If owners of businesses are reaping the rewards of economic growth at the expense of workers, then why not just try to increase the number of workers who also own a piece of the firms that employ them?
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.
Before running off and launching a start-up business, one of the most important things an entrepreneur must think through is how to best handle equity in the company…
This note discusses the complex topic of motivation, including the issue of contingent compensation…
This case study describes Huawei, a Chinese telecommunications equipment company, which heavily utilizes ESOP ownership, and applies Huawei’s results to describe ESOPs as a powerful tool for achieving corporate efficiency and growth.
This booklet provides a “users’ manual” for workers, especially immigrant workers, and their advocates, for organizing a worker-owned cooperative as a worker empowerment strategy.
Roy Weber met Cheng Wang, a business consultant and Chinese entrepreneur, at Cheng’s hotel bar in Silicon Valley. Although Roy was slightly familiar with Chinese business practices, he welcomed more advice from a Chinese national. Could Roy transplant Silicon Valley’s model of employee ownership to China, and what would this process entail for a technology startup?
Increasing numbers of businesses view their employees not as a mere cost but as invaluable contributors for business success. These firms are implementing strategies to fully engage employees at all levels. The Employees Matter report identifies sixteen fast growing entrepreneurial firms that employ employee ownership and engagement strategies which they perceive as directly linked with improved business performance. Eight other notable companies with key lessons to share are included as sidebar profiles.
What can be done to reverse the economic disparity in our nation and restore prosperity for all? This paper lays out a policy reform that will help restore the link between economic growth and the earnings of workers so that the recovery re-establishes a prosperous middle class. The reform encourages firms to develop broad-based incentive compensation systems that link employee earnings to the performance of the firm. This reform would give employees access to the capital-related earnings of their companies comparable to that of the senior executives who run these firms.
Elizabeth had a number of concerns related to the heavy use of employee stock options as incentives and employee compensation in the high-technology sector…
The case introduces students to the concepts of employee stock options, stock-splits and buybacks, multiple share classes, and the basics of equity investment and diversification.
CEO Jim Billings wants to attract energetic, entrepreneurial talent to Stone Finch, Inc.
We examine how employee ownership is used to solve the agency problem between institutional investment management firms and employees.
We examine whether options granted to non-executive employees affect the performance of the firm by exploring the link between broad-based option plans, option portfolio implied incentives, and firm operating performance.
Based on ten case studies, the report explains what motivated a highly diverse mix of businesses to consider employee ownership as a succession or start up route.
The project subjects the existing regulatory regime for employee share ownership plans in Australia – in tax, corporate and labour law – to technical and empirical scrutiny. This research report presents findings from a survey of employee share ownership practice in ASXlisted companies.
This paper reviews the main strands of research on employee share ownership over the last forty years.
‘Making employee ownership work’ is a new guide from the Employee Ownership Association and co-ownership advisers the Baxi Partnership, based on a survey of 25 EOA member companies including John Lewis, Unipart, Arup and Mott MacDonald.
The John Lewis Partnership (JLP) is one of the UK’s most profitable retailers – sales grew by 6.3% and pre-tax profit by 18.7% in the year to 27 January 2008. Its success owes much to the co-ownership principles of its founder, John Spedan Lewis, who handed over control and ownership in two trust settlements in the last century.
What is an ESOP? Employee Stock Ownership Plans, or ESOPs, were designed as a way to put ownership into the hands of American workers.
This is a collection of cases about the following companies: John Lewis Partnership, IsBank, Banca Popolare Milano, Handelsbanken, Dexia, Total, Aerlingus, Kardemir, Tullis Russell, Saf Tehnika, Eircom, and Enel.
I have had dozens of conversations with business owners who want to share equity with some or all employees over the past several years.
I view corporate governance as a process of designing and implementing various implicit and explicit contracts among capital providers, corporate managers, workers, and other important stakeholders. In my talk today, I will expand the scope of the typical shareholder value focus to consider the design and implementation of contracts with other stakeholders, particularly employees and organized labor.
The project subjects the existing regulatory regime for employee share ownership plans in Australia – in tax, corporate and labour law – to technical and empirical scrutiny. This report considers the objectives and current practice in this area and notes that employee ownership levels tend to be lower for unlisted entities than for listed entities. It also examines the regulatory obstacles to such ownership and makes recommendations for reform to facilitate employee ownership in this area.
This paper summarizes new evidence from the “Shared Capitalism” Project on the extent to which workers’ earnings depend on the performance of their firm or work group in the US and advanced European countries and on the impact of sharing arrangements on economic behavior.