This book exanines a wide range of practical methods for increasing employee involvement and brings together the best of each approach into a comprehensive model for implementing participative management at all levels of an organization. Based on his analysis of 25 years of research and practical experience, Lawler spells out the benefits and disadvantages of such common techniques as self-managing work teams, job enrichment, and gainsharing. And he provides numerous case examples of employee involvement programs at such companies as Procter and Gamble, Honeywell, General Motors, IBM and Ford.

The introduction of co-operative societies into the Irish countryside during the late-nineteenth century transformed rural society and created an enduring economic legacy. Civilising rural Ireland challenges predominant narratives of Irish history that explain the emergence of the nation-state through the lens of political conflict and violence. Instead the book takes as its focus the numerous leaders, organisers, and members of the Irish co-operative movement. Together these people captured the spirit of change as they created a modern Ireland through their reorganisation of the countryside, the spread of new economic ideas, and the promotion of mutually-owned businesses. Besides giving a comprehensive account of the co-operative movement's introduction to Irish society the book offers an analysis of the importance of these radical economic ideas upon political Irish nationalism. -- .

The Brand-Driven CEO demonstrates how senior leadership can use their brand to align and guide the behaviors, decisions, and operations of their entire organization in order to drive value. David Kincaid delivers practical assessments and game plans for senior executives and managers across functional areas, clarifying the confusion between brand and marketing management. He introduces the "New 4Ps" of brand management: People, Process, Intellectual Property, and Partnerships. This paradigm shift equips business leaders with a new approach to managing growth, profitability, risk, and sustainable value. Using real-life, current case studies from today's fastest growing and most valuable brands - including Starbucks, Apple, and BMW - this book reveals the critical importance of managing big businesses as integrated business systems. The Brand-Driven CEO includes criteria to conduct your own brand self-assessment and a stepby-step roadmap that can be applied to help transform your brand and its management.

Between 1865 and 1890, in the aftermath of the Civil War, virtually every important American labour reform organization advocated ""co-operation"" over ""competitive"" capitalism and several thousand co-operatives opened for business during this era. The men and women who built co-operatives were practical reformers and they established businesses to stabilize their work lives, families and communities. Yet they were also utopians - envisioning a world free from conflict where workers would receive the full value of their labour and freely exercise democratic citizenship in the political and economic realms. Their visions of co-operation, though, were riddled with hierarchical notions of race, gender and skill that gave little specific guidance for running a co-operative. This text examines closely the experiences of working men and women as they built their co-operatives, contested the meanings of co-operation and reconciled the realities of the marketplace with their various and often conflicting conceptions of democratic participation. Steve Leikin provides new theories and examples of the failure and success of the co-operative movement, including how the Gilded Age's most powerful labour organization, the Knights of Labor, collapsed in the face of the expanding industrial economy. Dealing with a critically important yet largely ignored aspect of working-class life during the late 19th century, this text brings crucial aspects of the co-operative movement to light and should be a useful study for all scholars of American history, labour history and political science.

Jim Paul's meteoric rise took him from a small town in Northern Kentucky to governor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, yet he lost it all -- his fortune, his reputation, and his job -- in one fatal attack of excessive economic hubris. In this honest, frank analysis, Paul and Brendan Moynihan revisit the events that led to Paul's disastrous decision and examine the psychological factors behind bad financial practices in several economic sectors.

This book -- winner of a 2014 Axiom Business Book award gold medal -- begins with the unbroken string of successes that helped Paul achieve a jet-setting lifestyle and land a key spot with the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. It then describes the circumstances leading up to Paul's $1.6 million loss and the essential lessons he learned from it -- primarily that, although there are as many ways to make money in the markets as there are people participating in them, all losses come from the same few sources.

Investors lose money in the markets either because of errors in their analysis or because of psychological barriers preventing the application of analysis. While all analytical methods have some validity and make allowances for instances in which they do not work, psychological factors can keep an investor in a losing position, causing him to abandon one method for another in order to rationalize the decisions already made. Paul and Moynihan's cautionary tale includes strategies for avoiding loss tied to a simple framework for understanding, accepting, and dodging the dangers of investing, trading, and speculating.

Co-operatives are found in all industry sectors and almost all countries around the world. However, despite their significant economic and social contributions, the academic literature has largely ignored these important businesses. This book is a detailed examination of the co-operative enterprise business model and the factors that help to enhance its sustainability and resilience, as well as those forces that lead to its destruction. The authors synthesize theories of business model design and strategic and marketing management to examine the forces that sustain and enhance co-operative enterprise. Organised into six themes and focussed on five key research questions, the chapters explore case studies from around the world and across a wide range of industries and aim to stimulate debate. This comprehensive work expands upon existing research whilst introducing new concepts, and will appeal to both academics and practitioners. It will also interest managers of co-operative enterprises and those who seek to better understand this unique type of business.

