Ownership Culture in an Economic Crisis: Bitter Pill, Critical Opportunity

By Alex Moss, with Mike Shay and Ted Freeman

2009 represents the 35th anniversary of the passage of ERISA, the pension reform legislation that created ESOPs. One of the most important things that we have learned over this history, in company after company and research study after research study, is that employee-owned businesses perform better than their non-employee-owned counterparts, across industries and through upturns and downturns in the business cycle.

This article originally appeared in the February 2009 ESOP Report, a publication of The ESOP Association, 1726 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036.