Employee Share Ownership and Profit Sharing

This book presents a comprehensive examination of employee share ownership, profit sharing, and gain sharing practices in contemporary business environments. Drawing from rigorous academic research presented at the prestigious Oxford University-Rutgers University Conference on Shares, it offers valuable insights into how these ownership structures function across different organizational contexts. The collection analyzes both the contextual factors that influence share plans and their measurable impacts on companies and individuals.

The volume is organized into two main sections. The first explores the financial, corporate cultural, and social contexts that shape employee ownership programs, including groundbreaking research on earnings management in French companies, workplace spillover theory, financial structures in Spanish worker cooperatives, and critical success factors for fostering ownership culture. The second section provides evidence-based analysis of outcomes and impacts, examining whether these organizational forms deliver concrete benefits for firms and workers.

Through careful examination of international case studies and empirical data, the book demonstrates that while employee ownership and profit sharing conceptually align individual rewards with organizational performance, their success depends on appropriate human resource management practices and supportive corporate cultures. The research highlights how these models can address wage stagnation by allowing workers to access returns on capital.

This book is essential reading for students, researchers and scholars in management studies, organizational behavior, and labor economics, as well as corporate executives, HR professionals, and policymakers interested in alternative ownership structures.

The chapters in this book were originally published in International Review of Applied Economics.

Author Biography

Jonathan Michie is Professor of Innovation and Knowledge Exchange and a Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Oxford, where he is also President of Kellogg College. He is the Director of the Centre on Mutual & Co-owned Business, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and was awarded an OBE for his services to education and lifelong learning. He is the Managing Editor of the International Review of Applied Economics, and Chair of the Universities Association for Lifelong Learning.

Joseph Blasi is the J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University. He is an economic sociologist, and his work includes economic sociology, social and economic history, and public policy, particularly focused on the issue of capital shares, profit sharing, gain sharing, and stock options in corporations, across countries, industries, and regions.