This book contains an Open Access chapter Scholarship in management and strategy is paying increasing attention to the domain of aesthetics. Companies routinely make aesthetic choices and there is growing recognition that aesthetic considerations are fundamental for successful performance in competitive markets. Stylistically sophisticated products may appeal to demanding customers, yielding higher profit margins. Style and beauty can also be applied toward enriching organizational cultures, informing leadership visions or motivating employees to defy conventions in designing new products. Aesthetics and Style in Strategy constitutes the first systematic survey of the interface between the aesthetic and strategic domains. Motivated by the rise of aestheticism in contemporary culture, it lays the foundations for an "aesthetic" turn in strategy, which interrogates the use of aesthetic features as a source of competitive advantage and provides examples of connecting design and engineering, style and technology. The "aesthetic turn" is not simply about creating value, but about sharing value among employees and infusing organizational activities with a purpose that transcends principles of efficiency. Volume 42 of Advances in Strategic Management documents the variety of ways in which the useful and the beautiful can be brought together, making a valuable contribution to the sustainability of business in the 21st century.

Co-operatives are found in all industry sectors and almost all countries around the world. However, despite their significant economic and social contributions, the academic literature has largely ignored these important businesses. This book is a detailed examination of the co-operative enterprise business model and the factors that help to enhance its sustainability and resilience, as well as those forces that lead to its destruction. The authors synthesize theories of business model design and strategic and marketing management to examine the forces that sustain and enhance co-operative enterprise. Organised into six themes and focussed on five key research questions, the chapters explore case studies from around the world and across a wide range of industries and aim to stimulate debate. This comprehensive work expands upon existing research whilst introducing new concepts, and will appeal to both academics and practitioners. It will also interest managers of co-operative enterprises and those who seek to better understand this unique type of business.

Transcending Capitalism Through Cooperative Practices identifies and analyzes sustainable alternatives to capitalism by examining five diverse enterprises, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Green Bay Packers football team, and the Lusty Lady sex club.

The current book on Nework Governance contributes to the literature by offering new perspectives on network goals and performance, inter-organizational learning and trust in alliances, corporate governance issues in cooperatives, governance of cross-border retail networks, contract design and governance innovations in cooperatives and fanchising.

"The financial crisis is destroying wealth but is also a remarkable opportunity to uncover the ways by which debt can be used to regulate the economic system. This book uses four case studies of cooperatives to give an in-depth analysis on how they have braved the crisis and continued to generate wealth"--

Co-operatives provide a different approach to organizing business through their ideals of member ownership and democratic practice. Every co-operative member has an equal vote regardless of his or her own personal capital investment. The contemporary significance of co-operatives was highlighted by the United Nations declaration of 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives. This book provides an international perspective on the development of co-operatives since the mid-nineteenth century, exploring the economic, political, and social factors that explain their varying fortunes and transformation into different forms. By looking at what co-operatives are; how they have changed; the developments as well as the persecutions of the co-operative movement; and how it is an important force in promoting development and self-sufficiency in non-industrialized areas, this book provides valuable insight not only to academics, but also to practitioners and policy makers.

Siddharth Kara's "Sex Trafficking" has become a critical resource for its revelations into an unconscionable business, and its detailed analysis of the trade's immense economic benefits and human cost. This volume is Kara's second, explosive study of slavery, this time focusing on the deeply entrenched and wholly unjust system of bonded labor.

Drawing on eleven years of research in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Kara delves into an ancient and ever-evolving mode of slavery that ensnares roughly six out of every ten slaves in the world and generates profits that exceeded $17.6 billion in 2011. In addition to providing a thorough economic, historical, and legal overview of bonded labor, Kara travels to the far reaches of South Asia, from cyclone-wracked southwestern Bangladesh to the Thar desert on the India-Pakistan border, to uncover the brutish realities of such industries as hand-woven-carpet making, tea and rice farming, construction, brick manufacture, and frozen-shrimp production. He describes the violent enslavement of millions of impoverished men, women, and children who toil in the production of numerous products at minimal cost to the global market. He also follows supply chains directly to Western consumers, vividly connecting regional bonded labor practices to the appetites of the world. Kara's pioneering analysis encompasses human trafficking, child labor, and global security, and he concludes with specific initiatives to eliminate the system of bonded labor from South Asia once and for all.

