Leading Companies Online Magazine Archives
A Quiet Breakthrough
By Anthony I. Mathews, Beyster Institute Staff
I imagine you are pretty sick of hearing me tell you how grateful I am, but, in truth, I keep getting new reasons to add to the very long list of blessings in my life. Most recently, I am grateful for December 12, 2007. In my long career in employee ownership, that date may well become the most important - one of those dates that quietly ushers in a significant change that makes a real difference. What could possibly be so significant happening on this non-descript Wednesday in December? Well, on December 12, 2007, about a dozen of the members of the 2008 class of MBA candidates at the Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego, completed a course entitled MGT 219 Topics in Corporate Governance: Techniques in Equity Compensation. What is potentially earthshaking about this is that MGT 219 is the first ever (that we know of) formal course in Employee Ownership ever offered in an MBA program anywhere in the U. S. (By the way, we’d love to find out we are wrong about that, so please feel free to let us know of any other program that fits the description.)
The course that I was privileged to teach is a two unit elective skills-based course that covered topics including the full range of equity incentive and compensation techniques from synthetic equity programs to leveraged ESOPs. It took students deep into the nature of equity as a currency available to business to achieve entrepreneurial goals; the nature of wealth creation and the rationale for sharing ownership; the techniques for creating the “stake in the outcome” for employees that makes it all work; the factors that go into creating an “ownership culture” or a “community of stakeholders” and the reasons why it makes sense financially, personally and socially - a tall order for two units, but an incredibly satisfying experience for all of us who went through it.
So, why does all this make me so grateful? As you may recall from a piece I wrote in the beginning of 2007, I believe that the future of employee ownership is, in many ways, dependent on the academic community recognizing its importance. Three of our five critical constituencies are involved in one way or other in the academic community. In addition to students and professors of business and entrepreneurship, professional business advisors and entrepreneurs are equally dependent on the input of the academic community for their understanding of (and biases about) innovative approaches to engaging workforces and creating entrepreneurial businesses in an increasingly competitive world.
To the extent that the nation’s graduate schools of business begin to incorporate discussion about employee ownership into curricula, employee ownership’s likelihood of finding a permanent place in the economic landscape of our country (and the world) is increased exponentially. Our generation of educators has the opportunity and the obligation to help the coming generations of business leaders, teachers and advisors learn and think positively about employee ownership.
We’d really love to hear from anyone who is either doing similar things in their curricula or who would be interested in finding out how we have approached this very important project. We would, more than anything, love to be part of a large movement of educators who are taking up this challenge. As it is, I am personally gratified and grateful to see the light come on in the eyes of a group of our future business leaders as they begin to see the power of employee ownership in creating high-powered businesses.
With any luck, by this time next year, this will be just one of many such programs.
Wouldn’t that be great!
©2007 The Beyster Institute and its authors and their entities. All rights reserved.
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