Structuring Firms to Benefit Low-Income Workers: An Employee Ownership Case Study

Janet Boguslaw and Sarah Taghvai-Soroui

A chapter in Employee Ownership and Employee Involvement at Work: Case Studies, 2018, vol. 18, pp 153-177 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: This chapter and case study examine how and which structured elements of an employee-owned business contribute to building the economic security and asset wealth of the lowest-wage and skilled employees of the firm. It paves the way for greater understanding about how intentionally structured workplaces can address wealth inequality and economic security through income and non-income opportunity systems. The study draws upon qualitative interviews with four members of management, two plant managers, and 12 low-income employee-owners. Company documents and confidential employee data were provided for direct research analysis. Interviews took place at company locations, and covered employees from all shifts. Employee ownership structures provide an important tool for advancing policy support and management practices to rebuild the wealth building benefits of work for low-income workers. To ensure confidentiality, the study is anonymized and does not directly draw on the worker-owner interviews. This limits the opportunity to demonstrate the effect of structure on workforce; nonetheless, the empirical data tell an important story. Expanding wealth inequality and economic precarity among low- and moderate-income workers has raised broad debates about how shifts in the structure of work, through new business, capital, and ownership structures, may be contributing to these social problems. The employee benefits of employee ownership are not fully studied. This case contributes to understanding how employee ownership may reduce gender and racial wealth gaps, build family well-being, and become a model for structuring opportunity for those traditionally left out of the economic mainstream.

Keywords: Asset development; gender wealth gap; racial wealth gap; employee stock ownership plan (ESOP); wealth accumulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (text/html)
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... 5-333920180000018005
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.110 ... d&utm_campaign=repec (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:aeapzz:s0885-333920180000018005

DOI: 10.1108/S0885-333920180000018005

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory & Labor-Managed Firms from Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Emerald Support ().