Final answer:
Employee stock purchase plans are designed to allow employees to buy company shares, helping them become shareholders with the potential to influence company decisions through voting.
Step-by-step explanation:
Employee share purchase plans typically allow employees to purchase company shares at favorable terms. In such plans, companies give their employees the opportunity to buy shares often at a discount or with advantageous conditions such as a matching contribution from the employer. When a firm becomes a public company, its stock can be bought and sold by financial investors. Shareholders, who are the owners of the company's shares, form a broad group that can range from small individual investors to large institutional entities.
As a shareholder, each investor, small or large, owns a part of the company, which is represented by the shares they hold. The more shares a shareholder owns, the more influence they may possess in major decisions through the number of votes they can cast to elect the company's board of directors. The board is responsible for hiring top executives to run the company's daily operations, delineating a clear structure within a public company for making high-level decisions.