Final answer:
Employee ownership is when a company allocates shares to its workforce at a discounted price, giving employees a personal stake in the company's performance. This promotes improved productivity and motivation among employees.
Step-by-step explanation:
The allocation of 20% of a company's shares to its workforce at a discounted price, allowing employees to take personal responsibility for the firm's performance, is called employee ownership.
Employee ownership is an alternative to traditional capitalism, where workers have a stake in the success of the company they work for. By owning shares of the company, employees have a financial interest in its performance and are more motivated to work hard and improve productivity.
Employee-owned businesses can be organized in various ways, but the key aspect is cooperative ownership by the employees themselves.