Resource Library

The Democracy at Work Institute is building a comprehensive Resource Library that will include a wide range of materials, including academic papers, start-up toolkits, curriculum samples, actual documents from existing worker cooperatives, and more. The topic list below provides a map of the resources that will be available. We are also continuing to publish additional resources on a daily basis.

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Recently Added Resources

Worker Owned Cooperatives and the Ecosystems that Support Them

Author(s): 
Rachael Tanner
Year: 
2013
By emphasizing wealth creation, communities can not only cultivate streams of income, but also build wealth. Through collectively owned and democratically governed assets, communities can build wealth. Economic development policy and practice should emphasize wealth creation. Employee ownership, through worker cooperatives is one way to build wealth. But worker cooperatives are rare in the United States; this is because there is not a supportive cooperative ecosystem.

Does Cooperation Equal Utopia?

Author(s): 
Anonymous
Year: 
2010
By means of qualitative analysis, this paper examines the organisational cultures underlying three worker cooperatives in the San Francisco Bay Area. 20 workers were interviewed and the transcripts were subsequently analysed along Edgar Schein's cultural framework. The findings show that overall the culture of these worker cooperatives is people-centred: the wellbeing of the workers comes first and the concern for making a profit comes only second.

Employee-Ownership Briefing Paper 7.2

Author(s): 
Ownership Associates, Inc.
Year: 
2003
One key rationale for the creation of ESOP law in 1974 was to share wealth with the workers who helped create wealth. Today, many companies use the wealth sharing aspect of their ESOPs as an effective retention and recruitment tool. But just how effective a means of distributing wealth are ESOPs? Two studies, one conducted in Washington State and one in Massachusetts, have looked at the wealth consequences of ESOPs.

Employee-Ownership Briefing Paper 1.3

Author(s): 
Ownership Associates, Inc.
Year: 
2003
In the 28 years since Congress established Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs), over 10,000 U.S. companies have adopted and maintained ESOPs—dozens of studies have evaluated the effects of ESOP on company performance. After reviewing the research literature, Dr. Douglas Kruse concluded: “25 years of research shows that employee ownership often leads to higher-performing workplaces and better compensation and work lives for employees.” Study 1 (below) indicates that this “ownership effect” averages 2 to 3% per year on a variety of measures.

Concept Paper: Asset Building through Cooperative Business Ownership: Defining and Measuring Cooperative Economic Wealth

Author(s): 
Jessica Gordon Nembhard
Year: 
2008
Many cooperative studies scholars and co-op practitioners believe that successful cooperative businesses create wealth and help their members accumulate wealth and/or assets. Individual asset building or wealth accumulation is assumed to be an outcome from cooperative ownership, in addition to individual and community benefits such as job creation, education and training, income generation, affordable quality products, social capital development, and economic stability.

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