Companies We Keep: Employee Ownership and the Business of Community and Place

by John Abrams, William Greider (Foreword)

Part memoir and part examination of a new business model, the 2005 release of The Company We Keep marked the debut of an important new voice in the literature of American business. Now, in Companies We Keep, the revised and expanded edition of his 2005 work, John Abrams further develops his idea that companies flourish when they become centers of interdependence, or "communities of enterprise."

Thoroughly revised with an expanded focus on employee ownership and workplace democracy, Companies We Keep celebrates the idea that when employees share in the rewards as well as the responsibility for the decisions they make, better decisions result. This is an especially timely topic. Most of the baby boomer generation--the owners of millions of American businesses-- will retire within the next two decades. In 2001, 50,000 businesses changed hands. In 2005, that number rose to 350,000. Projections call for 750,000 ownership transitions in 2009. Employee ownership--in both the philosophical and the practical sense--is gathering steam as businesses change hands, and Abrams examines some of the many ways this is done.

Companies We Keep is structured around eight principles--from "Sharing Ownership" and "Cultivating Workplace Democracy" to "Thinking Like Cathedral Builders" and "Committing to the Business of Place"--that Abrams has discovered in the 32 years since he cofounded South Mountain Company on the island of Martha's Vineyard. Together, these principles reveal communities of enterprise as a potent force of change that can--and will-- improve the way Americans do business.

Genres: Business, Economics, Design, Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published November 8, 2008

About the author

Business leader, speaker, and author John Abrams is dedicated to transforming business into a force for good. He co-founded South Mountain Company and served as its President for over four decades. In the late 1980s, he converted the company into a worker co-op and, in 2022, transitioned it to the next generation of leadership. Later that year, he founded Abrams+Angell with his late-in-life partner, Kim Angell, to help small businesses increase effectiveness and achieve social, environmental, and financial goals. He concentrates on guiding worker cooperative conversions. In June 2025, Abrams will release From Founder to Future: A Business Roadmap to Impact, Longevity, and Employee Ownership, which introduces the concept of CommonWealth Companies—organizations with common ownership, profits, power, information, and purpose—and provides a detailed guide on how to build and grow them.

Reviews

[Samantha Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

First half was great, second half was a bit draggy for me as it relied mostly on examples of his company & did pull as much from other industries. Overall though a very knowledgeable and well-written book!

[Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great insight into the Co-operative model from a different industry. Dug it.

[Nick Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

You don't go into a book like this expecting literature, and this is neither poignant nor always particularly specific. It's an explanation of how one unorthodox business works and how other businesses might follow suit. I was personally more interested in the details of employee ownership and so I skimmed sections on things like connecting to the land, but others might find those helpful or inspiring. Overall, this book did a great job of engaging me and explaining ownership concepts in a way that allowed me to imagine the gamut of possibilities.

[Sharon Hwang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Our world we be much different if other CEOs thought like John Abrams.

[Moses · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book. Great to know that a company out there cares more about its community then just making money. South Mountain has a fantastic model for employee ownership, and it should inspire companies out there to do the same.