Realising the mutual advantage

This Special Issue assembles scholarly contributions on employee share ownership, profit sharing and gain sharing in modern society from international scholars who participated in the 2023 and 2024 annual Oxford University-Rutgers University Conference on Shares, which is co-sponsored by Kellogg College Oxford’s Centre on Mutual and Co-Owned Business [https://www.kellogg.ox.ac.uk/kellogg-centres/centre-on-mutual-and-co-owned-business/] and Rutgers University’s (New Jersey, USA) Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing in the School of Management and Labor Relations [https://smlr.rutgers.edu/faculty-research-engagement/institute-study-employee-ownership-and-profit-sharing]. Jonathan Michie, the President of Kellogg College who heads its Centre and Joseph Blasi, the Director of the Rutgers University Institute co-chair this annual conference – which was moderated by Rutgers Senior Fellow Dr Christopher Mackin in 2023 and 2024. This collection of studies explores research on the financial/corporate cultural/social contexts of shares in companies and the outcomes and impacts of ownership share plans, profit sharing and gain sharing plans in firms. (Articles on conceptual models of shares, the incidence of shares, and shares in different sectors of the economy were published in a previous issue of this journal, volume 39, numbers 2 and 3, March and May 2025.)