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Filling the Vacuum in New Management Practice? Lessons from US Employee-Owned Firms

In this paper we explore the way in which Anglo-American capitalism is evolving to meet the competitive challenges of a global economy. A wide range of scholars, policymakers, and business leaders now argue that the post-Fordist economy requires greater levels of employee involvement, participation, and empowerment, and a new set of management practices have been developed to secure this new culture of work. In this paper we explore these developments and point to the different ways in which terms such as involvement, empowerment, participation, and partnership can be mobilised in the workplace. Moreover, research suggests that new management practices and cultures of work have evolved in different ways across space, crafting an uneven geography of new management practice. In this regard, we look at the ways in which some employee-owned firms in Ohio, America, have been the arena for considerable managerial experiment in fostering employee participation. Although we acknowledge the limitations of employee ownership, empirical material from two majority employee-owned firms illustrates the way in which employees have been able to take a greater role in the business. Employee ownership is much further advanced in the United States than the United Kingdom, and there is scope for building on US experiences in the United Kingdom.