Owning the Work · Chapter Twelve

The Roots Under the Stand

Ammanuel Santa Anna · ORCID 0009-0008-3244-0306

Chapter Twelve of Owning the Work: Employee Ownership, Profit Sharing and What the Evidence Shows.

Abstract

A single tree in a field is easy to describe. It has a trunk, a crown, a root system that spreads about as wide as its branches. A stand of the same species is harder, because some of what holds it up cannot be seen. Underground, the roots of neighbouring trees can fuse, and what one tree draws up can reach another. The chapters before this one described, for the most part, a single tree. They traced employee ownership and profit sharing to their origins (Chapter 2), set out where they go wrong (Chapter 3), read them through the house's lens (Chapter 4) and worked a composite bakery through line by line (Chapter 5). This chapter looks at the stand: the other ideas in this lineage that share roots with ownership, and what changes when they are read together.

Cite this chapter

Santa Anna, A. (2026). The Roots Under the Stand. In Owning the Work. Luminous Prosperity Inc. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23989014

@incollection{santaanna2026owning12,
  author    = {Santa Anna, Ammanuel},
  title     = {The Roots Under the Stand},
  booktitle = {Owning the Work},
  chapter   = {12},
  publisher = {Luminous Prosperity Inc.},
  year      = {2026},
  doi       = {10.5281/zenodo.23989014},
  url       = {https://business.hautelumiere.life/library/owning-the-work/12-the-roots-under-the-stand/}
}

References

  1. Freeman, R. B., Kruse, D. L., & Blasi, J. R. (2008). Worker Responses to Shirking under Shared Capitalism (NBER Working Paper 14227). https://doi.org/10.3386/w14227
  2. Kim, E. H., & Ouimet, P. (2014). Broad-based employee stock ownership: Motives and outcomes. The Journal of Finance, 69(3), 1273–1319. https://doi.org/10.1111/jofi.12150
  3. Doucouliagos, C. (1995). Worker participation and productivity in labor-managed and participatory capitalist firms: A meta-analysis. ILR Review, 49(1), 58–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/001979399504900104
  4. Blair, M. M., Kruse, D. L., & Blasi, J. R. (2000). Employee Ownership: An Unstable Form or a Stabilizing Force? SSRN. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.142146

Every chapter of Owning the Work

  1. Chapter OneWho Holds a Sharedoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989565
  2. Chapter TwoA Share in the Placedoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989566
  3. Chapter ThreeEvery Egg, One Basketdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989567
  4. Chapter FourThreats From, Threats Todoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989568
  5. Chapter FiveA Bakery's Arithmeticdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989569
  6. Chapter SixFour Houses That Kept Their Purposedoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989570
  7. Chapter SevenTwo Beginnings in 1956doi:10.5281/zenodo.23989571
  8. Chapter EightThe Field Manualdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989572
  9. Chapter NineKnowing Whether It Workeddoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989573
  10. Chapter TenThe Hard Conversationsdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989574
  11. Chapter ElevenOne Person's Sharedoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989576
  12. Chapter TwelveThe Roots Under the Standdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989014
  13. Chapter ThirteenWhat Moves Between the Rootsdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989016
  14. The WorkbookEvery Tool, and Ninety Daysdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989020

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  2. Ecstatic Economics · The Luminous Business MethodologyChange That Staysdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989557
  3. Ecstatic Economics · The Luminous Business Methodology · Book TwoEarneddoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989328
  4. Ecstatic Economics · Volume IEnough by Designdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989348
  5. Ecstatic Economics · The Luminous Business MethodologyLuminous Integral Leadershipdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989368
  6. Ecstatic Economics · The Luminous Morphic Marketing SeriesLuminous Morphic Marketingdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989389
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  10. Ecstatic Economics · Volume IIIThe Economy That Keeps Becomingdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989451
  11. Ecstatic Economics · Volume VThe Embedded Marketdoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989474
  12. Ecstatic Economics · Volume VIThe Gain Was Always Shareddoi:10.5281/zenodo.23989502
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The licence

Free to read, share, quote, translate and teach, non-commercially, for ever, under the Luminous Library Licence 1.0. Every other right is the Author’s. Deposited on Zenodo in the Luminous Prosperity community.