A Stake in Place? The Geography of Employee Ownership and its Implications for a Stakeholding Society

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8963170
AutoresJane Wills (0000-0002-5123-0207, University of Southampton, autor correspondente)
Ano1998
Volume23
Fascículo1
Páginas79-94
Data de publicação1998-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoTransactions of the Institute of British Geographers (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0020-2754 • E-ISSN: 1475-5661
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.0020-2754.1998.00079.x
OpenAlexW2041457200
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas11
Referências citadas26

In recent years employee ownership has become a means by which some workers facing privatization, closure or takeover have attempted to defend their jobs and communities. Proponents of a ‘stakeholding’ society have advocated the widening of share ownership as a means of democratizing the economy, building partnerships and achieving consensus at work. But is employee ownership able to sustain local investment and industrial partnership? Through a detailed case study of a management and employee buyout in the railway industry, I suggest that the ability of employee ownership to fix investment in place may be enhanced by relations of ‘stakeholding’, increasing employee commitment to the firm and its future. In the case studied here, however, lack of employee power and finance effectively excluded most workers from the processes and philosophy of the buyout. The new ownership structure did little to reshape local relations between workers and those in control. While ownership cannot eradicate economic threats to community, it might, if used as a mechanism to promote new styles of management and employee commitment, foster long‐term success. It is argued that government and trade unions can do more to promote wider employee ownership and participation at work in the future

Business · Control (management · Economics · Employee engagement · General partnership · Government (linguistics · Investment (military · Management · Market economy · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Public relations · Work (physics · Finance · Industrial relations · Labor Movements and Unions · Law · Social Sciences and Governance · Transport and Economic Policies