Crowdownership
Crowdownership is a concept of community-based owning and managing of organizations and especially businesses. The customers are shareholders of the corporate body behind the product or service they are using. Typically each participant owns an equal share of the company and decides by voting on important stategic decisions, product development and operations.[1]
General principles[edit]
Crowdsourced or non-profit projects are also suited to be managed according to the crowdownership principles, yet the concept is intended to pose a alternative method of managing commercial activities.[1] For instance if applied on technological companies, the concept presumably ensures both the highest possible reflection of customer needs and equal distribution of profits.[2] Especially with cloud-based services it solves privacy concerns too, as customer data and even the infrastructure behind the service is property of the user community.[2]
A crowdowned organization lacks a board of directors or any other central managing body.[3] All decisions are made collectively by voting, for example via a dedicated application which may also display the company's financial situation, proposals of strategic decisions and suggestions of further product development. If the concept has been fully implemented, these proposals arise constantly and solely from within the crowd.
Possible application[edit]
From the customer's perspective the participation in a crowdownership project starts with investing a deposit that proportionally to the value of an individual share enlarges the company's capital stock. Thereby the investments into the product are shouldered equally by the user comunity. Similarly the company's profits are distributed among the shareholders.[3]
Transforming a traditonally organized company starts with the original owners specifying the parameters of handing over the corporate body to its cusomers.[4] After completing the dissemination of shares, important assets of the company are made accessible to every user-shareholder, for instance the service's source code. The product's further development is then fully managed by the crowd, which votes over both the sub-projects and their implementers.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ "Crowd Ownership is Now OK. What Could Possibly Go Wrong? - Wearable Tech Insider". Wearable Tech Insider. 2015-06-23. Retrieved 2017-11-19.
- ↑ Jack., Quarter, (2000). Beyond the bottom line : socially innovative business owners. Westport, Conn.: Quorum Books. ISBN 9781567204148. OCLC 49415026. Search this book on
- ↑ "A Practical Guide". Sociocracy 3.0. 2017-01-28. Retrieved 2017-11-19.
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