New research from Fifty by Fifty focuses on employee ownership and environmental sustainability.
Continue ReadingNew models for employee ownership
Next Generation Employee Ownership Design
Are mission-controlled, employee-owned companies better environmental stewards than conventional finance-controlled corporations? Is transitioning to employee ownership a more likely path to keeping a firm’s ecological mission alive, compared to selling a firm to a large competitor? The answer to these questions is critical to enterprise design for the 21st century and beyond. If we understand the relationship between enterprise design and a sustainable, equitable economy, we can be more deliberate in the choices we make.
Continue ReadingBerrett-Koehler: Connecting People and Ideas to Make a Company that Works for All
A Multistakeholder Ownership Design Protects Company Values By Sarah Stranahan Berrett-Koehler Publishers (BK), an Oakland, California -based independent publisher, created a Constitution in 2016 that begins with the words, “We are embarked together on a journey to do the seemingly impossible — to create a world that works for all. No road map exists for this journey, so we are […]
Continue ReadingOrganically Grown Company Transitions from ESOP to Perpetual Trust
Pioneering a New Business Structure to Preserve Mission by Natalie Reitman-White In some situations, employee ownership via an ESOP may not be suited to advancing a sustainability mission, due to the demand on profits that comes from a perpetual duty to buy back shares from employees. Organically Grown Company faced this situation with a wave […]
Continue ReadingEmployee Ownership: Protecting Local Businesses
The loss of local businesses is not inevitable. By Melissa Hoover Linda and Gregory Coles founded their preschool, A Child’s Place, in their Queens, NY basement in 1983. Over the years it grew steadily and developed a deeply loyal community. Now they own a large building, employ more than 50 people and serve hundreds of families. […]
Continue ReadingThe Unsung Route to Employee Ownership
Employees Purchasing Their Division From a Major Corporation By Sarah Stranahan We usually think of ESOP conversions as a way for founders to sell private businesses to their employees, because that is the most common scenario for creating ESOPs. But ESOPs can also be used for other types of business succession, like purchasing a division […]
Continue ReadingHow to Create Good Jobs
Some companies have learned to create good jobs for employees at every level of the organization, blue collar and white collar alike. By John Case Nearly every politician these days wants to create more jobs. And not just any jobs — good jobs. But what is a good job, and how does a company go about creating one? […]
Continue ReadingEducation and ESOP Creation
Performance Validation’s Journey By Richard Van Doel, Ph.D, President, Performance Validation On January, 2, 2018, Performance Validation (PV), a leading bio-technical, pharmaceutical and medical device industry contractor, became Indiana’s newest Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) company. As the president of this company, I’d like to share how our experience in educating employees about employee ownership — even before […]
Continue ReadingGoverning: Jobs without Bribes
An editorial by Governing’s publisher Mark Funkhouser highlights the potential of employee ownership to create new, stable jobs without the use of state tax incentives or corporate giveaways. “A few jurisdictions are beginning to explore this alternative. Legislation was introduced in Wisconsin that, among other things, would provide a capital gains tax exemption for employee ownership; loans […]
Continue ReadingA Cure for What Ails our Communities
By Anthony Mathews At the Beyster Institute at the University of California-San Diego, which is dedicated to studying and promoting employee ownership, I was part of an initiative about ten years ago to try to organize a work group with the humble goal of curing poverty in the U. S. We started from the assumption […]
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