IFTF: Equitable Enterprise Initiative

Equitable Enterprise Initiative

Catalyzing pathways to more equitable work and wealth for the next generation

Equitable enterprise. It’s an approach to creating opportunities, developing practices, and building institutions that distribute assets equitably among those who contribute value to the system. It’s a foundation for good jobs. But it’s much more. It’s a broad-based effort to reverse decades-long policies and practices based on the idea that the only social responsibility of business is to increase shareholder profits. Instead, the premise of the Equitable Enterprise Initiative is that the only social responsibility of business is to maximize the community wellbeing and equitable distribution of economic returns from its activities.

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Read Marina Gorbis' essay, "Re-Working the Future: Strategies for Building Enterprises in the 21st Century."

Read the complete research map here.

Why Equitable Enterprise?

Today, we are in the midst of an economic transition reminiscent of the shift from an agrarian to an industrial economy. It is re-shaping the nature of work and jobs with fewer people engaged in formal full-time employment at companies that offer good wages and benefits, i.e. asset-building work. Instead, the number of “good” jobs has been steadily declining, widening economic polarization. Income earned through the labor market has been the primary mechanism for distributing economic resources in our economy. Increasingly, however, work and jobs are failing to provide the economic security promised to American families. Wage stagnation, the disappearance of asset-rich jobs that provide basic health or retirement benefits as well as widely distributed stock ownership, the expansion of low-wage jobs, and the growing polarization of jobs and wages are widening economic inequality.

Activities

With the support from several foundations—including the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation—the Initiative will serve as a hub for research, scenario building, public engagement, and policy innovations aimed at promoting establishment and growth of more equitable enterprises. The scope of Equitable Enterprise activities includes the following:

Creating New Evidence. The systematic presentation of new evidence creates feedback loops that can catalyze change. This project will gather, document, and publicize examples of many forms of equitable enterprise forms, surfacing what’s been invisible, marginalized, or forgotten and bringing it into the mainstream public discourse. The project will establish a framework for a more extensive network of researchers, philanthropic, policy, and civic leaders to collaboratively build a body of evidence, both quantitative and qualitative, about equitable forms of enterprise and their impacts on society.

Building New Capacities. New capacities in the form of new tools and social technologies can quickly scale small innovations to engage larger communities of change. In addition to researchers, this project will gather a diverse community of activists who are already running distributive enterprises or who can start prototyping new approaches. The research and toolkits will support a generation of equitable enterprise leaders and advocates.

Re-Writing the Rules.New rules—or new ways of making rules—can fundamentally change the structure and behavior of complex political and social systems. The Initiative will outline new rules and policies for promoting and building equitable enterprises, including how to incentivize capital flows towards them.

Amplifying New Narratives. The stories people tell about the world shape their daily lives, and changing these stories is the most effective way to change a complex system. The project aims to change the current narrative about the role and responsibilities of business in our society.

The project will build on IFTF’s decades-long research into the future of work and equity. As IFTF’s Executive Director, Marina Gorbis points out, “New infrastructures of work and enterprise are undermining good jobs and furthering income and wealth inequalities. On-demand platform work, racial inequalities in education and work, the decline of large public corporations, the growth of asset-poor and asset depriving jobs, financialization, and surveillance-based monitoring of workers—these are all fueling inequality of wealth and well-being, especially in communities of color.”

The Equitable Enterprise team has convened a diverse group of advisors from academia, community activists, civic leaders, innovators in business, health, educational institutions, and the public to shape the scenarios for equity.

Equitable Enterprise Advisors

Kenneth Bailey
Co-founder of Design Studio
for Social Intervention
and co-author of the book
Ideas, Arrangements, Effects:
Systems Design and Social Justice.

Johan Chu
Visiting Assistant Professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, studying how
today’s technology is changing the
dynamics of social power, competition, and work. Chu has
also held positions in consulting, technology, and executive search.

Ra Criscitiello
Deputy Director of Research at
SEIU UHW, her work focuses on the intersection of organized labor and worker ownership

Jerry Davis
Professor of Business Administration and Sociology at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and Department of Sociology, author of multiple books, including, The Vanishing American Corporation: Navigating the Hazards of a New Economy.

Teddy DeWitt
Assistant Professor in the College of Management at the University of Massachusetts Boston, focused on 1) the way financialization can alter the structure of organizations, 2) how teams and organizations make sense of and respond to rapidly changing environments, and 3) how new technology intersects with job and work design.

Cory Doctorow
Former European Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of numerous books, including, How To Destroy
Surveillance Capitalism.

Jessica Gordon Nembhard
Professor of Community Justice
and Social Economic Development
in the Department of Africana
Studies at CUNY and author of
Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative
Economic Thought and Practice.

Douglas Rushkoff
Author, documentarian, host of the Team Human podcast, and founder
of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism
at CUNY/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and
Digital Economics.

Astra Taylor
A documentary filmmaker (What Is Democracy?) and current fellow at
the Shuttleworth Foundation for her
work challenging predatory
practices around debt.

The Equitable Enterprise initiative will engage the public and diverse communities across the US and abroad, in both rural and urban geographies. During community workshops innovators will share visions for a more equitable future and practices they are following in their work and their communities. The Initiative will elevate equitable enterprise leaders’ stories, share best practices, and outline needed actions and policies to promote creation and growth of equitable enterprises.

For more information about Institute for the Future's work and the Equitable Futures Lab, please visit equitablefutures.iftf.org.