
Beyond the Bottom Line
Socially Innovative Business Owners
Jack Quarter(Author)
Praeger Publishers Inc
Published on 30. September 2000
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-1-56720-414-8 (ISBN)
Description
Quarter examines business owners who use their firms as laboratories for social innovation. After providing an introduction to this phenomenon in an historical perspective and discussing the 19th-century British industrialist Robert Owen, he provides ll case studies of contemporary innovators from six countries-the UK, US, the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, and New Zealand.
The case studies fall into two broad groups. The first involves business people who promote innovative ownership and decision-making strategies such as donating their shares to a trust and thereby creating a company without shareholders so that employees can assume greater control; creating a worker co-operative; and transferring ownership to employees through an employee stock ownership plan. The second group of case studies involves innovative efforts at changing the relationship to the surrounding community through creating socially and environmentally responsible businesses. Quarter concludes by looking at the potential and limitations of this phenomenon for building a social movement. A provocative look at the social organization of work that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of industrial organization and to business leaders examining innovative ownership arrangements.
The case studies fall into two broad groups. The first involves business people who promote innovative ownership and decision-making strategies such as donating their shares to a trust and thereby creating a company without shareholders so that employees can assume greater control; creating a worker co-operative; and transferring ownership to employees through an employee stock ownership plan. The second group of case studies involves innovative efforts at changing the relationship to the surrounding community through creating socially and environmentally responsible businesses. Quarter concludes by looking at the potential and limitations of this phenomenon for building a social movement. A provocative look at the social organization of work that will be of interest to scholars and researchers of industrial organization and to business leaders examining innovative ownership arrangements.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
United States
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 17 mm
Weight
508 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-56720-414-8 (9781567204148)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
09/2000
1st Edition
Praeger Publishers Inc
€82.49
Available for download
Person
JACK QUARTER is a Professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto, where he specializes in the study of workplace democracy, co-operatives, non-profits, community development, the social economy, and social investment. His recent books include Canada's Social Economy: Co-operatives, Non-Profits and Other Community Enterprises and Crossing the Line: Unionized Employee Ownership and Investment Funds.
Content
Introduction Robert Owen: The Historical Tradition The John Lewis Partnership The Scott Bader Commonwealth Edenburg Electric Allied Plywood The Baxi Partnership and the Tullis Russell Group Harpell's Press The Body Shop Inmate Enterprises and K. T. Footwear Wilkhahn An Interpretive Framework References Index