Employee Ownership and Values

When people work in an employee ownership company with a strong culture, is there a tendency for their values to converge? Anecdotally, the answer would appear to be "yes," given the intense nature of the work environment and the shared goals toward which people work. Recent research by Marilyn Cain, Jason Stansbury, and David Cook, however, concludes that "the six employee ownership best practices, whether individually or together, had no influence on the sharedness of values among employees, among managers, or between managers and employees." The research is based on the Rokeach values survey and includes data from over 800 people at 20 organizations. NCEO members will be able to read more in the September-October issue of the Employee Ownership Report.