Unpacking the Meanings of Ownership

SUMMARY: If one thing is true, its that the word ownership has baggage – every person has a different conception of what it means. In this episode we speak with Chris Mackin, who has worked in the employee ownership community for decades, to talk about a recent article he published on the multiple meanings of ownership. We discuss how being aware of these multiple meanings can inform the work we do on employee ownership whether that be at the company level in the context of training or ESOP plan design, or at the societal level in the context of public policy making. Chris wears many hats, practitioner, researcher, teacher, and more recently public policy entrepreneur and our conversation reflects that. As should have been expected, an interview initially intended to talk about the recent article included numerous excursions into conversations including the movement for employee ownership in the mid 18th and 19th centuries, how capital ownership structures our current economy and the possibilities for expanding employee ownership, and the Employee Equity Investment Act (EEIA) a piece of legislation that (after the interview was recorded) was introduced with bi-partisan support in both the House and Senate.  

Link to article: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JPEO-10-2022-0019/full/html 

 

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