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Mondragon: Re: COGALL: Preconference discussions
Dear Dan
Might you like to add my public policy booklet published in July by the
London based New Economics Foundation as a Pre-conference paper? It
provide one way to achieve the objective of the conference to "Fix
Globalisation: Make it more inclusive, democratic, accountable and
sustainable".
I assume that conference can consider such a contribution even if
the author is not present?
Because my pocket book on A NEW WAY TO GOVERN is based on "Ownership
Transfer Corporations" as discussed at the conference strategy
planing meeting last year it is relevant to the following discussion
groups:
- "Industrial Homestead"
- EO in Privatization
- Broadening EO Transnationally
- Building EO at the National Level
- Building EO at the Subnational Level
- Economics of Ownership Group
- Economics of Empowerment
- Mondragon Group
The pocket book uses Mondragon as a way to demonstrates A NEW WAY TO
GOVERN to counter the problems of globalisation as well as avoiding the
need for corporatisation, privatisation, public/private partnerships and
the unexpected collapse of major publicly traded corporations like
Enron. I have pasted in below the abstract of the pocket book
posted today by the Social Science Research Network from where both the
hard copy version and the working paper version can be down downloaded
without charge.
---------------------------------------------------------
A New Way to Govern: Organisations
and Society After Enron"
New Economics Foundation Pocketbook 6,
2002
BY: SHANN TURNBULL
Macquarie University, Sydney
Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper
Collection:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=319867
Contact: SHANN TURNBULL
Email:
Mailto:STURNBULL@MBA1963.HBS.EDU
Postal: Macquarie University, Sydney
c/o P.O. Box
266 Woollahra
New South
Wales 1350, AUSTRALIA
Phone: +612 9328-7466
Fax: +612 9327-1497
Paper Requests:
Contact Central Books at
Mailto:mo@centralbooks.com
or tel: +44
(0)20 8986 4854 price GBP 4.99.
ABSTRACT:
This pocketbook was commissioned to identify ways for avoiding
the unexpected failure of large publicly traded enterprises and
overcoming the shortcomings in government, and/or privatised
organisations. It describes the fundamental problems of
organisational hierarchies in either the public or private
sectors to perform effectively and reliably with the
ever-increasing complexity and dynamism in modern societies.
Network organisations with multiple control centres or boards
are identified as providing requisite variety of information and
control channels to flexibly govern complexity. Provided
self-governing network organisations are kept to human scale
they reduce information overload and bounded rationality. The
division of power into a number of centres introduces checks and
balances to facilitate self-governance and allows individuals to
act in a contrary way that are inhibited in command and control
hierarchies. The ability of individuals to be
competitive/cooperative, suspicious/trusting,
self-interested/altruistic and so on introduces natures' check
and balances to efficiently introduce self-regulation.
Competition for excellence arises from contestability for
control within organisations rather than between organisations
through the market place to harness the self-interest of
executives to further the public good. Networks of network
organisations achieve economies of scale and scope, provided
that no higher level network undertakes activities that are
better carried out by a lower level self-governing unit. This
principle of subsidiary function is illustrated by the nested
networks that make up the stakeholder control enterprises around
the town of Mondragon in Northern Spain that operate more
efficiently that investor owned firms. Like a mutual enterprise
the Mondragon firms do not require equity investors.
All viable firms by definition become independent of investors
but no firm can exist without employees, customers and suppliers
who are described as strategic stakeholders. Tax incentives are
proposed for shareholders to agree to change corporate
constitutions so that all ownership rights are transferred to
citizen stakeholders over a twenty-year period. This eliminates
any overpayment of investors after 20 years to democratise the
wealth of nations. Firms transferring ownership would sponsor
new ownership transfer "offspring" firms to raise the new funds
required to expand the size and scope of their operations by
establishing network relationship with their offspring. This
process would convert multi-national corporations into nested
networks of firms owned and control by local citizens who
supported their operations by being a strategic stakeholder.
While investors are eliminated from the new UK proposals for the
running railways and some water supply firms, their governance
system is identified as being inconsistent with
self-regulation.
The booklet was developed from a working paper with the
abbreviated name of "A New Way to Govern" that can be downloaded
from http://ssrn.com/abstract_id=310263. The working paper
contains academic references, tables and figures not included in
this edited version published in hard copy to promote a public
policy debate.
JEL Classification: D7, D8, G3, L1, L3
Kind regards
Shann
At 06:46 AM 31/8/2002, you wrote:
Dear Capital Ownership Group Participant,
There are now 3 COG Scholar Papers written and ready to be discussed prior to the
October 9-11, 2002, conference in Washington DC.
1. COG Scholar: Race Mathews
Title: MONDRAGON: PAST PERFORMANCE AND FUTURE POTENTIAL
URL: http://cog.kent.edu/lib/MathewsMondragon_(COG)_g.htm
Working Group where feedback can be discussed: mondragon@cog.kent.edu
2. COG Scholar: Vic Thorpe
Title: EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP - A POLITICAL ALTERNATIVE OR A PIG IN A POKE?
URL: http://cog.kent.edu/lib/ThorpeEOALTERNATIVE1.htm
Working Group where feedback can be discussed: orglabor@cog.kent.edu
3. COG Scholar: Ravi Naidoo
Title: EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALISATION: A DEVELOPING COUNTRY PERSPECTIVE
URL: http://cog.kent.edu/lib/NadooEmployee%20ownership_COGdraft0702.htm
Working Group where feedback can be discussed: eonation@cog.kent.edu
If you need help subscribing to any of these lists, just let me know.
--
Dan Bell
International Program Coordinator
Ohio Employee Ownership Center
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242
(330) 672-0333 << Direct number!
(330) 672-3028 general office number
(330) 672-4063 fax
dbell@kent.edu
http://www.kent.edu/oeoc/
http://cog.kent.edu
Shann Turnbull Ph.D.
P.O. Box 266 Woollahra, Sydney, Australia, 1350
Ph: +612 9328 7466 office; +612 9327 8487 home; Fax: +612 9327 1497;
Life long E-mail: sturnbull@mba1963.hbs.edu Alternate:sturnbull@optusnet.com.au
with other papers & book at http://cog.kent.edu/library.html
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