UTA Shared Ownership Initiative

The Shared Ownership Initiative at UTA explores how power-sharing and profit-sharing shape organizations, including workplaces, churches, nonprofits, and cooperatives. 

What Is Shared Ownership? 

For fifty years, employee stock ownership plans have helped US employees build wealth in their workplaces. For much longer than that, cooperatives have empowered workers to become owners of their workplaces. In the last ten years, a new form of ownership has emerged: the perpetual purpose trust, with its associated philosophy of steward ownership. When outdoor gear company Patagonia converted to this structure in 2022, it helped accelerate growing interest in alternative forms of corporate ownership. 

More broadly, policymakers, business owners, researchers, and philanthropic funders across the US have converged on shared ownership (including employee ownership, steward ownership, and purpose trust ownership) as a set of mechanisms for fostering sustainable growth. Two North Texas companies, ACP International in Arlington and Text-Em-All of Frisco, for example, are now owned by a trust that ensures the benefit of their employees, and there are over 300 companies in Texas with employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). Other DFW companies like Venturity and Mojo Media Labs share power through open book management. 

Mission

The Shared Ownership Initiative at UTA explores innovative models of organizational ownership and governance. By studying structures such as employee ownership, cooperative enterprises, and trust-based models, the Initiative seeks to expand knowledge about approaches that improve organizational performance, reduce turnover, and support long-term sustainability while benefiting employees and other stakeholders, including at the 125 employee-owned companies in DFW.