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1 – 10 of over 4000Aging is the most important social-demographic issue worldwide, supported by the initiatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) in its global strategy and action plan for…
Abstract
Purpose
Aging is the most important social-demographic issue worldwide, supported by the initiatives of the World Health Organization (WHO) in its global strategy and action plan for aging and health (Rudnicka et al., 2020). The average age of business owners in most industrialized countries is on the rise. In the United States, fifty-one percent of small private businesses are owned by someone age fifty-plus (SBA Office of Advocacy, 2018).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors shed light on small business owners, who age in place. The authors suggest that their importance as long-term actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems nor the issue of “Main Street churn” have not been meaningfully explored. Understanding the risks they face offers an opportunity for academics and practitioners to provide insights for business owners, the next generation of the acquirer and advisors. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has elevated the status of many of these businesses from invisible (and perhaps taken for granted) to “essential” and amplified the co-dependence of business and the local economy.
Findings
The anticipated “silver tsunami” caused by the retirements of Main Street business owners is not a national and homogeneous wave. Rather, each wave will land on beaches locally. Small business owners age in place, and their importance as long-term actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems nor the issue of “Main Street churn” have not been meaningfully explored. They become embedded in their community and possibly stuck there in retirement.
Originality/value
The embeddedness of these owners – who likely have social connections, community identification and feelings of responsibility to the community directly impacts the places that they care deeply about – is often unquestioned. However, their retirements call for increased visibility within entrepreneurial ecosystems and translations of scholarly work from several kinds of literature into policy and practice.
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Explains the new US tax rules for calculating the required minimum distributions from employer‐sponsored qualified retirement plans, 403(b) plans and individual retirement…
Abstract
Explains the new US tax rules for calculating the required minimum distributions from employer‐sponsored qualified retirement plans, 403(b) plans and individual retirement accounts, pointing out that when the owner of a tax‐deferred retirement account dies the beneficiary of the fund becomes liable for tax. Gives numerical examples to illustrate the application of the rules.
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Julia C.D. Valliant, Stephanie Dickinson, Yijia Zhang, Lilian Golzarri-Arroyo and James R. Farmer
Beginning farmers and ranchers (BFRs) are more likely to access land through an unrelated landowner than through family. Thus, farm and ranch owners who might transfer their land…
Abstract
Purpose
Beginning farmers and ranchers (BFRs) are more likely to access land through an unrelated landowner than through family. Thus, farm and ranch owners who might transfer their land or businesses out of family are potential sources of land access for BFRs and are the most frequent participants in incentive programs to facilitate land transfer to BFRs. To assist in identifying landowners who might transfer out of family, the paper aims to explore similarities and differences between landowners according to their expectations for intra-familial versus extra-familial farm transfer.
Design/methodology/approach
Pairwise and regression analysis of USA Midwestern and Plains landowners' responses to an online survey (n = 322).
Findings
Landowners who might transfer out of family were likely to need the proceeds from a land sale to finance their retirement. Landowners' financial needs interacted with their widespread interest in transferring to a BFR such that 97% of owners who expected extra-familial transfer wanted to transfer to a BFR. There were also statistical patterns around the size of owners' landholdings in relation to their transfer plans.
Research limitations/implications
This exploratory inquiry suggests patterns for future research to examine, especially around landowners' juxtaposition of their retirement income and their interest in transferring to a BFR and how to align these priorities and values.
Originality/value
By exploring the characteristics of landowners who are the most likely to provide land access to BFRs, the authors begin to examine how to target these owners in program outreach. Patterns for further exploration point to landowners' financial needs in relation to their interest in helping a BFR to get started in agriculture.
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Ageing populations provoke the question of how much bespoke housing should be provided for the elderly. Older people are generally reluctant to move but as they age health…
Abstract
Purpose
Ageing populations provoke the question of how much bespoke housing should be provided for the elderly. Older people are generally reluctant to move but as they age health circumstances may encourage moves into specialised accommodation. This paper aims to report on an exercise in estimating the future demand for specialised independent living housing and the extent to which that demand will be for owner occupied accommodation or renting, using data for England.
Design/methodology/approach
The most important predictor of demand for specialised housing is the extent of the requirement for at least some degree of long‐term care due to loss of mobility. Therefore, the forecast is formulated around a behaviour‐based model centred on demographic, personal physical mobility and housing tenure factors.
Findings
The forecasts indicate a substantial increase in demand, growing at a faster rate than the population as a whole. If supply does not rise to meet these demands, serious problems arise in the quality of life of, and cost of caring for, older people with implications for health care and social services. Moreover, some of the greatest growth is going to be amongst those aged 75 to 84 and amongst the very old 85+ group.
