SMLR Info

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RUTGERS APPOINTS 22 FELLOWS TO STUDY CORPORATIONS AND THE U.S. ECONOMY

Largest Collection of Young Scholars from a Broad Range of Fields

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. – As U.S. policymakers continue to discuss the role of the corporation in American society, Rutgers University continues to bring together top scholars to participate in the world’s most comprehensive fellowship program to analyze all aspects of employee ownership and profit sharing.

Rutgers University’s School of Management and Labor Relations(SMLR), a recognized world leader in this emerging area, has appointed 22 fellows to study broad-based employee stock ownership and profit sharing in corporations, the U.S. economy and society. See the complete list of fellows below.

“Our goal is to build a whole new generation of scholars to study workplace issues. By bringing together economists, finance experts, human resources scholars, industrial relations scholars, sociologists, philosophers, political scientists, historians, psychologists, anthropologists, and others we hope to come up with new interdisciplinary insights on corporations,” says SMLR Dean Susan Schurman.

Recipients of Rutgers’ research fellowships represent the largest collection of young scholars from a broad range of fields in the social sciences and humanities. They also come from some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions and all parts of the U.S. Professors Joseph R. Blasi and Douglas L. Kruse from Rutgers SMLR and Professor Richard Freeman from Harvard University serve as faculty mentors to the fellows along with other senior scholars.

• Professor Joseph R. Blasi is a sociologist and the director of the fellowship program.  He is SMLR’s J. Robert Beyster Professor, the nation’s only endowed chair on employee ownership.
• Professor Douglas L. Kruse is an economist and a J. Robert Beyster Faculty Fellow at SMLR, who has led some of the seminal econometric studies on employee stock ownership.

The fellowship program is one of the largest programs of its kind at Rutgers. There are now over seventy fellows in the fellowship program that organizes two national conferences annually in order to bring the researchers together to present their work and develop a collaborative community of scholars.  For a list of all current and previous fellows, visit here.

ABOUT RUTGERS’ SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT AND LABOR RELATIONS

Rutgers' School of Management and Labor Relations is the leading source of expertise on the world of work, building effective and sustainable organizations, and the changing employment relationship. The school is comprised of two departments—one focused on all aspects of strategic human resource management and the other dedicated to the social science specialties related to labor studies and employment relations. In addition, SMLR provides many continuing education and certificate programs taught by world-class researchers and expert practitioners.

Rutgers’ School of Management and Labor Relations has appointed 22 fellows to study broad-based employee stock ownership and profit sharing in corporations, the U.S. economy and society. The new fellows are (listed in order of fellowship name):

