IPSA Employee Ownership for Business Succession

Overview

Join us in at EY Cork on March 12 for the Annual  IPSA Jack FitzPatrick Lecture to learn about the role of Employee Ownership for business succession

The focus of this year’s event is the Employee Ownership for Business Succession, and we’re delighted to welcome Oliver Browne as the keynote speaker.

Oliver is a lecturer in Accounting at Cork University Business School, University College Cork. He will present the findings of his research into business succession in regional economies.

Instead of treating succession as an 'exit' through a trade sale, private equity buyout, or closure, Oliver looks at employee ownership as a form of collective entrepreneurial transition.

Using case studies from Scotland, the paper explores why business founders choose employee ownership, how these transitions are carried out, and how they are experienced by employees and managers.

Mr Browne said: "We find that employee ownership is often motivated by a desire to preserve organisational culture, retain skilled jobs, and keep decision-making embedded in the local economy. Importantly, employee ownership does not mark the end of entrepreneurship.

"Rather, it redistributes entrepreneurial responsibility from individual founders to employees, who take on new roles in governance, strategy, and long-term stewardship of the firm. While this can strengthen local value retention and economic resilience, its success depends on governance capability and supportive institutional environments."

THE SPEAKER

Oliver Browne is a Lecturer in Accounting at Cork University Business School, University College Cork. His research examines employee ownership, corporate governance, regulatory governance, and supervisory practice. Oliver held the 2025 Patrick J. McGovern Fellowship at Rutgers University, New Jersey for the study of agency costs in employee-owned firms. More recently, Oliver has been investigating the motivations and challenges of employee ownership models in the UK. He has published in outlets including the British Journal of Management, JASIST, International Review of Applied Economics.