The performance of employee-owned businesses in Scotland: some preliminary empirical evidence

Brown, Ross; McQuaid, Ronald W; Raeside, Robert; Canduela, Jesus

Authors

Ross Brown

Ronald W McQuaid

Prof Robert Raeside R.Raeside@napier.ac.uk
Enhanced Associate

Jesus Canduela

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a growing focus on promoting the concept of employee-ownership of businesses within public policy. One of the strong drivers of this is an assumption that these businesses out-perform conventionally structured businesses. This paper highlights some of the findings from the first empirical examination of the growth performance of employee-owned businesses (EOBs) ever undertaken in Scotland. The study involved an in-depth examination of a small sample of employee-owned firms and a quasi-experimental comparison of these firms against a control group of nonemployee owned firms. The study confirms that the performance of EBOs is generally superior to that of non EBOs on a number of different variables. On average, employee-owned firms both employ more staff and exhibit higher turnover growth than their peers. The results of this analysis are discussed and the policy implications arising from the study are outlined.

Citation

Brown, R., McQuaid, R. W., Raeside, R., & Canduela, J. (2014). The performance of employee-owned businesses in Scotland: some preliminary empirical evidence. Fraser of Allander Institute Economic Commentary, 37(3), 108-123

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	Mar 13, 2014
Deposit Date	Apr 28, 2015
Publicly Available Date	May 2, 2017
Journal	Fraser of Allander Institute Economic Commentary
Print ISSN	2046-5378
Publisher	University of Strathclyde
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	37
Issue	3
Pages	108-123
Keywords	Fraser of Allander Institute; Scottish economy; Scottish business performance; employee owned business; Economic Theory; Commerce; Finance; Economics; Econometrics and Finance(all); Organizational Behavior; Human Resource Management;
Public URL	http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/7871
Related Public URLs	http://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/47188/