A good elaboration of this point is Greg Dow's "Governing the Firm" and "The Labor-Managed Firm".
In short, worker-owned businesses are rare because individual workers are poor (relative to the capital that's needed) and they can't get external funding because the investors want control in return, which labor management can't provide.
That's why most large-scale worker-owned businesses are part of a federation supported by a bank - e.g. Mondragon's Caja Laboral. Institutional design indeed does matter.
In short, worker-owned businesses are rare because individual workers are poor (relative to the capital that's needed) and they can't get external funding because the investors want control in return, which labor management can't provide.
That's why most large-scale worker-owned businesses are part of a federation supported by a bank - e.g. Mondragon's Caja Laboral. Institutional design indeed does matter.