Research limitations/implications
The forecast is based on ELSA estimates. Data on activity and ageing are available from the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing's (ELSA) Wave 4 2008 data set.
Practical implications
The implication is that in the future far more provision of housing for the elderly will have to take place in the private sector. However, the market provision of specialised retirement housing is likely to be very inadequate for predicted needs. A significant cause of this is a chronic planning‐induced land shortage which keeps the price of retirement accommodation high.
Social implications
The continuing shortage of specialised housing will mean that hundreds of thousands of the elderly will continue to live in their existing accommodation when bespoke property would better suit their needs. This will further exacerbate general housing shortages, especially as the empty nester elderly do often own substantial family homes. It will also put pressures on care home sector because, in the absence of an appropriate intermediate stage, more will be pushed into care.
Originality/value
It could be argued that the assumptions made in this forecasting exercise contain a number of essentially arbitrary statements. But that is to miss the point of this exercise, which is to suggest that a large potential demand exists on plausible estimates of who might benefit from living in specialised retirement housing.
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Raj Padmaraj, Kenneth Balinski and Josef Blass
With the enactment of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Acts of 1982 (TEFRA) a number of legislative changes were introduced in the self‐employed business person’s…
Abstract
With the enactment of the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Acts of 1982 (TEFRA) a number of legislative changes were introduced in the self‐employed business person’s retirement plans known as the Keogh plans. the intention of the legislature was to liberalize and modify many of the plan rules making the plans more attractive especially to small, self‐employed business owners. The basic approach taken by Congress was to put the self‐employed retirement plans on parity with much more generous corporate plans.
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Renee D. Wiatt, Maria I. Marshall and Ryan Musselman
This study investigated the succession process in small and medium family farms as two distinct but related processes of management transfer and ownership transfer. Past studies…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated the succession process in small and medium family farms as two distinct but related processes of management transfer and ownership transfer. Past studies focused on the broad subject of succession, without dissecting succession into the components that it contains. Furthermore, this study aimed to evaluate which business, family and owner characteristics were significant in the progress of each process toward the actual transfer of management and ownership.
Design/methodology/approach
Telephone interviews were conducted to gather information from rural family businesses in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. A bivariate ordered probit regression was utilized to model the processes of management and ownership transfer as separate but related processes. Both management transfer and ownership transfer were modeled utilizing three distinct stages of transfer.
Findings
Business and owner characteristics were significant to both management and ownership transfer, whereas family characteristics only influenced ownership transfer. Farm family businesses that discussed goals, identified a successor and were educated on how to start the transfer process were more likely to have made progress in both management and ownership transfer.
Originality/value
The authors contribute empirically to the literature by modeling the components of the succession process, management transfer and ownership transfer, as separate but interrelated processes. The authors specifically investigate which business, owner and family characteristics influence the progression of management and ownership transfer in farm family businesses.
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Woopies (Well Off Older People), otherwise recognised as matureconsumers who are reasonably prosperous, have been largely ignored as amarket segment so far. As their numbers…
Abstract
Woopies (Well Off Older People), otherwise recognised as mature consumers who are reasonably prosperous, have been largely ignored as a market segment so far. As their numbers increase, which they will do into and beyond the foreseeable future they will become an even more significant segment. Their views on money, holidays and transport are examined, and it is concluded that these people have specific needs which are not at present being met.
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The field of broad-based employee ownership within corporations is a specific application of the foundational topic of property ownership. It is situated at the intersection of a…
Abstract
Purpose
The field of broad-based employee ownership within corporations is a specific application of the foundational topic of property ownership. It is situated at the intersection of a broad range of scholarly disciplines including economics, law, finance and management. Each discipline contributes vocabulary and distinctions describing this field. That broad spectrum of disciplinary inquiry is a strength but it also lends a “ships passing in the night” quality to discussions of employee ownership. This paper attempts to unravel the narrative diversity surrounding this topic. Four meanings of ownership are introduced. Those meanings are in turn embedded within two abstract models of the corporation; the corporation as property and the corporation as social institution.
Design/methodology/approach
There is no experimental design The paper presents a conceptual overview and introduces a taxonomy of four meanings and two models of ownership.
Findings
Four meanings of ownership are introduced. The meanings are ownership as compensation, investment, retirement and membership. Those meanings are in turn embedded within two abstract models of the corporation; the corporation as property and the corporation as social institution.
Research limitations/implications
No hypotheses are advanced. This is not a research paper. A conceptual overview that makes use of taxonomy of meanings and models is introduced to help clarify confusions abundant in the field of employee ownership. Readers may differ with the categories of meanings and models introduced in this conceptual overview.
