ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors examine one resilience signal – the launch of a new Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP). They propose that the decision to launch a new ESOP not only conveys to external stakeholders, especially capital markets, what top managers think about the prospects of the firm but also provides information about what the employees, who often have first-hand knowledge of the state of the firm, think about the future prospects of the firm and their willingness to invest their own capital in building a sustainable future for the business. This chapter contributes to our understanding of how managerial actions that enable employees to increase their ownership stake in the organization can be a resilience signal, and it draws upon organizational research in signaling theory, stakeholder theory with an emphasis on changes in ownership, and research on the psychology of ownership and employees’ actions based on their outlook on the firm.
