Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Impact of Alternative Regimes of Property and Ownership on Economic Growth

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Privatization has been widely promoted as a vehicle for increasing market participation and stimulating economic growth. There are, however, multiple legal and cultural models within which private property and ownership are constituted, and industries that inadequately manage those terrains have been proven to be particularly vulnerable. This project, which trains a graduate student in how to conduct rigorous, empirically grounded scientific fieldwork, explores what factors contribute to the success and durability of new economic ventures in contexts where legal and cultural regimes of property vary. The findings of this project will be disseminated to organizations and stakeholders involved in informing public policy aimed at enhancing the participation of underrepresented stakeholders in the economy, and developing improved inclusion in decision-making models, thus improving economic security. The research also fosters international scientific cooperation.Ognjen Kojanic, under the supervision of Dr. Robert M. Hayden of the University of Pittsburgh, will investigate whether ownership and private property constitute different analytical concepts within certain labor and industrial contexts, and what are the political economic, and cultural implications of that distinction. Looking at a worker-owned factory in Croatia, a site marked by emergent markets following entry into the European Union, this research has three objectives: (1) to track the transformation of concepts of property, (2) to explore the economic relations that emerge from worker-ownership to determine the corporate form being developed, and (3) to examine how workers articulate a political and economic ideology of ownership separate from those of property. Over the course of 12 months, Kojanic will conduct semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and archival research. This case study will contribute to the debate on property relations in social sciences by testing the analytic value of the underused concept of ownership, as differentiated from the concept of property.