Study On Employee Stock Ownership Plan In The United States

Employee Stock Ownership Plan（ESOP）is one of the worker mechansim whichprevalent in the United States.ESOP won official recognition in1974,there wererelated content about ESOP in The Employee Retirement Income Act of1974.Sincethen,ESOP got fast development.Since1974,ESOP has been developed for thirtyyears,during this time many enacted legislations contained provisions aboutESOP.Those provisions have played a positive role for the development of ESOP.Inrecent years,although the number of ESOP stabilized around7000,the number ofparticipants and the scale of ESOPs’ assets has increased.ESOP has positive role forthe increasing of employee benefits,reducing the gap between rich and poor,andenhancing the enthusiasm of employees.ESOP development experience of the UnitedStates has reference value for the development of employee ownership ofChina.Thus,it is necessary to understand the ins and outs of ESOP.There are four chapters in this article.Chapter1is an introduction，introducing thesignificance of the topic,contents and methods of the research,innovation andinsufficiencies of the article.Chapter2introduces the concept and some basiccharacteristics of ESOP,the definitions of ESOP are from some scholars.Meanwhile,5summarized characteristics of ESOP is introduced in this chapter.Chapter3discussessome relevant theories about ESOP,which include two-factor theory,the shareeconomy theory,the democratic firm theory，common governance theory,and workerself-management theory.Chapter4describes ESOP’s development background,currentdevelopment situation,types,operating mechanism,characteristics,economicperformance and limitations.