SU's Hoffman Presents at Beyster Institute Symposium in Employee Ownership

SALISBURY, MD---Dr. Richard Hoffman of Salisbury University’s Management and Marketing Department in the Franklin P. Perdue School of Business recently presented at the 10th annual Beyster Institute Symposium in Employee Ownership in La Jolla, CA.

Hoffman discussed “Core Values of Employee-Owned Enterprises,” a paper co-authored with Dr. Frank Shipper, also of the Management and Marketing Department. The paper was based on in-depth cases studies of employee-owned firms the authors and their colleagues have researched for the past two decades.

“There is a growing interest in employee ownership because such firms appear to outperform traditionally owned and managed firms, and employee ownership is viewed as one way to help close the income gap in the U.S.,” Hoffman said.

Comparing eight firms, he and Shipper identified eight underlying values of employee-owned companies, including honesty and fairness, employee empowerment and engagement, democratic egalitarianism, accountability and merit, transparency, community and sustainability.

Businesses included in the study were the Maryland Brush Co., Mondragon of Spain, Atlas Container, Herman Miller, SRC Holdings, W.L. Gore & Associates, the John Lewis Partnership of the United Kingdom and Equal Exchange.

The authors’ findings have been corroborated by two other studies of firms that showed values such as merit, autonomy, empowerment and transparency are related to increased trust and financial performance, Hoffman said. An article on this research is forthcoming in the Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion.

The work of SU’s management and marketing faculty in studying employee-owned companies is widely recognized. Individuals from over 150 countries have used their research. For the past three years, it has been presented at the Business Fights Poverty conference at the University of Oxford, England.

Their research also has been referenced by national media, including MSNBC and The Wall Street Journal, and featured on Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations’s Curriculum Library for Employee Ownership, the largest global online library on employee ownership.

Multiple grants and awards to continue their work have been received, including Rutgers University’s prestigious Kevin E. Ruble Fellowship.

For more information call 410-543-6030 or visit the SU website.