Employee company

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An employee company is a company whose shares are owned by the employees.

Regardless of their legal form , employee companies are in the grassroots democratic tradition of a productive cooperative , even if in Germany they operate mainly as a GmbH or an employee AG . The decisive factor is the orientation towards the cooperative principles, which include the funding principle, the identity principle and internal democracy :

  • Funding principle : Economic productivity and the satisfaction of the needs of the employees are equal goals of the employee company.
  • Identity principle : the workforce is also the owner of at least the share capital with voting rights ; the amount of each individual employee's contribution remains limited.
  • Democracy principle : The internal organization of the company, right up to the management, is determined by equal democratic decision-making power and communal self-administration that goes beyond mere participation .

Known examples of employees companies are the solar technology company Wagner & Co . Former employee companies were the insolvent Photo Porst and the now listed software company PSI AG .

literature

  • Burghard Flieger: Productive cooperative as a progressive organization. Theory, case study, practical guides , Marburg: Metropolis, 1996, ISBN 3-89518-056-4 .
  • Jost W. Kramer: Productive Cooperatives - Utopian Idea or Realistic Perspective? in the series: Wismar Discussion Papers , Issue 12, 2008, ISBN 978-3-939159-60-5 .
  • Wolfgang G. Weber: Organizational Democracy - Suggestions for innovative forms of work beyond mere participation? , in: Zeitschrift für Arbeitswwissenschaft, 53rd year 1999, issue 4, pp. 270–281.
  • The Employee Society - Working with Co-Determination & Social , Contraste - Monthly newspaper for self-organization, issue 173, Feb. 1999.
  • Wolfgang G. Weber, Pier-Paolo Pasqualoni & Christian Burtscher (eds.): Economy, Democracy and Social Responsibility - Continuities and Breaks , Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2004.
  • Burghard Flieger: Employee companies: Entrepreneur teams with a future in: Michael Lezius: Employee participation: Visions for a society of partners , Wiesbaden: Gabler, 2002, ISBN 3409118942 , p. 278.
  • Wolfgang G. Weber & Thomas Höge: Democracy in the company: Terra incognita of organizational psychology? (Special issue democracy and participation in organizations), in: Wirtschaftspsychologie, 11th year 2009, issue 4, pp. 3–8.