Foundation For Enterprise Development

Curriculum Development in Progress



Entrepreneurial Ownership course for engineering students

The College of Engineering, Center for Entrepreneurship is developing an Entrepreneurial Ownership course. Case studies on actual entrepreneurial situations will be 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 will be launched in winter 2011 and integrated into the new masters program.

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!

Oklahoma State University

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.

New case studies highlight technology companies with broad-based ownership

Under a grant provided by the FED, Prof. Frank Shipper, Ph.D., and colleagues shall write 3 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.

Development on cases 1 and 2 are now completed. See right column.

Case 3, scheduled for April 2011, shall feature TEOCO.  More on this at a later date.

UCSD/Rady School of Management, The Beyster Institute

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.

FED Sponsored Development Completed

Aspen Institute
UCSD/Rady School of Management, The Beyster Institute

Academic case studies of employee-owned companies

The Beyster Institute managed the completion and publication of academic case studies on Reflexite Corporation and LightWorks Optics in 2008. These are now available on the online Curriculum Library on Employee Ownership (CLEO). Two new case studies will also be available online soon – 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

Cornell University

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

Employee Ownership and the Entrepreneurial Spirit: The case of HCSS, is the first of three cases to be written by Prof. Frank Shipper, Ph.D., Professor of Management & Chair of Management & Marketing Departments and colleagues at Salisbury University.  Heavy Construction Systems Specialists, Inc. (HCSS) 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.

Case 2, KCI, 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.

These cases and more such cases on employee ownership are available here.

Rutgers University

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.

Promoting Education

The FED strives to increase awareness of ownership and participative management principles among students, entrepreneurs, and business leaders through educational curricula.

image