Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing announces incoming fellowship class

The Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing recently announced its selection of 34 individuals from various universities across the globe to make up its 2022-2023 class of research fellows. 

Joseph Blasi, director of the institute, said the fellowship aims to support emerging scholars in their research through mentorship and research conferences.

He also said ensuring diversity among the class was a critical factor in the selection of fellows in order to include a wide range of perspectives within research.

"We think it's important that the fellows represent the diversity of scholars in the United States and in the world," Blasi said. "We're really committed to diversity, so we reach out broadly to be sure that we receive a wide variety of applications … You want to have researchers that reflect the makeup of society in order to get all the good ideas into the pot."

Acceptance into the fellowship program is contingent on the prospective fellow’s research proposals, and the institute seeks fellows who have posed research questions that are both interdisciplinary and significant, he said.

Adriane Clomax, a Ph.D. candidate at the Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work at the University of Southern California, was named a fellow in this year’s class. She said her dissertation will focus on employees of color and employee ownership.

"I selected this topic because I, like most scholars in this area, am deeply concerned with the growing income and wealth gap between white workers and workers of color," she said. "If employee ownership could help workers of color earn higher incomes while working in a dignified workplace, I would like to contribute to the research in this area."

Adria Scharf, another named fellow and the director of Education and Collaborations at the institute, is conducting her research on employee stock ownership plans.

Scharf said employee stock ownership plans occur when a business owner sells their company to their employees through stock, which can often build financial wealth for the employees and can grow the company at an increased rate.

She said her research will specifically focus on businesses that initially utilize employee stock ownership plans but then ultimately decide against them.

Scharf hopes her research in employee stock ownership plans will lead to more business owners adopting practices that economically improve the lives of working people, she said.

Additionally, she said she feels privileged to have the opportunity to complete the fellowship, especially given that her research question is a continuation of her previous research regarding employee stock ownership plans.

Blasi said the entire cohort of fellows will have the opportunity to showcase their research and work collaboratively with other scholars at the fellowship’s conferences.

Additionally, the institute sometimes has multiple fellows work on the same research project to be presented collaboratively at the conferences.

One of the most recent team research projects is seeking to answer the question of how significant employee share ownership is amongst people of color in the U.S., he said.

In terms of the goals for the institute’s 2022-2023 fellowship class, Blasi said he hopes each fellow will learn deeper about the real-world significance of their work.

"Sometimes fellows are more narrowly focused on their own discipline or purely empirical questions," he said. "But, there's a big society out there that's engaging with equity and profit shares, and I hope that the fellowship will be relevant to that society."