ABSTRACT Employee ownership trusts (EOTs) are an indirect form of employee ownership where a trust holds shares in a company for the collective benefit of employees. This paper explores the origins and legal structure of employee ownership trusts in the United States, which emerged in the 2010s following the rapid growth of a similar structure in the United Kingdom. I compare EOTs to two other forms of employee ownership, employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) and worker cooperatives. I identify five characteristics that distinguish employee ownership trusts: a regulatory environment based in trust law; the legal separation of employee returns and employee voices; limited but legally enforced employee control; structured profit-sharing with employees; and legal resistance to future sales. Grounded in these key characteristics, I identify the advantages and challenges of the model from the perspectives of the owners who are selling their businesses, the employees, and policymakers. I then offer recommendations for how each group can maximize those benefits and address those challenges, before concluding with suggestions for future research on this emerging form of ownership.

ABSTRACT This study investigates how employees in Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) companies perceive stewardship governance using survey data from 211 employee and owners across six U.S. ESOP firms and interviews with 10 employees. We examine how demographic factors and managerial status shape perceptions of stewardship climate. Stewardship was measured through psychological and situational mechanisms, including organizational identification, intrinsic motivation, personal power, involvement orientation, collectivist orientation, and power distance. Results show that managers report significantly higher stewardship perceptions than nonmanagers. Age and tenure were negatively associated with stewardship, while ESOP value was positively associated. A two-step cluster analysis revealed three distinct groups: nonmanagers with low stewardship perception, nonmanagers with high stewardship perception, and high stewardship managers. Qualitative findings supported these patterns. Overall, the study demonstrates meaningful within organization variation in stewardship perceptions and offers insights for strengthening employee ownership cultures.

ABSTRACT This paper investigates the association between outsourced production through global value chains (GVCs) and the globalization of exploitation in developing and developed countries. It assesses the impact of higher participation rates by countries in manufacturing GVCs on their labor shares of value added. In this paper, I find that a rise in a country’s participation rate index in manufacturing GVCs is associated with a decline in its labor share of value added for manufacturing workers in both developing and developed countries. I also construct two indices of GVC participation and find the decline in labor shares to be significantly associated with the market share or the importance of the country in the GVC. Workers in both developing and developed countries are squeezed by global capital for profits regardless of value addition and market share. This calls into question the neoliberal policy that has constructed export-oriented industrialization and economic upgrading in GVCs as a strategy for developing economies to become internationally competitive and for developed economies to remain competitive.

ABSTRACT Using a plant-level annual survey of industrial data from Indian manufacturing, our study investigates the differential effects of negative demand shocks across states with strict labour law regimes and those with more flexible regimes. We find that employment and wage adjustments in response to market shocks do not differ significantly between stricter and laxer labour law regimes, suggesting that employment protection (EP) does not significantly distort employers’ decisions to adjust labour costs, whether through layoffs or wage reductions. Further, we argue that India’s formal manufacturing sector already possesses considerable inbuilt flexibility, owing to weak enforcement of labour regulations and a growing reliance on contractual employment. Consequently, the role of labour reforms in generating sufficient manufacturing employment for the growing population may be less critical than the intensity of the policy debate suggests.

ABSTRACT This study examines Corporate Financial Literacy in worker cooperatives, a business context in which democratic governance and collective ownership shape financial decision-making. Whilst prior research suggests that individual-level financial literacy and external contextual factors affect cooperatives in ways similar to other organizational forms, this study shows that substantial differences emerge at the corporate level. Through 22 semi-structured interviews, this research develops a multidimensional conceptualization of Corporate Financial Literacy, which includes nuances and new elements, such as ownership structure, participation and transparency. The findings suggest that in cooperatives, financial literacy should be understood as a collective organizational capability, shaped by governance mechanisms, shared practices, and the financial competencies of the broader membership. The analysis reveals that cooperative Corporate Financial Literacy supports more informed and legitimate decision-making, strengthens internal transparency, and enhances organizational learning. Moreover, stronger Corporate Financial Literacy contributes to greater resilience, long-term survival, and, particularly in contexts of economic uncertainty, improved organizational performance.

