Employees as Owners

One might also wish to ask whether employees who are overly invested in their own companies are more inclined to break the law. I'm specifically thinking of the Enron mess. A major airline currently in desperate financial shape most certainly wasn’t helped much by its employee owners. Why didn’t these folks think twice before further jeopardizing their way of earning a living? Alas, it seems that in both instances greed hindered their ability to realize that they were endangering themselves.

Should we pass laws limiting stock ownership by employees? Absolutely not! The private sector will resolve this issue.

Answering the discussion question: profit (or revenue) sharing, performance bonuses, and the old fashioned; firing incompetents.

But I really like the implications of Marxian exploitation in employee ownership of the means of production.

ESOPs are a terrible idea. Your entire career PLUS the bulk of your assets all depend on the fortunes of a particular company in a particular industry. Think of all the undiversified Enron blokes.... Unemployed AND penniless.

Stock incentives are good... But once they vest, employees should diversify out. Companies just need to pay more attention to performance metrics, aligning worker expectations with company goals... rewarding good stuff.

A radical, new way to view the work vs shirk issue, is appeal to an employee's sense of self efficacy in their job. If an employee feels that their job is postively affecting the way in which a business is run, I would assert that employees will then be more prone to take risks. I believe this is goes from the top all the way to the bottom of an organization.

While I do not believe that ESOPs are the best way to incent creative and innovative work from employees, I do not believe that ESOPs should be entirely eliminated. I think companies should encourage their employees to have a diverse set of holdings. The organization should make it incumment upon itself to educate all of its employees about the nature of equity ownership. This is a major task, but if an employee has the impression that their work is valuable and the organization expresses its interest in the financial success of the employee, then the employee is incented to work in two ways. 1). The employee's work adds values to the company and is recognized as adding value 2). The employee realizes that the company desires to see its employees succeed personally.

That seems to me to be a poweful combinantion.