New findings on the benefits of employee ownership
The Ownership Newsletter • Vol. 123
Welcome Back
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👇 In This Issue
🥃 Top Shelf News
In case you missed it last week, Common Trust released a playbook on employee ownership trusts. It’s great, and includes helpful case studies on three very different EOTs (Text-Em-All, Clegg Auto, and CodeWeavers)
Andrea Steffes-Tuttle explores lesson learned from Colorado’s employee ownership ecosystem, including impacts on workers and opportunities for expansion
A correction and an update: In last week’s newsletter we highlighted The ESOP Association’s report about Expanding ESOPs. We wrote that we couldn’t find the Budget Lab at Yale’s scoring referred to in their report. As a few of you pointed out, that was our oversight and it was linked in their report; it’s available here. We haven’t seen any public response from Expanding ESOPs or from other employee organizations
Expanding ESOPs did post an interview with Daniel Goldstein, who use to serve on the board of The ESOP Association and is currently a board member at the National Center for Employee Ownership
A handful of new academic papers find multiple benefits of employee ownership
🏙️ Events
For a full list of upcoming events, see our Events page. And share your conference recaps with us! Coming up:
Nov 14: PURPOSE Foundation’s Q&A on steward ownership
🆕 Nov 17: Jason Wiener’s webinar on raising value-driven capital
🆕 Nov 18: NCEO’s webinar on managing ESOPs during turbulent times
🆕 Nov 19: Strategic Value+ Solutions hosts Steve Storkan on how employee ownership can strengthen US manufacturing
🆕 Nov 19: The Democracy Collaborative’s conversation on public banking, featuring Senator Elizabeth Warren
🆕 Nov 19: MassCEO’s ABCs of Employee Ownership
Nov 20: Proximate Team and partners’ summit on participatory investing
🆕 Nov 20-21: The Corporate Rebels Summit in Barcelona, Spain
Nov 25-26: EOA’s annual conference in the UK
📇 Conference Recaps
John Abrams on his recent book tour and the momentum of the shared ownership movement
Julie Menter on her experiences at recent shared ownership conferences and roundtables
Margot Brandenburg on the Iowa Center for Employee Ownership’ conference
The International Cooperative Alliance on their recent webinar on cooperative supply chains
From last month’s Steward Ownership Conference: Ashanti Kunene’s closing address (h/t Michael G) and Brenna Davis’s talk on Perpetual Purpose Trusts
The Democracy Collective on a community wealth building summit in Scotland earlier this year
🔍 Analysis + Opinion
On employee ownership writ large
Canada’s recent budget legislation did not extend a capital-gains tax exemption for EOTs; Jon Shell reflects
In Finland, Andy Farquharson and Petri Rouvinen advocate for an employee ownership pilot as the answer for the country’s aging business owners; Taru Keltanen describes a potential pilot program
James de le Vingne posts a SWOT analysis of the global employee ownership movement
Ashish Agrawal encourages employers and employees to donate to employee ownership non-profits
The economists of Reddit need your help answering What if every single company were 100% employee owned? (h/t RWH)
The 1,600 employees of KKR-owned Novaria Group received a payout from the company’s Ownership Works-supported sale. On CNBC, Ownership Works CEO Pete Stavros explains how employee ownership can help workers share in the success of the American stock market
🇺🇸 State-level employee ownership center news: Flagpole Magazine highlights the Georgia Center; Kirsten Kennedy from the Minnesota Center says employee ownership can help keep companies local; and Wisconsin-based MyPath is the first entirely employee owned company to receive national certification as a Majority Women Employee-Owned Business; The Vermont Center highlights the transition story of a pickle producing cooperative
On employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)
The NCEO highlighted the most ESOP-centric changes coming to COLA plans for 2026
In Inc, Carolyn Stanworth explores how employee ownership makes internal committees function better
On 21 Hats, Loren Feldman has a refreshingly open conversation with Kris Maynard and Justin Jordan of Cathedral Holdings, a 100% ESOP
On worker cooperatives
The International Cooperative Alliance released a map of Cooperative Cultural Heritage sites around the world
Lighting design firm Lux Collaborative transitions to a worker-owned cooperative next year. Congrats!
A new joint brief from the International Cooperative Alliance and International Labour Organization explores where cooperatives stand in the non-profit debate
On purpose trusts and steward ownership
In an op-ed for Fort Worth Business Press, the owner of Texas’ first EOT shares his success and encourages others to consider the model
Employee ownership trust growth in the UK may be slowing, after tax changes passed in response to alleged abuses of the new law
The Beyond the B podcast hosts Rebecca Dray from People & Planet First:
On the ownership economy
Elias Crim argues that economies can better serve the common good through a more equal distribution of ownership
Peter Boumgarden explores the question of ownership as OpenAI transfers from a capped-profit company to a public benefit corporation
Hugh Pope reports that Norway’s Future Assembly on the Oil Fund is asking who should benefit from it
🏬 Real estate news: In Nonprofit Quarterly, Nikishka Iyengar shares how Atlanta’s The Guild builds economic democracy through community-owned real estate; Main Street Journal interviews John Haines, who is trying to save neighborhood malls with community investment trusts; and ICYMI, Ownership Economy highlights how some neighborhoods are turning to reinvestment and collective ownership to keep residents from being priced out
🎨 Art news: In The Guardian, Jessica Murray writes about New Art Exchange, a democratically run art gallery in the UK, and Daniel Dylan Wray writes on how artist-driven streaming services could be the future of music listening. NPR interviews Kickstarter cofounder Yancey Strickler on his vision for Artist Corporations
📚 Academic Updates
New papers on the benefits of employee ownership:
Wholly employee-owned firms outperform competitors in federal contracting, finds James Hasik
In Korea, Employee stock ownership improves firms’ market efficiency by aligning stock prices with future earnings, find Hyejeong Shin and Sorah Park
ESOPs rescued craft from big beer in the U.S., finds John Bonin (Colin Birkhead and Dr. Hand have a beer paper, too!)
In Indonesia, organizational culture, transformational leadership styles, and work involvement are positively correlated with employee performance, find Muhammad Fadliansyah and Agustinus Setyawan
Dr. Hand and Peter Boumgarden’s article on the structure, motivations, and challenges of succession in family businesses is now open access
David Ellerman argues that fair market valuations are not appropriate for forms of shared ownership
Michael Y. Lee offers ways companies can move beyond traditional hierarchies
Rebecca Fichtel et al. demonstrate that selection effects influence psychological ownership among ESOP employees
⏰ ICYMI
PURPOSE explains how steward ownership can aid in the “silver transition”
The Democracy Collaborative writes how a more equal economy and greater economic democracy can aid in the fight against poverty
The ICA Group shares the story of a Cincinnati-based financial firm who has seen remarkable benefits since transitioning to employee ownership