Open-book management : creating an ownership culture

Take the padlocks off your financial data. That's the key tenet of open-book management, an innovative management strategy that advocates sharing financial information with your employees to help teach them how to think like entrepreneurs. Sounds good, but what's it like to actually function as an open-book company? Find out in Open-Book Management: Creating an Ownership Culture, a new Financial Executives Research Foundation study by Thomas L. Barton, William G. Shenkir, and Thomas N. Tyson. The study details how and why seven companies-ComSonics, GE Fanuc, Mid-States Technical Staffing Services, North American Signs, Physician Sales & Service, Plow & Hearth, and Springfield ReManufacturing-decided to adopt this style and the obstacles they encountered along the way. The executives interviewed also share successful techniques and approaches.