Employee ownership has attracted growing attention for its potential to improve economic outcomes for companies, workers, and the economy in general, and help reduce inequality. Over 100 studies across many countries indicate that employee ownership is generally linked to better productivity,...

Modern economies deprive workers of natural democratic rights and any share of the surplus they produce, with most of the benefits of growth appropriated by capital owners. Worker wellbeing and job satisfaction are ignored unless they contribute directly to profitability, while precarious...

A major theoretical objection against employee ownership is that workers become inadequately diversified and exposed to excessive financial risk. Recent theory concludes that 10-15% of a worker's wealth portfolio can be prudently invested in employer stock provided the rest of the portfolio is...

Purpose: We examine whether employee ownership in DC plans are explained by either shared capitalism or managerial entrenchment motives. Design/methodology/approach: We calculate the average monthly risk-adjusted return (alpha) of each portfolio by sorting firms into six portfolio groups based...

Each academic discipline wrestles with framing objects of study within its field. This paper is a reflexive analysis of the ontology of employee ownership (EO) and employee-owned businesses (EOBs) based on ten cases from two PhDs and two post-doctoral studies. We found that normative definitions...

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...

This study examines the impact of non-executive employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) on corporate environmental engagement. We show that granting ESOPs to non-executive employees promotes greater corporate environmental engagement in terms of environmental protection expenditures,...

What enables some employee ownership firms to overcome the free rider problem and motivate employees to improve performance? This study analyzes the role of human resource policies in the performance of employee ownership companies, using employee survey data from 14 companies and a national...

Purpose: We examine whether employee ownership in DC plans are explained by either shared capitalism or managerial entrenchment motives. Design/methodology/approach: We calculate the average monthly risk-adjusted return (alpha) of each portfolio by sorting firms into six portfolio groups based...

We examine the role of employee stock option plans (ESOPs) in mitigating agency problems in New Zealand firms. We find that ESOPs have a significant and positive effect on firm performance relative to their non-ESOP counterparts. This relation appears within a year from the first ESOP...

Many firms use equity-based profit sharing to boost participation in employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs). Using a large panel data set (N=262,824) of a multinational firm, we compare the reactions of former ESPP participants and non-participants to a profit sharing distribution (PSD). We find...

Do employees benefit from worker representation on corporate boards? Economists and policymakers are keenly interested in this question - especially lately, as worker representation is widely promoted as an important way to ensure the interests and views of the workers. To investigate this...

The last forty years have seen two major economic trends: Wages have stalled despite rising productivity, and institutional investors have replaced retail shareholders as the predominant owners of the American equity markets. A few powerful institutional investors—dubbed common owners—now...

While pledging shares as collateral for personal loans is commonly practiced in many countries that protect minority shareholders, the empirical evidence has shown only its value destruction to shareholders. This paper offers an (partial) explanation of this puzzle by documenting a positive...

Many firms use equity-based profit sharing to boost participation in employee stock purchase plans (ESPPs). Using a large panel data set (N=262,824) of a multinational firm, we compare the reactions of former ESPP participants and non-participants to a profit sharing distribution (PSD). We find...

Modern economies deprive workers of natural democratic rights and any share of the surplus they produce, with most of the benefits of growth appropriated by capital owners. Worker wellbeing and job satisfaction are ignored unless they contribute directly to profitability, while precarious...

Do employees benefit from worker representation on corporate boards? Economists and policymakers are keenly interested in this question – especially lately, as worker representation is widely promoted as an important way to ensure the interests and views of the workers. To investigate this...

Modern economies deprive workers of natural democratic rights and any share of the surplus they produce, with most of the benefits of growth appropriated by capital owners. Worker wellbeing and job satisfaction are ignored unless they contribute directly to profitability, while precarious...

We examine the role of employee health in Private Equity buyouts using employee-level data on employment, wages, medical prescriptions, and health expenditures of more than 55,000 buyout employees. Employees with a lower health status before the buyout face the most substantial losses of income...

“A company's responsibility is to increase profit.” This idea has motivated a lot of entrepreneurs towards company formation. However, for a business to be successful, a person or group of persons must invest time, money, assets, and/or personal skill towards the development of the business...

The premise of this paper is that state aid to distressed companies should benefit not only the current owners but also the employees, who are the ones taking personal risks to continue or restart companies. Government aid during the Great Recession was aimed primarily at restoring the status...

"This book gathered international feedback on the practice of employee share ownership and its effects on the attitudes and value of companies and its ability to alleviate the financial damage of the Covid-19 epidemic."

Employee ownership has attracted growing attention for its potential to improve economic outcomes for companies, workers, and the economy in general, and help reduce inequality. Over 100 studies across many countries indicate that employee ownership is generally linked to better productivity,...

A major theoretical objection against employee ownership is that workers become inadequately diversified and exposed to excessive financial risk. Recent theory concludes that 10-15% of a worker's wealth portfolio can be prudently invested in employer stock provided the rest of the portfolio is...

The paper investigates how product market competition affects the firms' decision to hire altruistic or selfish employees in a mixed duopoly where a public and a private firm compete against each other on prices and quality. When firms offer similar services, so that product competition is...

The onus of employee ownership towards organizational performance is growing among researchers and practitioners. This study examines the relationship between employee ownership and organizational performance, which is categorized in two segments; financial performance and productivity. Where,...

In the United Kingdom there are currently no statutory regulations on company workers' participation. Generally speaking, UK companies have a monistic governance structure with a board of directors. Theresa May (former prime minister) announced that in future workers were to have representatives...

France is one of 18 EU countries with workers' participation in the supervisory board or the board of directors. Since 2013, moreover, it has also been obligatory in the private sector for companies with more than 1,000 employees in France or 5,000 worldwide. In recent years, the academic, trade...

Zwar erhielt das Thema Mitarbeiterkapitalbeteiligung in jüngster Zeit wieder mehr Aufmerksamkeit, über Umfang und Tiefe der Kapitalbeteiligung der Arbeitnehmer in Deutschland ist aber wenig bekannt. Mithilfe des IAB-Betriebs-Panels wird analysiert, wie sich die Zahl der Betriebe, die...

This study extends the employee stock option literature by examining how the timing of sales of shares acquired at exercise varies with accrual management both before and after the exercise date. We find evidence that accrual management prior to exercise is positively associated with the...

No matter how hard employees work, an organization is in real trouble if strategic decisions are not made effectively. Doing the right things (effectiveness) is more important than doing things right (efficiency). Creating Shared Value to get Social License to Operate in the Extractive Industry...

We analyze the relationship between board-level codetermination and shareholder value. We use a unique dataset of listed German companies that enables us to identify heterogeneous aspects of codetermination and overcome otherwise common identification issues. We find that codetermination reduces...