On Success and Dissolution of the Labor-managed Firm in the Capitalist Economy

Globalization and Trust: Theory and Evidence from Cooperatives

“…This is quite in contrast to existing theories which predict that increased competition (Hart and Moore, 1998;Miyazaki, 1984) and times of uncertainty (Hart & Moore, 1998) -both of which are characteristic features of globalization -will weaken cooperatives. Admittedly, globalization is a complex phenomenon; we do it some violence by treating it in a rather spare way -as a conjunction of an expansion in market size, an increase in price competition (to represent increased competitive intensity), and an increase in the variance of performance (conditional on a given level of factor inputs).…”

Managing and resisting ‘degeneration’ in employee-owned businesses: A comparative study of two large retailers in Spain and the United Kingdom

“…As noted in the introduction, the literature on employee-owned firms has been dominated for more than a century by the 'degeneration thesis' (Potter, 1891;Webbs 1920;Meister, 1974Meister, , 1984Ben-Ner, 1984;Miyazaki, 1984;Bonin, Jones et al 1993). According to this view, mutuality is always a transient phase on a deterministic trajectory either away from mutuality in order to prioritise commercial goals, or towards further mutuality and accompanying commercial failure.…”

“…This occurred in different ways such as: employing a growing percentage of outside labour; concentrating power in managers' hands; selling parts of the company to outside shareholders; and disqualifying members from taking part in decision making and governing bodies. This view that cooperatives are bound to fail or to degenerate into capitalist forms of business has remained prevalent in the literature on employee owned firms for close to a century (Meister, 1974(Meister, , 1984Ben-Ner, 1984;Miyazaki, 1984).…”

The rise and fall of employee ownership in Estonia, 1987–2001

“…In the recent decades sophisticated formal models have occurred to describe the degeneration phenomenon (Ben-Ner, 1984, Miyazaki, 1984, but the point can also be made with a simple verbal explanation. Suppose that a manager of an employee-owned firm, who is for now assumed to be a loyal servant of his employeebosses, wants to hire an additional employee, and wonders whether to make this employee an owner.…”

“…It has also been argued that especially successful employee-owned enterprises may have a tendency to convert into investor ownership (Miyazaki, 1984;Ben-Ner, 1988). It may be more lucrative for employees to sell their shares to investors rather than new employees, since the former are likely to pay higher prices for shares.…”