Ongoing Curriculum Development

Entrepreneurial Ownership Course for Engineering Students

The College of Engineering, Center for Entrepreneurship has developed an Entrepreneurial Ownership course. Case studies on actual entrepreneurial situations have been written to enhance entrepreneurial skills and capabilities, improve understanding of the way alternative ownership decisions affect organizational dynamics, and take an in depth look at specific mechanisms that entrepreneurs can use to create positive ownership outcomes. The course was launched in winter 2011 and integrated the following cases into the new masters program: 1. Acme Life Sciences: To Sell or to Stay 2. Cataphora 3. Royal Rentals, by Moses Lee & Amy Goldstien including 4. SAIC (A, B) by William Hall & Moses Lee. Research is still in progress. More cases will be posted soon.

The recent funds donated to the Center for Entrepreneurship by the Beyster Fund will be used to develop additional curriculum development and to educate students about the approaches of employee ownership. More information about the Center for Entrepreneurship will be coming soon.

Management Flight Simulator Integrating Decisions on Compensation, Financing, and Product Development for Startup Firms

MIT Systems Dynamics Center is designing and testing a new "management flight simulator" that incorporates decisions on compensation, financing, and product development for a startup firm in the clean/green technology sector. A beta version is being piloted. Our Beyster Fellow continues to refine this tool during his second year of fellowship at Rutgers!

Teaching "A New Tool for Entrepreneurship Educators: Using Employee Ownership For Inspiration and Motivation in Entrepreneurship Ventures"

FED is supporting the Experiential Classroom, now at Oklahoma State University, as a test bed for the Beyster Institute to introduce employee ownership curriculum to leading entrepreneurship professors in the nation. This program provides an opportunity for piloting new employee ownership educational materials for entrepreneurship classes and curriculum.

Teaching Program Development on Employee Ownership

The Beyster Institute is developing educational materials and teaching employee ownership designed to support five constituents—students, faculty, business leaders of employee-owned (EO) companies, employees of EO companies, and professional services.

The Beyster Institute managed the completion and publication of academic case studies on Reflexite Corporation and LightWorks Optics in 2008 featured in the Curriculum Library on Employee Ownership (CLEO). Two new case studies available online – Namasté Solar and CALIBRE Systems, Inc. By producing well-written case studies that meet the academic standards expected of leading business schools, the results of this effort can significantly impact the awareness of employee ownership in business school curricula. More Information

University-Based Classes Taught:

Alabama A&M Research Institute • AAMURI 10thAnnual SBIR/STTR Small Business Conference • Building Small Business and University Collaborations

London School of Economics, British Academy Workshop • The Economics of Share Ownership and Incentive Pay: Findings and Policy Implications

MIT Sloan School of Management • Leadership and Employee Ownership: MIT Premier of the New Documentary –We the Owners • ES.571: Organizing and Financing Start-Ups for Growth and Sustainability • LF.200: Enterprise Leadership: One Size Does Not Fit All

San Diego State University, School of Management • MGT453: Creativity and Innovation

University of California, San Diego, Rady School of Management • MGT412: Lab to Market: Opportunity & Business Model Analysis • Innovation Through Federal R&D: From Concept to Commercialization

University of Michigan, School of Engineering • ENTR 415.001 Entrepreneurial Ownership

FED Sponsored Development Completed

Employee Ownership Research Network (EORN) Sponsorship to the European Academy of Management (EURAM) Conference

The EORN is a network of young academics from Europe and North America with interests in employee ownership. In 2007, they assembled for the annual conference of the European Academy of Management, presented nine papers, and met fellow academics with common interests. To learn more, contact Ed Carberry, a Beyster Fellow and Visiting Professor at Rutgers University.

New case studies highlight technology companies with broad-based ownership

Under grants provided by the FED, Prof. Frank Shipper, Ph.D., and colleagues write case studies that describe relatively small, but high-tech firms and their most critical resource, their employees. Some of the firms started as traditional firms, but all are now at least partially employee-owned. All are weathering the financial crisis better than most companies. Collectively, these cases provide common and distinctive ideas on how to develop a successful employee-owned culture.

Equal Exchange: Doing Well by Doing Good© - Case Notes, is about Rink Dickinson, Jonathan Rosenthal, and Michael Rozyne, all recent college graduates and working for a food co-op warehouse in the Boston area, questioning Fair Trade. Over the next three years they meet once a month to develop the plans and raise the capital for founding their own organization.

Employee Ownership and the Entrepreneurial Spirit: The case of HCSS, is about a company who designs and sells hi-tech software to the heavy/highway construction industry. The case describes a unique corporate culture that has made HCSS a business success in a highly competitive industry. The company’s employees discuss in detail why they bought into the concept of employee ownership while Mike Rydin, the firm’s CEO, explains the advantages and limitations of this successful business model.

Enginering the Future, One Employee at a Time : The case of KCI Technologies, Inc. is about a multi-disciplined engineering firm, has undergone a number of transformations over the last several decades. It started as a basement dream, was acquired and sold-off by a larger firm, and has emerged as a multi-million dollar employee-owned organization. At the end of the case, KCI is undergoing another transformation to better prepare for challenges, both internally and externally.

Principled Entrepreneurship and Shared Leadership: The Case Of TEOCO (The Employee Owned Company), describes how a provider of specialized software for the telecommunications industry developed its unique corporate culture focused on employee ownership and employee-centered Human Resource practices which fosters employee loyalty and motivates employee focus on organization objectives.

These cases and more such cases on employee ownership are available here. Another case is scheduled for completion in Fall 2012.

Case Studies on Employee Ownership: A Review (Download PDF)

Dr. Joseph Blasi of Rutgers University conducted a systematic review of case studies incorporating employee ownership—including profit/gain sharing, broad-based stock programs, and employee stock option plans (ESOP)—using the case study libraries of major U.S. schools that produce cases. The article was published by the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) in the Journal of Employee Ownership Law and Finance. Click to subscribe to this journal.

Case Study: Using Ownership Incentives in China

Tamara Carleton, a Ph.D. candidate at the Stanford School of Engineering has completed her case study, Using Ownership Incentives in China. In this study she follows a Silicon Valley startup called PeriRaden (not its real name) has built a new product in the mobile consumer space. Over the last two years, the founder and CEO Roy Weber funded the startup through personal savings and an angel round of investment. A dozen employees receive varying levels of salary and equity in the new company, which is a common practice for new ventures in Silicon Valley. Roy would like to expand PeriRaden’s operations into the Chinese market. With the support of the board, he plans to open a Chinese office and extend the ownership culture to the new staff in order to better motivate and retain them. Could he transplant Silicon Valley’s model of employee ownership without alienating his American team and complicating emerging operations in China?

To view the related webinar "Exporting Innovation: Translating Silicon Valley's Culture in China," please visit the Stanford Center for Professional Development.

To read recent publication titled "Three Lessons of Ownership" in the NCEO Employee Ownership Report November/December 2012, please visit NCEO Report.