ABSTRACT As a large cohort of owners in closely held small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) nears retirement, succession is becoming a systemic challenge with effects beyond individual firms. This paper reframes the ‘SME succession crisis’ as an institutional and developmental issue, arguing that ownership-transfer choices can either worsen or alleviate sustainability challenges. Through an integrative literature review, it synthesizes research on succession in closely held and family-owned firms, employee ownership (EO) models and sustainable development as a multidimensional objective spanning economic, social, and environmental outcomes. The review suggests EO can align with owners’ non-financial goals – continuity, legacy preservation, and protection of stakeholder relationships – while reducing market and governance frictions that often limit succession options. Empirical and institutional evidence links broad-based EO to greater employment stability during downturns and transitions, wealth-building opportunities with lower within-firm wage dispersion, and conditions supportive of innovation via incentive alignment and information sharing. EO may also reduce risks of working poverty by enabling asset accumulation without upfront worker capital and can produce local spillovers through stewardship, lower turnover, and participatory governance. This paper proposes a conceptual framework connecting succession pathways to sustainable development outcomes, identifying boundary conditions and outlining policy and research implications.

ABSTRACT Inspired by the recent national policy framework establishing the Canadian Employee Ownership Trust, we survey the landscape of broad-based employee ownership (BBEO) in Canada, focusing on the two prominent forms: worker co-operatives and broad-based employee share ownership. We conceptualize BBEO based on two inclusion criteria: the percentage of shares held by employees and the breadth of access to ownership opportunities. We also draw attention to two other relevant factors: the extent of employee control rights and degree of equality of share allocation. We then discuss the evolution and prevalence of the two forms of BBEO in Canada, utilizing limited available data and supplementing with illustrative examples. Finally, we call for an integrated and comparative research and policy agenda that bridges worker co-operatives and broad-based employee share ownership models.

ABSTRACT This article aims to analyze the impact of socio-historical transformations on cooperative identity, examining the strategic responses of the Mondragon cooperative movement. The paper highlights cooperative training policies as mechanisms in reinforcing the shared experience of cooperative members in the postmodern era. The analysis focuses on Zentzua, a recent initiative promoted by Laboral Kutxa -Mondragon’s cooperative bank- which is designed to strengthen cooperative values through training for all members. As one of the most successful cooperative enterprise initiatives in recent history, Mondragon offers a rich analytical perspective on the matter of identity when viewed retrospectively. We explore the Basque cooperative experience, evaluate Mondragon’s response to identity challenges overall, and examine the ongoing development of the Zentzua initiative. The paper provides an assessment of Mondragon’s institutional responses; and a brief discussion of Zentzua as an emerging new-generation identity policy. The conclusion outlines the implications for future studies on cooperative identity and education.

ABSTRACT This article examines whether Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) may possess structural advantages for artificial intelligence adoption compared to conventionally owned firms. Drawing on research identifying the organizational factors associated with AI adoption success—employee trust, participatory culture, training investment, and aligned incentives—I examine evidence that ESOP companies tend to demonstrate these characteristics. Preliminary empirical evidence, including recent research on automation adoption in employee-owned firms, provides suggestive support for this hypothesis, though substantial gaps in the research remain. This article examines both potential advantages and structural limitations of employee ownership for technology adoption and concludes by identifying priorities for a research agenda to test these propositions empirically. While the evidence is preliminary, I believe ESOPs warrant attention as an organizational form for managing AI adoption challenges.

ABSTRACT This article develops a systemic framework for macroeconomic democracy as an analytically defined and analytically operational and empirically assessable property of economic organization. The need to introduce this concept arises from the fact that democracy is today frequently used in vague, simplified, or populist forms, while political and economic democracy are often analysed separately and in isolation, without sufficient attention to their mutual systemic interdependence. The aim of the article is therefore to conceptualize macroeconomic democracy as a variable that makes it possible to assess the overall level of democratic organization of society in an environment where economic processes play a decisive role. Macroeconomic democracy is defined as the degree to which economic positions are shaped by accountable decision-making and demonstrable contribution rather than by inherited privilege, concentrated ownership, or structurally insulated power. The concept is decomposed into interrelated dimensions, including capital ownership, income distribution, inheritance, democratic governance within firms, and the functioning of the market mechanism. The analysis is historically and institutionally grounded and does not rely on econometric estimation.