• Michael Bikard, a J. Robert Beyster Fellow, who is studying how broad-based ownership impacts academic scientists’ commercialization of their research results in the start-ups resulting from 578 discoveries made by 1,246 scientific teams.  He is a Ph.D. candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management in the Technological Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Strategy Program.
• Danny Yagan, a J. Robert Beyster Fellow, who will consider how retirement accounts can be designed in order to substantially reduce the risk to employees of sharing in the employer’s profits through employee ownership using data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service.  He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Harvard University Department of Economics.
• William Gerken, a J. Robert Beyster Fellow, who is determining the distribution of employee ownership in 1,365 investment management firms of various sizes using data from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.  He is an Assistant Professor at the Auburn University Business School Department of Finance with a Ph.D. in finance from Michigan State University.
• Tony Fang, a J. Robert Beyster Fellow, who plans to learn about firm performance, worker earnings, and firm stability from the largest longitudinal dataset on employee ownership in North America.  He is a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business and an Associate Professor at York University in Industrial Relations and Human Resource Management with a Ph.D. in industrial relations and human resource management from the University of Toronto.
• Marshall Vance, the first Blue Wolf Capital Fellow, who is researching how specific employee ownership and profit sharing plan characteristics affect employee effort and retention incentives with special attention to the possible role of these plans in the portfolio companies ofprivate equity firms.  He is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School of Business Department of Accounting.
• Michal Goldberg, the first Adam Blumenthal Fellow, who is examining the relationship between the capital structure of the firm and the fraction of employee ownership.  She is a Ph.D. candidate at the New York University Department of Economics.
• Erik Olsen, the first Joseph Cabral Distinguished Scholar and Fellow, who is analyzing majority employee-owned firms, the possible mechanisms that enhance their productivity, the role can they play in economic development, and related public policies.  He is an Associate Professor at University of Missouri at Kansas City Department of Economics with a Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in economics.
• Christopher Mackin, who is continuing as the Ray Carey Fellow, is investigating how it is possible to build a more inclusive economy where workers can obtain a fair share of the wealth that they create through democratic practices in firms and policies that support these practices.  He is an Adjunct Lecturer at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations Department of Labor and Employment Relations with a Ed.D. from the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in Human Development.  He is also a faculty member of the Harvard Trade Union Program at the Harvard Law School.
• Joan Meyers, the Michael W. Huber Fellow, who is exploring how organizational structure and culture in worker cooperatives can minimize social inequalities in the workplace using a study of two large worker cooperatives.  She is a Postdoctoral Associate at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations Department of Labor Studies and Employment Relations with a Ph.D. from the University of California-Davis in sociology.
• Andy Kim, a Louis O. Kelso Fellow, who will survey how employees’ views about their company’s Employee Stock Ownership Plan affects their attitudes and behaviors.  He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations Program in Industrial Relations and Human Resources. 
• Kyle Farmbry, a Louis O. Kelso Fellow, who is seeking to understand the legal barriers to the further growth and development of broad-based Employee Stock Ownership Plans and the relevance of  ESOPs to poverty alleviation and wealth creation for citizens.  He is an Associate Professor at the Rutgers University School of Public Affairs and Administration and a Juris Doctorate candidate at the Rutgers University School of Law with a Ph.D. from George Washington University in Public Administration.
• Sanjay Joseph Pinto, a Louis O. Kelso Fellow, who will conduct a study about the orientation of union decision-makers in the United States towards employee stock ownership.  He is a Ph.D. candidate in the Harvard University Program in Sociology and Social Policy.
• George Edward Cheney, a Louis O. Kelso Fellow, who is evaluating the best practices to develop a worker ownership culture using worker orientations, training, human resource management practices and corporate communications.  He is a Professor at the Kent State University School of Communication Studies with a Ph.D. from Purdue University in communications. 
• Richard Simpson, a Louis O. Kelso Fellow, who is delving into the Leland Stanford Papers at Stanford University to probe Senator Stanford’s legislative support of worker ownership as a way of overcoming the central conflict of industrial capitalism.  He is a lecturer at University of Miami Program in Modern Thought and Literature with a Ph.D. from Stanford University in modern thought and literature.
• Jacquelyn Yates, a Louis O. Kelso Fellow, who is developing a survey of one of the largest networks of firms with Employee Stock Ownership Plans in the United States, namely, in the State of Ohio.  She is an Associate Professor Emerita at the Kent State University Department of Political Science with a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Pittsburgh.
• Andrew Scott Waugh, a Q.A. Shaw McKean Jr. Fellow, who is working on the political contribution behavior of actors associated with employee ownership in the United States.  He is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at San Diego in the Department of  Political Science. 
• Craig Borowiak, a Q.A. Shaw McKean Jr. Fellow, who is considering the role of worker ownership in the development of a solidarity economy based around principles of cooperation, reciprocity, democratic decision-making, and community economic development in the Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania.  He is an Associate Professor in the Haverford College Department of Political Science with a Ph.D. from Duke University in political science.
• Frank Mullins, a Bill Nobles Fellow, who is addressing the commitment to long-term investments in human resources, relational forms of management, and broad-based employee ownership of founding family owners of publicly-traded corporations.  He is an Assistant Professor in the North Carolina A &T State University Department of  Management with a Ph.D. from Syracuse University in business administration.
• Eric Kaarsemaker, the first Norse Solutions Fellowand the first fellow studying Europe, who is probing the role of individual choice in employee stock ownership.  He is a former Fulbright Scholar at Rutgers University with a Ph.D. in management science from the Radboud University Nijmegan School of Management in The Netherlands.
• Ariana Levinson, the Corey Rosen Fellow, who is assessing the status of research on worker cooperatives in the United States in order to comprehend what legal reforms would render them a more viable option in the business sector.  She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Louisville Louis D. Brandeis School of Law with a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.
• Amy Lyman, a Rutgers Research Fellow, who is examining the role of employee ownership and profit sharing in the corporations that participate in the competition for Fortune’s 100 Best Company to Work For list. She is the co-founder of The Great Place to Work Institute in San Francisco that has conducted the research to produce the list and has served as its Research Director.  She received a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania in the education, culture, and society program.
• Richard Long, a Rutgers Research Fellow, who is working on an analysis of firm performance, worker earnings, and firm stability from the largest longitudinal dataset on employee ownership in North America.  He is a Professor at the University of Saskatchewan Business School Department of Human Resources with a Ph.D. from the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

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