Employee ownership firms offer workers the opportunity to own a stake in the firms where they work. This affords them the ability to share in profits and have a voice in firm-related decision-making. In this comprehensive new book, Kurtulus and Kruse provide new evidence on whether employee ownership firms are better equipped to survive recessions. In particular, they focus on broad-based employee ownership, which includes ownership at all levels in the firm’s hierarchy. The authors begin by defining what is meant by “employee ownership” and then discuss the prevalence of such firms in the United States. They also examine how employee ownership affects employment stability and why employee ownership firms have survived recessions more successfully than other firms. Kurtulus and Kruse conclude by saying that the benefits they observed in employee ownership firms, particularly the greater employment stability and survival rates, can help the overall economy. Therefore, increased government support to broaden employee ownership programs is merited.

The historical relationship between capital and labor has evolved in the past few decades. One particularly noteworthy development is the rise of shared capitalism, a system in which workers have become partial owners of their firms and thus, in effect, both employees and stockholders. Profit sharing arrangements and gain-sharing bonuses, which tie compensation directly to a firm’s performance, also reflect this new attitude toward labor. Shared Capitalism at Work analyzes the effects of this trend on workers and firms. The contributors focus on four main areas: the fraction of firms that participate in shared capitalism programs in the United States and abroad, the factors that enable these firms to overcome classic free rider and risk problems, the effect of shared capitalism on firm performance, and the impact of shared capitalism on worker well-being. This volume provides essential studies for understanding the increasingly important role of shared capitalism in the modern workplace.

This study compares the corporate performance in 1990/91 of two groups of public companies: those in which employees owned more than 5% of the company's stock, and all others. The results are not consistent with either highly positive or negative views of employee ownership. Where differences are found, they are favorable to employee ownership, especially among companies of small size. The circumstances in which employee ownership was implemented--specifically, whether it was part of a wage/benefit concession package and whether there was a takeover threat--do not appear to have had a significant effect on the 1990 performance levels or 1980-90 performance growth of the firms. Although the authors caution that the data do not permit clear tests of causality, these results are broadly consistent with those of past studies.