board of directors, the composition of such boards is almost never restricted to other employee owners of the firm. The result is that in such firms, a professional management dissociated from the interests of the employee owners of the firm make most decisions.
With respect to the value of compensation, the mandated ratio of compensation between the highest paid and the lowest paid position is 6:1 (Tseo & Ramos, 1995, pp. 25-31). The two major differences between this approach and that found in most firms in Western economies are first that such a narrow ratio is applied and second that the ratio is mandated legally or contractually (Tseo & Ramos, 1995, pp. 25-31). In the United States, as an example, ratios of 300:1 in major corporations are not uncommon. Three decades ago in France, a suggestion of a mandated 10:1 ratio was put forward. This proposal was not enacted into law and was roundly denounced by most economists. In the contemporary global economy, large Japanese firms observe some restraint in the compensation gap between the lowest paid and the highest paid employees, with the ratio seldom exceeding 20:1. The Japanese approach, however, is voluntary where the Mondragon approach is mandated by cooperative charter.
With respect to the value of control, the banking cooperative within the federated structure of Mondragon exercises the greatest control
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