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Employee ownership and the drive to do business responsibly: a study of the John Lewis Partnership

Author

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  • John Storey
  • Graeme Salaman

Abstract

As a means towards revealing both the strategic and the day-to-day operational practicalities of managing a ‘responsible business’, this paper reports on research conducted over an extended period in the John Lewis Partnership (JLP). This is a major retail organization based in the UK which operates at scale (90,000 employees and annual sales of £11 billion). It has sustained itself as an employee-owned enterprise for nearly a century, and it makes explicit claims to conduct itself in a ‘responsible manner’ which differs markedly from the notions of responsibility maintained by many conventional businesses. But what do these commitments mean in practice and what compromises, if any, do they entail or require, and crucially how are these tensions managed? We find that there are many lessons that conventional organizations could learn from this case, and yet we also show that the process of managing in this responsible way is a practical accomplishment that requires considerable conceptual and applied skills.

Suggested Citation

  • John Storey & Graeme Salaman, 2017. "Employee ownership and the drive to do business responsibly: a study of the John Lewis Partnership," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 33(2), pages 339-354.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxford:v:33:y:2017:i:2:p:339-354.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/grx022
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. David Vrtana & Anna Krizanova & Eva Skorvagova & Katarina Valaskova, 2020. "Exploring the Affective Level in Adolescents in Relation to Advertising with a Selected Emotional Appeal," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(19), pages 1-16, October.
    2. Ross Brown & Ronald McQuaid & Robert Raeside & Matthew Dutton & Valerie Egdell & Jesus Canduela, 2019. "Buying into Capitalism? Employee Ownership in a Disconnected Era," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(1), pages 62-85, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    capitalist system; firm strategy; firm objectives; organizational behaviour; decision making; business administration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • P1 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies
    • L1 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance
    • L2 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • M1 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration

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