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One way that firms attempt to innovate is through investment in R&D activity. However, there is much heterogeneity in innovations among firms making comparable R&D investments. This article explores employee ownershipʼs moderating effect on the relationship between R&D intensity and innovative output. The basis for the moderation is that ownership increases motivation and commitment to the innovation agenda of the company, and retains employeesʼ entrepreneurial efforts for internal opportunities. Using hierarchical regression, the data support the hypothesis that employee stock ownership positively moderates the relationship between R&D intensity and innovative output. Implications for future research and practice are addressed.

The paper traces the development of employee ownership in the UK since the 1980s. It proposes that employee ownership is a function of macro-level contexts and micro-level decisions, with the latter framed and guided by the former. The macro context comprises the regulatory framework and the provision of incentives to adopt employee ownership. The paper shows how the evolution of these has led to a steep increase in employee ownership in the last eight years.

The paper draws on several sources of empirical data to chart the development of employee ownership in the UK since the 1980s and to identify the current features of employee ownership. Two firm-level surveys conducted in 2015 and 2020/21 are supplemented by qualitative case study data collected in the early 1990s. An annual census of all employee-owned firms facilitates a comprehensive overview of the current state of UK employee ownership.

It is found that there has been a steep increase in the number of UK employee-owned firms since 2014 after several decades of uneven growth. This is attributed to the introduction of new incentives and to refinements of the regulatory framework. Over the period, there has been a shift from hybrid employee ownership, combining direct and indirect forms, to indirect ownership associated with the employee ownership trust model.

The paper provides an original history of employee ownership in the UK using rich and unique data, along with the most comprehensive picture of current employee ownership to date.

A range of studies have shown that performance is typically higher in organisations with employee share ownership (ESO) schemes in place. Many possible causal mechanisms explaining this relationship have been suggested. These include a reduction in labour turnover, synergies with other forms of productivity-enhancing communication and participation schemes, and synergies with employer-provided training. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper empirically assesses these potential linkages using data from the 2004 and 2011 British Workplace Employment Relations Surveys, and provides comparisons with earlier analyses conducted on the 1990 and 1998 versions of the survey.

Substantial differences are found between the 2004 and 2011 results: a positive relationship between ESO and workplace productivity and financial performance, observed in 2004, is no longer present in 2011. In both years, ESO is found to have no clear relationship with labour turnover, and there is no significant association between turnover and performance. There is, however, a positive moderating relationship with downward communication schemes in 2004 and in 2011 in the case of labour productivity. There is no corresponding relationship for upward involvement schemes.

The results are only partially supportive of extant theory and its various predictions, and the relationship between ESO and performance seems to have weakened over time.

The study further questions the rhetoric offered in support of wider ESO.

This paper collects together quotations and extracts from 19th and 20th century thinkers who were little-known for being supporters of workplace democracy.

Both the academic literature and practitioners have long noted the need for an equity investment mechanism for worker-controlled firms that alleviates investor anxieties without undermining internal workplace democracy. The purpose of this paper is to outline one such possible mechanism.

The proposal locks together the interests of workers and external investors, via non-voting shares with dividends set by a pre-agreed value-added sharing formula. Each worker is paid a base wage, with the average across the firm being a pre-defined multiple of the national minimum wage. Any additional surplus is split into a number of equal “slices”, with each share receiving one slice as its dividend, and the average worker receiving a pre-agreed number of slices as a bonus.

Workers have an incentive to maximise their own incomes, and in so doing, will also automatically maximise the dividends received by investors, obviating the need for the shares to have normal voting rights. Working on this principle of aligned interests, the authors also discuss reinvestment, worker ownership of non-voting shares and possibilities for a secondary share market. The authors show how this proposal will be a significant step in aligning the interests of investors with owner-workers in a democratic, negotiated way that shares both risk and returns, thus making worker-controlled firms more attractive to equity investment.

In light of the recognised problem of underinvestment in worker-controlled firms and the risk of their degeneration, this paper will interest both academics and practitioners in employee ownership, co-operatives and various forms of workplace democracy.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the role a full range of activities can play to combat mission drift in a social enterprise. In doing so, it expands understanding of integrated activities to recognize the role of indirect support activities and an activity ecosystem to sustain mission. This paper also provides practical implications about the process for creating such an ecosystem.

This paper relies on an in-depth qualitative study of a for-profit company that later in life became an employee-owned benefit corporation. Data include interviews, informal and formal company documents and a site visit.

This paper expands the definition of activity integration to recognize indirect mission support, highlights the role an activity ecosystem plays to ensure the viability of these activities, and identifies a set of rules and a three-step process to create the reinforcing ecosystem.

Commonly, activities are integrated if the company earns revenues through pursuit of its social mission and differentiated if the company earns revenues not related to its social mission. By comparison, this paper argues for a more nuanced definition of activities to recognize indirect mission support and its role in reinforcing a dual mission.

This study aims to explore a range of institutional, environmental and policy conditions that influence the creation of “bossless” or “flat” companies, i.e. firms with little or no formal hierarchy.

The author builds on the theory and evidence presented by Foss and Klein (2022) in their study of the costs and benefits of organizing without hierarchy. The author also draws on a variety of related theoretical insights and empirical evidence. The paper is exploratory and anecdotal though and is intended to motivate further research rather than provide a definitive account of bossless organizing.

The paper develops nine propositions. It suggests that high levels of economic freedom create maximum scope for entrepreneurs to experiment with different organizational forms (1). Likewise, a lack of economic freedom increases the scope for the government to experiment (2). Markets characterized by technological innovation and uncertainty are likely to discourage bossless organizing (3 and 4), while stagnating industries with major capital requirements are likely to encourage it (5). Labor market interventions that increase the cost of employment contracts sometimes encourage firms to flatten (6), but more generally, these interventions encourage expanding management layers (7). In environments with strong intellectual property (IP) laws, companies with more modular and knowledge-based work are more likely to flatten (8). The creation of low-hierarchy firms such as cooperatives is encouraged by public subsidies, access to cheap credit and preferential tax treatment (9).

Studies of bossless or flat firms focus almost exclusively on describing their internal organization and evaluating their performance; little attention is paid to the conditions that encourage or discourage the emergence of these firms. This paper focuses on the latter, with a view to encouraging more scholarly interest in this field.