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

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

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/