposals for changes in corporate governance.
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…