ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to inventory the few available studies on employee buyouts, in order to have a better vision of this particular process. The first difficulty that researchers face when they study employee buyouts is the variety of forms that the phenomenon covers. Employees who embark on the process of buying out the company that employs them may benefit from the favour of predecessors. Predecessors can be more inclined to transfer their companies to known people than to outsiders. Legal incentives can also be added to the list of factors motivating the predecessor, since in France, in companies with less than 250 employees, the manager must inform employees about the possibilities of buying out the company at least once every three years. A transition period between predecessor and employee ownership is often considered essential in the business transfer literature, although it does not always take place.
