Co-founders of Rite-Solutions, a software company that builds advanced command-and-control systems for the Navy, have created an internal “stock market” of ideas where any employee can propose that the company acquire a new technology, enter a new business or make an efficiency improvement.

These proposals become stocks, complete with ticker symbols, discussion lists and e-mail alerts. Employees buy or sell the stocks, and prices change to reflect the sentiments of the company’s engineers, computer scientists and project managers — as well as its marketers, accountants and even the receptionist.