Mark Harbeke

As longtime readers of this blog know, one of the 9 themes we uncovered among the 15 Top Small Workplaces for 2008 is that their workplace team building and employee engagement best practices geared toward instilling an ownership mentality among employees have a direct impact on their bottom line.

That said, it's nice to see some increased awareness in the area of employee ownership best practices research. As Dr. Beyster announced on his blog yesterday, the Aspen Institute's Center for Business Education is offering a cash award of $1,500 for a dissertation proposal on shared capitalism through employee ownership. Here are some of the particulars from the Aspen CBE site:

The purpose of this award is to identify innovative research in business or business-related disciplines that is concerned with the impact or effectiveness of shared capitalism and/or broad-based ownership strategies in combination with participative workplace practices. The recipient(s) will receive recognition at an awards ceremony hosted by the Aspen Institute to be held in New York City in the fall of 2009, introductions to professionals and/or professors in the winning students' fields of interest, and a stipend in the amount of $1500. No budgetary restrictions will be placed on the use of these funds.

If you're going to be writing a dissertation and would like to take on this topic, click here to apply for the Shared Capitalism through Employee Ownership Award.

UPDATE 3/5: Aaron Juckett reports on The One-Stop ESOP Blog that the aforementioned Dr. J. Robert Beyster, through his Foundation for Enterprise Development, is establishing an employee ownership professorship at Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations. Rutgers says this is the world's first professorship in employee ownership. (Read the university's press release here.)

With so much activity on this topic on March 3, maybe the day should get its own designation of Employee Ownership Day. :)

What are your thoughts on these two items? What do you do as part of your team building and employee engagement activities to encourage your people to think and act like an owner?