A growing body of research shows that employee-owned companies outperform traditional companies on a range of measures, especially during economic downturns – but is has this pattern continued through covid-19? On this episode we speak with Nancy Wiefek and Nathan Nicholson of the NCEO about two recent research projects that seek to answer this very question. Spoiler alert, employee-owned companies continued to outperform traditional companies, provide increased employment stability, and higher levels of retirement security throughout covid.
As research director at the NCEO, Nancy Wiefek manages ongoing research projects and explores new ways to make the research relevant to our members. She brings experience studying broad trends in politics and the economy and brings that to bear in placing the research in context. Nancy graduated summa cum laude from Temple University with a B.A. in political science and a minor in Russian. She earned an M.A. and Ph.D. at Penn State University in political science with a focus on survey methods. Her book The Impact of Economic Anxiety in Postindustrial America, published in 2003 by Greenwood Publishing, used original survey data to examine the impact of emotions and economic anxiety on political beliefs and opinions. She is a Joseph Cabral and Robert W. Edwards Fellow through the Rutgers Institute of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing. In her free time, she loves to be around animals and the ocean, and catch up on the latest scientific findings on the role of emotions in human and animals.
As part of the NCEO's research team, Nathan leads projects to provide the employee ownership community with actionable data and to make the case for employee ownership as good public policy. Nathan has a professional background in public policy analysis, nonprofit administration, and legal research. Raised in upstate New York, he received his BA from Cornell University in 2012. In his free time, he is an enthusiastic musician, traveler, reader, and cook.
Prairie Capital Advisors, itself an ESOP company, provides a full suite of services to middle-market companies, with a focus on ESOPs. Services include ESOP Sell-side and Trust-side advisory services, ESOP valuations, M&A, sustainability and Mature ESOP consulting.
The Owners at Work Podcast is a continuation of the biannual Owners at Work Newsletter which ran for 19 years (1990-2019). We are hoping to continue the same conversations and focus on providing updates on everything employee ownership. We plan to interview practitioners with expertise in different facets of employee ownership, academics doing new and interesting research, and most importantly, individuals who have a personal experience with employee ownership, including current and former employee-owners, mid-level to C suite management, and selling owners.
We want to produce a show that engages with relevant questions and provides practical lessons and information. We want this podcast to include the voices of those who practice employee-ownership each and every day. To that end we want to hear from you! We want to highlight what you are doing, whether you are an employee-owned company, a practitioner, or researcher.
***Please reach out via email: oeoc@kent.edu
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