LAUSR

This study focuses on the role of employee‐owned firms (EOFs) in value creation from a stakeholder perspective. EOFs have been defined as Social Economy enterprises in Spain following guiding principles that in our opinion should empower stakeholder governance. Therefore, the impact of employee share ownership on value creation for shareholders and stakeholders has been measured on the basis of a sample of 1006 enterprises. The results reveal that EOFs have a positive and significant influence on the distribution of value in favour of the employees but not the other stakeholders. This finding, which allows us to partially accept one of the proposed hypotheses, is consistent with previous evidence that EOFs set their objectives to maximize the value obtained by the participating employees through their financial participation in the business, and not, therefore, to maximize profits. Copyright © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.