But there are caveats. An ESOP is unlikely to do much for a company if it is not combined with some form of participatory management such as The Great Game of Business, the system of open-book management developed by Jack Stack and his colleagues at SRC Holdings Corporation, in Springfield, Missouri. Ownership, after all, is not just about having an equity stake. There are responsibilities that come with it. If employees don’t understand those responsibilities or have the opportunity to act on them, the ESOP is at best a retirement plan for them.
