Psychological Ownership in Big Corporate Culture vs The Mentality of Small Business Ownership
This week has been full of events, suddenly two old friends called whom I hadn’t been in contact for ages, on or about the same time as finally finding a fiscal sponsor for my projects, but most impactful of all is the death of my brother-in-law, David Dupree, a very kind soul who was never seen to express anger and a very talented painter who painted every day until the end. On the day before his death, David said “There is a meaning to it”, and added as an afterthought, “I just don’t know what it is” That metaphysical philosophical thought is the story of a life lived with faith.
There is an ongoing show of David's work at Gallery 53 in Boothbay Harbor Maine.
I am now fiscally sponsored by the Field which means I can accept tax-deductible donations in support of my projects via my profile. The Museum is now fiscally sponsored and has a pro-bono lawyer to help with the 501 3c application, but still needs three board members before the application can be filed. I can also raise funds for the separate Andersen Design project, which is what I originally started with when I applied for fiscal sponsorship at Fractured Atlas. There is much work to be done!
I do not qualify for the first grant I see on The Field, as I am not a NYC resident, but in spirit, once a New Yorker, always a New Yorker. NYC is an exceptional city that supports artists in residence- a subset of businesses in residence
I love the New York state of mind! This is what is needed in Maine in that new state central planning board taking over municipal planning.
Applications are now being accepted for the State/municipal planning boards, from “collaborating partners and networks” for the state of Maine’s Ten Year State Planning Commission. I applied. Although my projects are only conceptual, together they are two collaborating networks, as called for in the literature about the planning boards. Perhaps I can attract some people to my empty network shells if I am accepted, (or not).
This is the invitation in its own words:
Calling all collaborators! DECD has begun Strategic Plan implementation in earnest and wants your help. …………
WHAT’S IN IT FOR US? From inception, the State’s 10-Year Economic Development Strategy was built to be a flexible roadmap designed for use by multiple stakeholders and not solely State government. Calling all collaborators! DECD Strategic Plan implementation in earnest and wants your help.
The presentation is different from the usual with the use of the phrase “in earnest” and making the point that it is not solely the State government, which if earnest means, it is not only about the State’s targeted sector. (not diversified !!!)
The invitation presents a lively inclusive spirit, but there is a disconnect between the call for participation from the people and the recent Act in which the State takes control over municipal decisions and bans any ordinances prohibiting overcrowding. In one swoop the Act asserts that overcrowding cannot be prohibited, statewide, This fixes so much in place that what is left but to make the best of a bad plan? The creation of over-crowded housing developments can easily deteriorate into high crime areas with the members of one economic class densely packed together surrounded by another living a much more spacious lifestyle and renting former single-family dwellings as Airbnbs.
The contradictory effect of the new law versus the invitation to participate in the 10-year plan is that the latter is not only about the State, acknowledging the State as a separate entity with its own interests, while the act makes it clear that the State is taking over central management of municipal ordinances. That leaves it up to the municipalities to pass their own code to control the takeover of our former residential communities by Airbnbs. The State has instituted that the development zones be created for what is essentially working-class housing but It has done nothing to protect communities from predatory corporations buying up dwelling units.
§4364. Technical assistance to municipalities related to zoning and land use ordinances
The Department of Economic and Community Development, referred to in this section as "the department," shall make technical assistance for the purposes of developing and implementing zoning ordinances and land use ordinances available to municipalities in accordance with this section.
1. Technical assistance program. The department shall develop a program to provide technical assistance to municipalities for the purposes of developing and implementing zoning ordinances and land use ordinances in accordance with this chapter, including but not limited to:
A. Ensuring that zoning ordinances and land use ordinances developed by municipalities conform with state and federal laws, and
B. Assisting in the formal review of municipal building and development permits.
2. Density requirements. A municipality shall allow an affordable housing development to have a dwelling unit density of at least 2 1/2 times the density that is otherwise allowed in the zone where the affordable housing development is located and may not require more than 2 off-street parking spaces for every 3 units.
§5250-U. Priority development zones required
A municipality shall designate an area within the municipality as a priority development zone. A priority development zone must be located in an area that has significant potential for housing development and is located near community resources, as determined by the Department of Economic and Community Development. A priority development zone must comply with the requirements of this section and any rules adopted under subsection 3.
Recently I completed a review of a paper on Taoism and psychological ownership. In the process, I became aware of the broader concept of psychological ownership, that has been floating around large corporate cultures since the early 2000s. It struck me that the qualities that corporate culture seeks to develop in employees are the same that inspired my vision of a network of independently owned studios but that the targeted qualities do not exist in shareholder ownership of large corporate enterprises largely removed from the work process. If one uses ownership of a large corporate enterprise to define “psychological ownership”, it represents the antithesis of the targeted result. The model of ownership on which the concept of psychological ownership is based is a small or micro-enterprise ownership class that works in the business.
Space is one of the attributes identified with creating a sense of psychological ownership, sought after because it creates the conditions in which workers innovate.
When the Legislature and city planners assign smaller and smaller living spaces for the working classes, it means that the only creative workspaces are in corporations and academic institutions, which own the intellectual property developed by the enterprise or government institution. Businesses in a home and other small businesses need to be in the mix to add diversity, about which much is made about in the call for collaboration. The State zones for its own workforces and never mentions businesses in a home, leaving that zoning up to municipalities. Despite the statewide mandates for densely packed housing development zones, there is still room for workarounds by creative municipalities. The municipalities that do something different place themselves in unique categories as beacons of another way.
