This study examined the causal link between the job ownership structure and increased commitment and motivation in worker co-operatives. The separation of job ownership from management and the effective alignment of the interests of job managers and the owners have generated a lot of discussion in the past. Proponents of the agency theory have, on the one hand, recommend actions that maximize shareholders value. On the other hand, the adoption of sweeping statements of purpose by many business organizations, have led to the recommendation of the stakeholder and the stewardship theories as being the appropriate guides to corporate actions. However, given the complexities of modern business organizations where the expectations of the workers and job owners are increasingly getting blurred, reliance on these theories does not provide a satisfactory solution. Survey questionnaires were the main instrument for primary data collection in this study. Semi-structured follow-up interviews were also conducted to supplement the method. The research design included three phases of data collection and analysis. Phase one was a qualitative method of informal, semi-structured interviews while phase two was a quantitative survey, the findings of which were used to construct further semi-structured follow-up interviews with worker co-operative stakeholders. The study concluded that the job ownership structure adopted by worker co-operatives has resulted into increased commitment and motivation which has in turn lead to increased productivity and improved performance. Article visualizations
