Beyond the Corporation
Humanity Working
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- £9.99
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
* Beyond the Corporation is a book for our times. Offering inspiration and vision in the wake of financial Armageddon, it is the story of ordinary people who share the ownership of the businesses where they work.
* The enterprises come in all sizes: from companies employing just a few dozen people, to large corporations: John Lewis in the UK, employing 70,000 'partners'; Mondragon, a highly entrepreneurial group of over 100 businesses in Spain, employing more than 100,000; and many examples in the US, some employing tens of thousands. It would be hard to imagine a better informed, more involved or more enthusiastic set of employees - sharing the efforts of making their companies successful, and sharing all of the rewards. Unusually in the corporate world, they control their own destinies - a situation beyond the dreams of most working people.
* Erdal takes a hard look at those who insist, in the teeth of the evidence, that shared ownership will never work - a sorry tale, he argues, of prejudice masquerading as economic thinking. The book contains detailed case studies as well as interviews with a range of people, whose inspiring stories of success fly in the face of received wisdom. These successes include: high levels of productivity; sustained rapid growth; fast-moving, innovative responses to changing worlds; high levels of investment aimed at long-term prosperity; and, above all, the sheer happiness employees experience in working together in businesses that they own together, sharing the wealth that they create.
* At a time when the 'orthodox' corporate economy has been badly shaken, Beyond the Corporation makes essential reading.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Erdal was born into a generations-old family-owned business papermill and looks philosophically at the value of an employee-owned business versus other traditional business models. Early on, Erdal tips his hat as to preference: in a traditional corporate structure, "Why should employees bother to do anything other than the absolute minimum to keep their jobs?" Erdal, chairman of the Employee Ownership Trust, spends the balance of the book examining why employee ownership is the best corporate model. He provides plenty of compelling reasons: ownership breeds responsibility, encourages innovation, and ensures commitment. Erdal's book could be influential but it's written at a level which will reach mainly committed academics or business managers. On top of that, many of Erdal's references are British, which have less resonance on this side of the Atlantic. Still, Erdal's interviews with employees from a British employee-owned department store, John Lewis, are informative and brilliantly underscore the author's message. Readers who make it to the end of the book will be rewarded with even more meaningful reasons for transitioning to employee-owned businesses: their employees work harder, are less stressed, and may even live longer. Blake Friedman Literary Agency (U.K.).
