John Lewis Partnership

Introduction: The first thing that springs to mind when you mention the name John Lewis is an image of a high street retail giant. Indeed the John Lewis Partnership is one of the UK's top ten retail businesses with 27 John Lewis department stores and more than 166 Waitrose stores, the upmarket supermarket chain owned by the partnership, in Great Britain. The first store opened in Oxford Street London in 1864 with the first branch of the Waitrose chain opening in 1904. But for many, what may be an unknown detail about the John Lewis Partnership is that it is also the largest example of worker co-ownership in Great Britain. All 63,000 permanent staff are partners in the business, they share in the profits and shape the companies development.
What Speden Lewis imbued his Partnership approach with was an understanding that profit is an imperative of commerce. The model upon which the John Lewis Partnership has developed and flourished provides us with a valuable pool of knowledge from which we may draw as we seek to develop alternative businesses, anchored to the principles of social economy. This case study looks at some of the underlying organisational principles and in particular at the involvement of workers as company partners and the company structure that upholds the principles of cooperative ownership in shaping policy and company development. What distinguishes the John Lewis Partnership from other businesses is its legal form. First and foremost it is a business with a constitution; it is a business that is not dictated to by
These are mutually supportive of the needs of the Partnership and the Partners. Some of those which stand out as laudable in support of the Partners include: • Recognising that information is the basis of democratic participation, the Partnership aims for openness, tolerance and freedom of expression. There must be full opportunity for enquiry, criticism and suggestion, even at the risk of controversy between Partners or outside the Partnership. No Partner should consciously fail to tell management what it ought to know. The Partnership takes no account of age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, social position or religious or political views. 4

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http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/Templ atePage.aspx?PageType=CAT&PageID=4

The constitution of the John Lewis Partnership; introduction, principles and rules. January 2000, 2nd Edition April 2004. (http://www.johnlewispartnership.co.uk/assets/ pdf/csrConstitution.pdf - at 20/07/05) 4 Constituent groups named largely reflects those named under section 75 of the NI Act.

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