Rutgers Announces the 2012-2013 J. Robert Beyster Fellowships to Study Employee Ownership

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., Aug. 16, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations (SMLR) has announced the recipients of the 2012-2013 J. Robert Beyster Fellowships to support scholars in the field of employee ownership. Four emerging, young scholars were identified as most distinguished among their peers across the U.S. and will receive support for their research. They join 71 scholars who are current members of the fellowship program.

"SMLR has developed the leading interdisciplinary research program to study workplace issues and how employees at all levels can benefit from a company's success," says Rutgers SMLR Dean Susan J. Schurman. "The fellowship program allows Rutgers to bring together the best talent in the nation with its established researchers in order to make significant progress in understanding these important topics."

The 2012-2013 J. Robert Beyster Fellows are:

• Michael Bikard, from Cambridge, Mass., who is studying how broad-based ownership might play a role in academic scientists' subsequent commercialization of their research results in start-up businesses. Bikard is a Ph.D. candidate at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
• Tony Fang, from Toronto, Canada, who is researching firm performance, worker earnings, and firm stability from the largest longitudinal dataset on employee ownership in North America. Fang is an associate professor at York University.
• William C. Gerken, from Lexington, Ky., 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. Gerken is an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky.
• Danny Yagan, from Berkeley, Calif., is studying how retirement accounts can be designed in order to substantially reduce the risk to employees who share in the employer's profits through employee ownership, using data from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Yagan is a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Equitable Growth at the University of California at Berkeley.

ABOUT THE J. ROBERT BEYSTER FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM
The J. Robert Beyster Fellowship Program honors Dr. J. Robert Beyster, a physicist and leader in the area of employee stock ownership, profit sharing and broad-based stock options. The annual fellowship program was established in 2008 with a major gift from Dr. J. Robert Beyster and his daughter, Mary Ann Beyster, of La Jolla, Calif., with a grant from the Foundation for Enterprise Development. They also support the biannual Beyster Symposiums for scholars' academic presentations and research collaborations.

Professor Joseph R. Blasi, a sociologist and Rutgers SMLR professor, directs the program. SMLR Professor Douglas L. Kruse and Harvard University Economics Professor Richard Freeman serve as faculty mentors along with several other senior scholars. For information on the current and past Beyster Fellows and symposiums, visit: http://smlr.rutgers.edu/beyster-fellows For information on the Foundation for Enterprise Development, visit www.fed.org

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. For more information on the school, visit http://smlr.rutgers.edu.

SOURCE Rutgers University's School of Management and Labor Relations