Advice & Blog
The Moral DNA of employee owned companies
Posted on August 12, 2015
There is growing interest in employee ownership as an alternative to more conventionally used business models such as PLCs, LLPs and family owned companies. The Nuttall Review of 2012 examined barriers to the more widespread use of employee ownership and the UK Government has demonstrated its support for the employee trust model of employee ownership, with the Finance Act 2014 providing tax reliefs for those wishing to adopt this business format. Part of that interest is because of the impact that employee ownership can have on how the business is managed. Employee ownership is often associated with high levels of motivation and engagement, and with impressive company longevity. We wanted to explore whether it is also connected to different ethical standards.
This paper presents interim findings
from an ongoing research project, with
data from a survey of 829 employees
– managers and non-managers
alike – across 14 employee owned
companies. It is unique in providing
insights into companies owned through
the employee trust model of ownership
in particular.
The findings have been aggregated
into one anonymous group and
analysed to see if there are any
correlations which may indicate that
the moral standards of employees
from employee owned trust companies
differ from other sectors and may
have a significant impact on business
performance. The results are
compared with employees in other
sectors, using the MoralDNA 1
database, and to the sample of
managers surveyed for the previous
CMI reports in this series.
MoralDNA was designed by Roger
Steare, Visiting Professor in the
Practice of Organisational Ethics at
Cass Business School in London, and
Pavlos Stamboulides, a Chartered
psychologist and Director of
Psycholate in Athens. Since its launch
in 2008 more than 130,000 people
from over 200 countries and working
in 47 occupations have completed
MoralDNA. The authors worked with
CMI to publish two reports in 2014:
Managers and their MoralDNA and
The MoralDNA of Performance.
