Securing The Future of America’s Critical Industries
A newsletter from the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program. Subscribe for highlights from the 2025 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum.
In a time of supply chain shocks, the offshoring of important sectors, rising global competition, fast-paced technological change, and conflicts over trade, the question of who owns and stewards America’s businesses and jobs in key industries such as manufacturing has never felt more urgent.
In this issue of “From the Forum,” we’re highlighting a conversation from the 2025 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum on how employee ownership can help preserve vital industries, retain jobs, strengthen local communities, and build a more competitive America. The Forum — co-hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program and the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University — brought together leaders and practitioners to explore how ownership can reshape work and workplaces.
In this panel from the 2025 Employee Ownership Forum, speakers examine the role of manufacturing and high-tech sectors in the US economy, as well as the risks associated with a wave of retiring business owners and uncertainty around the succession of these businesses. They discuss how employee ownership can not only help prevent closures, offshoring, and the loss of US assets and technology — but also strengthen the performance and innovation of these industries while retaining the important jobs they often provide to their communities. Click here for the full discussion.
“Create Amazing: Turning Your Employees into Owners for Explosive Growth” by Greg Graves
“How Did Employee Ownership Firms Weather the Last Two Recessions?: Employee Ownership, Employment Stability, and Firm Survival in the United States: 1999-2011” by Fidan Ana Kurtulus and Douglas L. Kruse in UPJohn Institute for Employment Research, 2017
“Three Ways Clients Benefit from Employee-Owned Companies” by Alissa Schuessler, Burns & McDonnell
Video: Watch Chris Griswold’s Big Idea for Employee Ownership, from the 2024 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum
The purpose of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing is to study the various models that have emerged and will emerge of employee ownership shares and profit shares in the corporation and society of the United States and around the world.
The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy.
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