A Better Way of Doing Business? : Lessons from The John Lewis Partnership PDF

This book offers a thoroughly researched and accessibly written account of the John Lewis Partnership.

It describes what the JLP is, how it works, and what other businesses can learn from it. The US/UK model of the firm, with its emphasis on shareholder value and its openness to the market in the buying and selling of businesses, is prone to a number of problematic consequences for employees, suppliers, and sometimes share-holders.

The JLP represents a contrast to this model - one that has implications beyond the small niche of mutually-owned firms.

The JLP has lessons for organizations that are unlikely to move towards the Partnership's distinctive shared ownership.

This bookidentifies these lessons. The key questions addressed include: how does the JLP work in practice?

What is the link between co-ownership, the JLP employment model, and the performance of the businesses?

What is the role of management in the success of John Lewis and Waitrose?

Are mutuality, co-ownership and business performance at odds?

What is the significance of democracy within the JLP? And probably most significantly: what are the implications, for policy-makers and for economic agents of the JLP?

This book is basedon detailed knowledge of the JLP and its constituent business gathered by the authors over a fifteen year period.

Their conclusion: that the JLP is more complex, even more impressive, and more interesting than its admirers realise.