Who Will Benefit from ESOPs?

[Excerpt] In the past decade, the number of worker-owned firms or ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans) has been growing geometrically. The national law granting tax incentives to ESOPs was passed in 1975, and since then several other pieces of legislation promoting employee ownership have passed at the federal level and in eight state legislatures. As a result of the technical assistance and industrial revenue bonds that some states now provide for ESOP development, and as a result of demonstrable tax, productivity, labor relations and even marketing advantages, business has taken note of the ESOP option. Several thousand ESOPs have started and scores of reports on employee ownership have appeared in the popular press and in business and trade publications

Gender and Administration

Summary Public administration in development has been a poor instrument for implementing gender policies. Rural development administration in particular has tended to be indifferently accountable to female ‘publics’ in agrarian economies. Conventionally, this particular feature of institutional failure is explained by the suggestion that public administrations reflect gender relations in society. This paper, however, argues that the role of public administration in the organization of gender provokes questions about the gender of organization. It sketches out the conceptual premises for a theory of the gender of organization, looking at the way organizational structures, cultures, and purposes institutionalize male dominance. This perspective may help illuminate the processes and relationships through which other inequalities, such as those of class, race, and the North?South divide, are reproduced in public administration. Résumé Le Genre et l'insuccès des institutions dans le développement: l'organisation du Genre et le Genre dans l'organisation Au sein du développement, les administrations publiques ont constitué un outil peu utile pour la mise en oeuvre des politiques relatives au genre. Les administrations de développement rural notamment ont eu tendance à comptabiliser de manière indifférente les ‘publics’ féminins dans les économies agraires. Classiquement, et notoirement, cette caractéristique de l'insuccès des institutions est expliquée par la suggestion que les administrations publiques reflètent les rapports entre les genres dans la société. Le présent article, par contre, revendique que le rôle des administrations publiques dans l'organisation des genres soulève certaines questions le genre dans l'organisation même. L'auteur ébauche les prémisses d'une éventuelle théorie du genre dans l'organisation, et examine comment les structures, les cultures et les objectifs mêmes de ces organisations tendent à institutionnaliser la dominance masculine. Cette perspective veut aider à mettre en lumière des procédés et des rapports par l'influence desquels d'autres inégalités, par exemples celles des classes, des races et du partage nord?sud, viennent à se reproduire dans les administrations publiques. Resumen El Género y las fallas institucionales en el desarrollo: la organización del género y el género de la organización La administración pública en el desarrollo ha sido un instrumento muy pobre para la implementación de criterios relativos al género. En las economías agrarias en particular la administración del desarrollo rural tiende a ser poco responsable para con el ‘público’ femenino. Tradicionalmente, este rasgo característico del fracaso institucional se explica sugiriendo que la administración pública refleja las relaciones entre los sexos en la sociedad. Este artículo, sin embargo, argumenta que el papel de la administración pública en la organización del género suscita interrogantes sobre el género de la organización. Se bosquejan las premisas conceptuales para una teoría del género en la organización, analizando la forma en que las culturas, estructuras organizativas y objetivos institucionalizan la dominación masculina. Esta perspectiva puede arrojar luz sobre los procesos y relaciones a través de los cuales otras desigualdades — clase, raza, la división Norte?Sur — se reproducen en la administración pública

Revisiting globalization challenges and opportunities in the development of cooperatives

Cooperatives have gained prominent attention in recent years as strategic elements to achieve sustainable economic development and greater social cohesion in the context of neoliberal globalization. This article explores, theoretically, the current challenges and opportunities for cooperatives to develop successfully in the globalizing economy. To this end, we provide an analytical, critical review of the key bibliography concerning some fundamental aspects that shape the relationship between economic globalization and cooperatives, an issue that has been generally neglected by previous literature. Three key fields are addressed: 1) the viability of cooperatives, based on their strengths and possible weaknesses, under current globalization; 2) the role of these organizations in promoting the local development and stability of local communities; and 3) the tensions and potentialities that internationalization entails for cooperatives. Based on the analytical review and the organization of the literature, we propose an agenda for further research. This includes some hypotheses and strategies for testing them that would be essential to assess the role of cooperatives in economic globalization, and sheds light on key areas for future research that could provide a better understanding of the complexity surrounding the relationship between globalization and cooperatives

The possibilities and perils of critical performativity: learning from four case studies

The relevance of academic research to organizational practice is increasingly a concern for management scholars (Currie, Knights, & Starkey, 2010; Starkey & Madan, 2001), and wider social scientists (Chatterton, Hodkinson, & Pickerill, 2010). In particular there have been calls for "engaged scholarship" (Van de Ven, 2007) to "bridge the relevance gap" (Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001) and create meaningful knowledge that is relevant and useful for practice (for a debate see Boyer, 1997; Deetz, 2008; Learmonth, Lockett, & Dowd, 2012; Van de Ven, 2007; Zundel & Kokkalis, 2010). Such concerns about relevance have also become prevalent within critical management studies (CMS), with regular calls for critical academics to intervene in organizational practice (see for instance Alvesson & Spicer, 2012; Clegg, Kornberger, Carter, & Rhodes, 2006; Koss Hartmann, 2014; Voronov, 2008; Walsh & Weber, 2002; Willmott, 2008; Wolfram Cox, Voronov, LeTrent-Jones, & Weir, 2009). Recently this has been labelled the "performative turn" (Spicer, Alvesson, & Kärreman, 2009) in which critical scholars seek make their work more relevant to organizations (Wickert & Schaefer, 2014, p. 19). Yet, despite the regularity of these calls for intervention, there have been few actual examples of engagement by critical scholars directly into management practice. Without such examples, our understanding of the possibilities of engagement by critical scholars into practice is thus limited, and CMS is left susceptible to the criticism that it is more comfortable discussing radicalism than actually intervening (Koss Hartmann, 2014)

Workplace democracy and social change

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How are values handled in voluntary agencies?

[About the book] This book brings together papers by voluntary sector scholars which were specially commissioned to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the LSE's Centre for Voluntary Organisation. The papers address key issues currently facing UK voluntary sector managers including: What place do values have? How is accountability achieved? How can organisational change be handled? Are governing bodies needed? What kind of training is appropriate? Should volunteers be managed? And what does contracting do to voluntary agencies