The Impact of Employee Share Ownership

There has been a considerable amount of interest in employee share ownership schemes in the last few years, and this has been mirrored by an increase in publications relating to the subject. However, the authors argue that this literature leaves much to be desired, in particular in its implicit assumption that management and employee interests will converge with share ownership. The evidence from two of their case studies indicates a divergence between management objectives and employee responses. It also suggests that trade union attitudes to share ownership may be changing as well.