Board directors, CEOs, and senior management teams constantly search for the competitive edge that will put their firms on top, sustain profits and increase profit potential.

In this book, an employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) will be examined as a way to create distinctive competencies, create lasting competitive advantage, sustain profits and increase profit potential for a global engineering company which for the purposes of this book will be named ENGCO. As such, the book will evaluate ESOP as a strategic management resource. ESOPs unique capacity to eliminate or reduce internal weaknesses, create and reinforce internal strengths, protect against external threats and to help the firm capitalize on external opportunities will be discussed and illustrated.

Of primary importance in the strategic process is the identification and creation of distinctive competencies. A distinctive competence is the corporation's unique position with regard to its competition and the company's use of its resources. Strategic management concepts, terminology and analytical methods will be applied in this integrative case study that assesses ESOP as a unique strategic resource.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I want to acknowledge and thank Parsons Corporation's Chairman, CEO and President Charles Harrington for his contributions and assistance in this book's preparation, particularly with updating the Company's recent decision after 35 years as a 100% ESOP owned Company to again go public in 2019 through the NYSE under a highly successful Initial Public Offering. Harrington has served as Chairman and CEO since 2008 during which time the company has been highly successful and under Harrington's leadership is transforming the Company's business from an engineering and construction company into a technology based company in the high performance defense, intelligence and critical infrastructure markets. Harrington has retained the company's highly successful ESOP culture as well.

Increasing Firm Competitive Advantage Through Use of an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) - pokkari, Englanti, 2019