Another quality that psychological ownership is said to encourage is the identity of the enterprise as home. A business in a home obviously has an identification advantage as it is both easier and more secure to identify a workplace as a home when it is one’s home.
The most common example of collective psychological ownership is the feeling that the inhabitants of a town feel towards the town as “theirs”. Participation in decision-making increases a sense of psychological ownership. In one state-wide swoop, the Maine Legislature just removed crucial decision-making at the municipal level and is trying to use financial incentives to get municipal leaders to rewrite ordinances under State guidance. State control of municipal ordinances affects the collective psychological ownership that the inhabitants of a community project toward their community.
Past words used by the Maine Legislature when it chartered the former military bases as “municipal corporations serving as instruments of the State”, encapsulate ownership of the town by the State mentality.
My concept of a network of independently owned studios with independent contractors’ terms of agreement with Andersen Design is based on the psychology of ownership. Psychological ownership is the large corporate counterpart like having ownership in the metaverse, a poor substitute for owning your own home in the natural world.
When interacting with the system, or the Empire of public-private for-profit non-profit wealth concentration and redistribution networks, the public deals only with an interface layer of the organization. The people who work in the interface layer are often very sincere in the roles that they perform but they also interface another layer of corporate management, a layer that does not directly interact with the public but has greater decision-making authority than the interface people. Sometimes interacting with the system feels schizophrenic because the interface layer has to manage two separate sets of priorities that may not reinforce each other and so the person in the interface layer can seem to change personalities from day to day.
There once was a time when it was valid to say that large corporate culture brought the standard of living up for the masses but now that is no longer true as actual ownership of the most basic sort, home ownership is unaffordable to the working classes.
The study of psychological ownership (PO) analyses individuals’ behaviour when they feel that they possess an ownership stake. A sense of ownership – the feeling that this is my neighbourhood, for example – need not be tied to actual ownership rights or even the possibility of them. PO is about identification, control, responsibility, and the desire to belong. source
Many corporations that seek to use psychological ownership to motivate their workforces are owned by stockholders invested in competing companies in the same industry, referred to as oligopolistic investments. Thus the actual owners of the enterprise are not loyal to that enterprise as they are equally invested in the enterprise’s competition and so the workforce must be encouraged to feel psychological ownership as the instrument that imparts and inspires fully engaged workers from which profits are made.
The rapid growth in passively-managed investment funds, has had a significant impact on the ownership structure of large firms in several industries. These funds diversify their holdings in an industry across firms to reduce exposure to individual firm risk (and track their benchmark index). Examples of substantial investment firm common ownership have been reported in concentrated sectors including finance, air travel, consumer electronics and pharmacies. OECD
In 2022 the illusionary character of psychological ownership is inescapably transparent with the rise of remote working and also the online platforms that interact with independent contractors in a manner that diminishes the autonomy of an independent contractor affecting the independent contractor’s identification with ownership. While traditionally independent contractors own their own businesses, and make their own decisions, when a large online platform takes over many functions, that ceases to be the case.
Corporate leadership spins psychological ownership as a means to increase and enhance worker performance, emphasizing the uniqueness of the individual worker but the reality is seen in the design of the ghost cities in China where individuality in housing is reserved for the executive classes or large public spaces. The workforce housing looks like this:
The State of Maine just enacted its own version of the above declaring that municipalities will create special development zones for affordable housing with the density allowed at 2.5 that of the surrounding area, packing the living units for the working classes as closely as possible, to fully realize the real estate value of the land, requires that housing be uniform, not individualistic as in historical New England.
The corporate culture recognizes the importance of space to the ability of the workforce to innovate. The current community design embedded in the recent Act involves depleting individual living spaces while corporate and institutional spaces (fifty million dollar school) expand, thus we see educational institutions investing in three-dimensional printers. The most lucrative money to be made from three-dimensional printers is in owning the intellectual rights to the patterns. Thus encouraging the workforce to be innovative in the job is essential.
A community of small individual spaces with well-considered terms of the agreement where ideas can be developed outside of facilities owned by large public and private institutions can provide more protection over ownership rights for creative authors. Large institutions often have one-way terms of the agreement, that may not be properly understood by naive minds.
Could this be a reason why Andersen Design was rejected for fiscal sponsorship by Fractured Atlas? The individual vs the ultimate oligopoly?
But now I am fiscally sponsored to develop both the non-profit museum and a free enterprise research and training center for Andersen Design by The Field.
The most important quality that psychological ownership encourages is self-efficacy. That means believing in oneself and one’s ability to set a goal and accomplish it.
I read somewhere that in order to innovate, first, one must believe that one can innovate, that is the essence of self-efficacy. During the years when most of my contacts were in the environs of the micro-economy entrepreneurial community, the characteristics attributed to psychological ownership were the norm. It was only after losing our home that housed our production that I had greater contact with the rest of the world that I realized that such characteristics are not the norm. I started to feel that the larger society, which by then was centrally managed by a public-private corporate hierarchical order, was a place where even the smallest interaction was about establishing who has the higher role in the pecking order. I saw the small entrepreneurial microeconomic community as a target of the larger community triggered by the natural sense of self-efficacy that exists in the small business community, that those conditioned by lives lived in corporate hierarchical grids had suppressed within themselves, causing an irrational outrage directed at small business owners, existing outside of the grid, who by definition have a belief in their own innate abilities. Society needs more of the small entrepreneurial mentality but there has to be space for it in the zoning ordinances so small entrepreneurs need to be in the conversation. The essential idea of the 10-year planning committee is a good one- networks collaborating with other networks. Step up to it.