Practical implications
The ambition of the paper is to describe the various meanings and models of employee ownership presently in use in both academic and applied settings. It is not necessary or desirable to assert the primacy of a single meaning or model in order to achieve progress. The analysis provided here surfaces a range of assumptions about ownership that have heretofore been implicit in both scholarship and in practice. Making those assumptions explicit should prove useful to both scholars and practitioners of employee ownership.
Social implications
The concept of employee ownership enjoys a relatively broad appeal with the public. Among the academic disciplines that have trained their lights upon it, a more mixed reception prevails. Much of the academic and policy controversy derives from confusion about the nature and structure of employee ownership. This paper attempts to address that confusion by presenting a taxonomy of meanings and models that may prove useful for future research.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first efforts to comprehinsively map the various meanings and models of broad-based employee ownership.
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Joseph Blasi, Adria Scharf and Douglas Kruse
This viewpoint will present some statistical information about employee ownership in the US and interpret and analyze this information in order to address the barriers question…
Abstract
Purpose
This viewpoint will present some statistical information about employee ownership in the US and interpret and analyze this information in order to address the barriers question using material from qualitative interviews that the authors have conducted over the last ten years with practitioners in the field. There have been few actual empirical studies that sort out the different barriers to employee ownership. The authors have chosen to focus on employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) in the US because this is the principal example from which people could learn from, and the high prevalence of ESOPs plays an important role in the US. This overview will present interpretations of these interviews with conceptual arguments that cannot always be supported with either overwhelming empirical studies or arguments that conclusively eliminate one or other explanation. This is an initial attempt to bring some comprehensive treatment and data to this incipient discussion. This is based on an interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews without quantification or social survey methods used for measurement. The advantage of this approach is that it lays out a completely different level of analysis of the barriers to employee ownership in the US that is “closer to the ground” and more based in the views of front-line practitioners who are actually implementing it.
Design/methodology/approach
Analysis and interpretation of qualitative interviews.
Findings
The list of barriers that has been identified is not exhaustive. The preliminary conclusions are that (not necessarily in this order) limitations of investment banking models, poor supportive infrastructure, complexity and cost and regulatory issues, the lack of support by political parties and social movements, the sale of companies due to financial considerations and legal complexities and lack of clarity and resistance by Federal agencies are major barriers in the US. Various sectors of Wall Street has been amenable to employee ownership with the proper government and private sector support. What is needed now is a series of quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews of retiring business owners in closely held companies and of CEOs and CFOs in stock market companies in order to gauge the barriers that they believe are blocking their own action in the employee share ownership area. The Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing is working on such a research agenda at this time. In addition, with the future size of the US employee ownership sector at stake, a more intensive one-year interview project would make sense in order to present these different explanations to key actors and practitioners and ask them to provide evidence to prove or disprove the relevance of the different barriers.
Research limitations/implications
Empirical research which can resolve which barriers are more important than others is presented, when possible; however, studies that provide metrics to compare different barriers are not available and need to be carried out.
Practical implications
Other countries considering employee ownership policies can learn from the US experience. US policymakers and legislators can learn from an original, recent discussion of barriers.
Social implications
If employee ownership sectors are to be developed, a careful discussion of barriers is most relevant.
Originality/value
Original document by the authors based on original interviews.
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Jian Zuo, Bo Xia, Jake Barker and Martin Skitmore
This paper aims to identify the critical issues to be considered by developers and practitioners when embarking on their first green residential retirement project in Australia…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify the critical issues to be considered by developers and practitioners when embarking on their first green residential retirement project in Australia. With an increasingly ageing population and widespread acceptance of the need for sustainable development in Australia, the demand for green retirement villages is increasing.
Design/methodology/approach
In view of the lack of adequate historical data for quantitative analysis, a case study approach is used to examine the successful delivery of green retirement villages. Face-to-face interviews and document analyses were conducted for data collection.
Findings
The findings of the study indicate that one of the major obstacles to the provision of affordable green retirement villages is the higher initial costs involved. However, positive aspects were identified, the most significant of which relate to the innovative design of site and floor plans; adoption of thermally efficient building materials; orientation of windows; installation of water harvesting and recycling systems, water conservation fittings and appliances; and waste management during the construction stage. With the adoption of these measures, it is believed that sustainable retirement development can be achieved without significant additional capital costs.
Practical implications
The research findings serve as a guide for developers in decision-making throughout the project life-cycle when introducing green features into the provision of affordable retirement accommodation.
Originality/value
This paper provides insights into the means by which affordable green residential retirement projects for aged people can be successfully completed.
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