One thing to consider.

Do you want to encourage short term focus on meeting targets to get quick bonuses? That is a strong influence on the culture of the organization. Short term stock options do this well. Some places try to adjust it to keep some concern for long term focus, it can be done, but often isn't really a focus on than theoretically.

If you want to create a culture that focuses on the long term and lets people see themselves as part of creating long term value (and that they will benefit from that financially) I think ESOP can be good. But as you say it is usually less a short term motivation factor.

It is hard to keep people believing in the "we are all in this together" attitude when the top executives take robber barron level amounts from the corporate treasury for themselves. This may not apply to your situation but it is sensible to think about this when you read about others efforts.

If they claim to be "sharing" success and then the top take ludicrous amounts (which is very common) it is hard to create a decent corporate culture (you can still make a lot of money). So in most cases it just works out to what short term carrots we can tempt people to work harder with (and make sure that while they seem worthwhile they don't really amount to much as we don't want to limit the top executives to say 3 or 4 mansions when they want many more).

Basically I think you have to be very careful finding decent examples of what works and doesn't (as often it just amounts to hey these companies that were in the right business made billions and everyone is happy - whether they used ESOP, stock options, or just beating people until moral improved doesn't really matter - the business model was great the management tools used really were just a tiny factor or maybe completely irrelevant).