As the world of work and jobs is more uncertain than ever because of various trends impacting it, including the rise of robotics and the gig economy, Cooperatives and the World of Work furthers the debate on the future of work, sustainable development, and the social and solidarity economy of which cooperatives are a fundamental component. Throughout the book, the authors, who are experts in their respective fields, do not limit themselves to praising the advantages of the cooperative model. Rather, they challenge the narrow understanding of cooperatives as a mere business model and raise debate on the more fundamental role that cooperatives play in responding to social changes and in changing society itself. The book is unique in tracing the historical connection between cooperatives and the world of work since the end of the First World War and the recent shifts and restructuring in enterprise and the workplace. It presents a redefinition of the very concept of work, focusing on organizational innovation. This book is published in recognition of 100 years of the International Labour Organization, and gathers together research from leading experts who were brought together at an event co-hosted by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

As the world of work and jobs is more uncertain than ever because of various trends impacting it, including the rise of robotics and the gig economy, Cooperatives and the World of Work furthers the debate on the future of work, sustainable development, and the social and solidarity economy of which cooperatives are a fundamental component. Throughout the book, the authors, who are experts in their respective fields, do not limit themselves to praising the advantages of the cooperative model. Rather, they challenge the narrow understanding of cooperatives as a mere business model and raise debate on the more fundamental role that cooperatives play in responding to social changes and in changing society itself. The book is unique in tracing the historical connection between cooperatives and the world of work since the end of the First World War and the recent shifts and restructuring in enterprise and the workplace. It presents a redefinition of the very concept of work, focusing on organizational innovation. This book is published in recognition of 100 years of the International Labour Organization, and gathers together research from leading experts who were brought together at an event co-hosted by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).

This reference guide looks at ESOPs, seen primarily as a method of improving corporate results through motivating employees, but which also has a role in corporate finance as a provider of capital in a highly tax efficient manner. Multinationals wishing to spread shares internationally and quoted companies wanting to capture equity for share incentives can successfully utilize an ESOP scheme and it is therefore anticipated that implementation of such schemes will follow the pattern of the US and will become a familiar tool of corporate finance.;The legal and accounting ramifications are explored in this book. This text provides a reference source for the Chief Executive, Treasurer, and executive officers in medium to large companies in the UK but will also be of relevance to their banking, legal and tax advisors. The author is currently a member of the Centre for Economic Performance (LSE) and the Centre for Business Strategy (LBS) and is currently working on a large scale survey of employee ownership in the UK.

This volume is an examination of the origins, characteristics and performance of employee-owned firms. It focuses on firms that have converted to either partial or full employee ownership using recent institutional, fiscal and legal innovations. Based on five years of empirical research, this is a topical contribution to recent debates on the challenging nature of employment.

Design-oriented firms such as Apple and IDEO have demonstrated how design thinking can affect business results. However, most managers lack a sense of how to use this new approach for issues other than product development and sales growth. "Solving Problems with Design Thinking" details ten real-world examples of managers who successfully applied design methods at 3M, Toyota, IBM, Intuit, and SAP; entrepreneurial start-ups such as MeYou Health; and government and social sector organizations, including the City of Dublin and Denmark's The Good Kitchen.

Using design skills such as ethnography, visualization, storytelling, and experimentation, these managers produced innovative solutions to such problems as implementing strategy, supporting a sales force, redesigning internal processes, feeding the elderly, and engaging citizens. They elaborate on the challenges they faced and the processes and tools they used, providing a clear path to implementation based on the principles and practices laid out in Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie's "Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers."

This 12th edition of "Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labor-Managed Firms" contains a stimulating collection of original papers spanning a wide variety of topics. Part 1 of the volume contains three papers on the subject of job design and organizational performance, covering the determinants of multiskilling from a theoretical perspective and also the empirical effect of multiskilling and teams on financial performance. Part 2 of the volume concerns compensation, worker attitudes, and productivity. Papers in this section cover the effect of rules and costs on employer-provided health insurance, majority ownership and executive compensation, worker attitudes towards different forms of employee ownership and variable pay, and an analysis of performance-related pay, unions, and productivity in Italy. Part 3 contains three studies of worker cooperatives and nonprofit organizations in Italy, Spain, and Uruguay. This volume concludes with a debate on free trade and the ecological effects of alternative socio-economic systems.

In previous work, Gregory K. Dow created a broad and accessible overview of worker-controlled firms. In his new book, The Labor-Managed Firm: Theoretical Foundations, Dow provides the formal models that underpinned his earlier work, while developing promising new directions for economic research. Emphasizing that capital is alienable while labor is inalienable, Dow shows how this distinction, together with market imperfections, explains the rarity of labor-managed firms. This book uses modern microeconomics, exploits up-to-date empirical research, and constructs a unified theory that accounts for many facts about the behavior, performance, and design of labor-managed firms. With a large number of entirely new chapters, comprehensive updating of earlier material, a critique of the literature, and policy recommendations, here Dow presents the capstone work of his career, encompassing more than three decades of theoretical research.

