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The Ownership Edge
How Employee Ownership Can Make Good Companies Great
by Corey Rosen and Loren Rodgers
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This book is the product of 26 years of learning about the experiences of employee ownership companies all over the U.S. and the world. Through research, conversations, listening to presentations, and talking with experts, a number of key lessons have emerged. This book is a way to tell the stories of these companies and the often remarkable things they have done. If there is any wisdom in this book, it is theirs.
"If you want the 'ownership edge' that comes with employee ownership-and who wouldn't?-this is the book to read. It's a clear, concise description of exactly what you need to do and how to go about doing it." -John Case, author of Open-Book Management and The Open-Book Experience
"When the new dictionary comes out and you look up the definition of ownership culture, it should say, 'see the National Center for Employee Ownership' at the end of the description. They are the best in the field." -Jack Stack, President, SRC Holdings Inc. and author of The Great Game of Business
"If you want the 'ownership edge' that comes with employee ownership-and who wouldn't?-this is the book to read. It's a clear, concise description of exactly what you need to do and how to go about doing it." -John Case, author of Open-Book Management and The Open-Book Experience
"When the new dictionary comes out and you look up the definition of ownership culture, it should say, 'see the National Center for Employee Ownership' at the end of the description. They are the best in the field." -Jack Stack, President, SRC Holdings Inc. and author of The Great Game of Business
Publication Details
Format: Perfect-bound book, 282 pages
Publication date: December 2007
Status: In stock
Contents
Introduction
1. The Ownership Management Revolution
2. Creating a Mission Statement
3. Ownership Education
4. Entrepreneurship Training
5. Sharing Company Financials and Other Performance Measures
6. Creating Effective Incentive Systems
7. Getting Started with Employee Involvement
8. Formal Structures for Employee Involvement
9. Getting Serious About Having Fun
10. Evaluating Progress and Making Changes
Summary of Key Lessons
Appendix A: Employee Ownership and Corporate Performance
Appendix B: Practical Techniques for Starting Ownership Cultures
Appendix C: Tools, Tips and Resources for Open-Book Management
1. The Ownership Management Revolution
2. Creating a Mission Statement
3. Ownership Education
4. Entrepreneurship Training
5. Sharing Company Financials and Other Performance Measures
6. Creating Effective Incentive Systems
7. Getting Started with Employee Involvement
8. Formal Structures for Employee Involvement
9. Getting Serious About Having Fun
10. Evaluating Progress and Making Changes
Summary of Key Lessons
Appendix A: Employee Ownership and Corporate Performance
Appendix B: Practical Techniques for Starting Ownership Cultures
Appendix C: Tools, Tips and Resources for Open-Book Management
Excerpts
From Chapter 1, "The Ownership Management Revolution"
At this point, a lot of people are excited and ready to go. But others are skeptical that this is all worthwhile. How do we know this really works? True, ask just about any manager whether it would be a good thing if employees would think and act like owners and they will, of course, say yes. But just what do the cold, hard facts tell us about ownership management?At a 2006 conference of scholars held by the National Bureau of Economic Research, an overwhelming consensus on this question emerged: broad ownership shared in financially meaningful amounts combined with widespread employee involvement programs improve corporate performance. Neither on its own (nor profit sharing on its own) makes a consistent, durable difference. Here, we'll just look at some of the most important research on this topic.
The first major study on this issue was done by Michael Quarrey and one of this book's authors (Corey Rosen) and published in the September/October 1987 issue of the Harvard Business Review. They looked at 45 ESOP companies for which they had detailed employee survey data. They found that organizational commitment, turnover intention, and concern about the company's financial success all were strongly correlated with the amount of annual contributions made to the ESOP, how much the company communicated with employees about the plan and the company, and, most important, how participatively managed the company was. Each company that combined these characteristics was compared to five otherwise similar companies each for five years before and after the advent of the ESOP. They found that the ESOP companies somewhat outperformed their peers in the pre-ESOP years, but that this difference grew by about 3% more in the post-ESOP years. Companies high on employee involvement, however, grew 8% to 11% per year faster, while companies with little employee involvement actually showed a decline in performance. Two subsequent studies using the same model by Gorm Winther at the University of Aarlborg (Denmark) showed the same pattern for samples in Washington and New York.
