Joseph Blasi, Douglas Kruse, and Aaron Bernstein-all leading experts on employee ownership-show how American companies would perform much better if they followed the lead of many high-tech firms and granted options to their entire workforce, rather than to just a tiny corporate elite. Using SEC data in a way never done before, they document the vast wealth executives have accumulated for themselves. It shows how the abuse of options has taken place not just at scandal-ridden companies such as Enron and WorldCom, but across the entire reach of corporate America.

In the Company of Owners argues that there's a better way. Broad-employee ownership through stock options offers a new model for U.S. corporations and American capitalism. The authors explain how employees and shareholders alike would benefit if most large companies adopted what they call the partnership capitalism approach-using options to encourage employees to think and act like owners.

A searing critique of business as usual in America's executive suites, this book offers a comprehensive vision for how stock options can enrich companies, employees, investors, and the U.S. economy as a whole. With its remarkable new evidence and astute synthesis, In the Company of Owners will change the way America thinks about stock options.