The historical relationship between capital and labor has evolved in the past few decades. One particularly noteworthy development is the rise of shared capitalism, a system in which workers have become partial owners of their firms and thus, in effect, both employees and stockholders. Profit sharing arrangements and gain-sharing bonuses, which tie compensation directly to a firm's performance, also reflect this new attitude toward labor.
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Shared Capitalism at Work" analyzes the effects of this trend on workers and firms. The contributors focus on four main areas: the fraction of firms that participate in shared capitalism programs in the United States and abroad, the factors that enable these firms to overcome classic free rider and risk problems, the effect of shared capitalism on firm performance, and the impact of shared capitalism on worker well-being. This volume provides essential studies for understanding the increasingly important role of shared capitalism in the modern workplace.

The current co-op movement in the U.S. seeks to be a structural alternative to capitalism; this book seriously questions whether the current movement can accomplish that task. Carl Ratner offers a rich and unique political analysis and critique that provides helpful insights into the practice and problems of the contemporary cooperative movement. Noting that co-operators tend to view their work as apolitical because the explicit influence of national political parties is absent, the author constructs a compelling argument that co-operators nonetheless operate unwittingly with implicit political conceptions of freedom, opportunity, human rights, social participation, decision-making, power, and governance that are shaped and limited by the capitalist economic system. Ratner demonstrates how a more radical, anti-capitalist, socialist form of cooperation and co-ops are needed to realise the fulfilling potential of cooperation and co-ops. For those wishing to understand and advance the cooperative movement, this book is essential reading.

The liberal state is dead, long live the partner state Across the world, the liberal nation state is on its knees. Rising inequality, deep political polarization, and the pervasive power of corporations are tearing apart the social contract and threatening to crush democracy. Civilizing the State traces the history and development of the liberal state and its changing role from the enabler of capitalism to protector of citizen welfare, to its hollowing out and capture by corporate and elite interests rendering it unfit to address the compounding crises of inequality, injustice, ecological collapse, and loss of legitimacy. Author John Restakis explores citizen-powered alternatives and experiments in co-operation, deep democracy, solidarity economics, and commoning from Spain, India, the global peasant movement, and the emerging stateless democracy of Rojava rising from the wreckage of the Syrian civil war. The final section views the current crisis as an opportunity to reimagine the state not as handmaid to predatory elites but as a partner state that promotes equity, economic democracy, co-operation, and human thriving, driven by deep democracy and a fully sovereign civil society. Incisive, penetrating, and inspirational, this is essential reading for all engaged citizens with a stake in co-creating a better future for all.

The Italian Cooperative Sector is amongst the largest in the world comprising over 60,000 cooperatives from all sectors of the economy directly employing 1.3 million people. Cooperatives created close to 30 percent of new jobs in Italy between 2001 and 2011 demonstrating that democratic cooperative enterprises can successfully operate in a market economy combining economic success and social responsibility. These offer a viable alternative to profit maximising enterprises and an opportunity to create a more pluralist and democratic market economy. The Growth of Italian Cooperatives: Innovation, Resilience and Social Responsibility comprehensively explains how the Italian cooperative sector has managed to compete successfully in the global economy and to grow during the global financial crisis. This book will comprehensively explain how the Italian cooperative movement has managed to grow into a large successful network of cooperatives. It will examine the legislative framework and their unique business model that allows it to compete in the market as part of a network that includes central cooperative associations, financial and economic consortia, and financial companies. It will explore cooperative entrepreneurship through a discussion of the formation of cooperative groups, start-ups, worker-buyouts and the promotion of entirely new sectors such as the social services sector. Finally, The Growth of Italian Cooperatives examines how cooperatives have managed the GFC and how their behavior differs from private enterprises. It will also analyze the extent to which cooperatives compete while still uphold the key cooperative principles and fulfil their social responsibility. This book is an interdisciplinary study of cooperative development and is designed to inform members of the academic community, government, public policy makers and cooperative managers that are primarily interested in economic democracy, economics of the cooperative enterprise, cooperative networks and economic development, cooperative legislation, democratic governance, job creation programs, politics of inclusion and how wealth can be more equitably distributed.

Berkshire Hathaway, the $500 billion conglomerate that Warren Buffett built, is among the world's largest and most famous corporations. Yet, for all its power and celebrity, few people understand Berkshire, and many assume it cannot survive without Buffett. This book proves them wrong. In a comprehensive portrait of the corporate culture that unites Berkshire's subsidiaries, Lawrence A. Cunningham unearths the traits that assure the conglomerate's continued prosperity. Riveting stories of each subsidiary's origins, triumphs, and journey to Berkshire reveal how managers generate economic value from intangibles like thrift, integrity, entrepreneurship, autonomy, and a sense of permanence. Rich with lessons for those wishing to profit from the Berkshire model, this engaging book is a valuable read for entrepreneurs, business owners, managers, family business members, and investors, and it is an important resource for scholars of corporate stewardship. General readers will enjoy learning how an iconoclastic businessman transformed a struggling textile company into a corporate legacy.