Winners announced for the inaugural Nigel Mason Award

The Centre on Mutual and Co-Owned Business at Kellogg College has announced the winners of the inaugural Nigel Mason Award for Employee Ownership Research – the UK’s only prize dedicated to recognising and promoting excellence in this field.

On 28 August 2025, Professors Andrew Pendleton and Andrew Robinson were honoured at a celebration event at Kellogg College for their outstanding and sustained contribution to research on employee ownership. Their recent paper, Employee ownership trusts: an employee ownership success story, was singled out by the judging panel as an exemplary piece of scholarship with real-world impact.

Chair of the judging panel, Professor Jonathan Michie, commented:
“Professors Pendleton and Robinson have made enormous contributions of evidence, analysis and academic scholarship, which are influencing the development of employee ownership initiatives across the globe. The judging panel was unanimous in its decision to celebrate their achievements by awarding them, jointly, the inaugural Nigel Mason Award.”

Upon hearing news of their award, Professors Pendleton and Robinson said:
“We are deeply honoured and delighted to receive the inaugural Nigel Mason Employee Ownership Award for our research. Nigel was a tireless and passionate advocate of EO over many years, playing a vital role in its development across the UK. We feel privileged to be recognised with an award in his name.”

The Award was presented by Nigel Mason’s widow, Ruth Sawtell.

Two other nominees were included in the final shortlist of three submissions:

• Professor Niels Mygind for his updated literature review on the effects and formats of employee ownership, which in particular offered valuable models for countries with few employee-owned firms.
• Martin Stucki for his research into employee-owned entrepreneurship, particularly a report setting out pragmatic, achievable steps to foster employee ownership in Scotland, which the Panel agreed should be highly commended.

Launched in memory of Nigel Mason, one of the UK’s foremost experts on employee ownership who died in 2021, the Award celebrates the most significant recent contribution to EO research. Winners receive a cash prize alongside recognition from academics, practitioners and businesses working across the sector. By shining a spotlight on high-quality scholarship, the Award aims to advance understanding and practice of employee ownership – a business model that continues to grow in scale, reach and influence.

Further information

About the Centre on Mutual and Co-Owned Business

The Centre on Mutual and Co-Owned Business is an initiative of Kellogg College at the University of Oxford. Led by Professor Jonathan Michie, the Centre is dedicated to leading research and advancing new thinking about mutuality and co-ownership in business. It acts as an academic hub for economists, sociologists, political scientists, lawyers and business and management scholars, with an interest in broadening debates about ownership and corporate governance. The Centre hosts the annual Nigel Mason Award, the UK’s only dedicated prize for employee ownership research.

About the Award winners

Andrew Pendleton has been Professor of Employee Ownership and Reward at UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia since 2019.  He has held academic posts at the universities of Durham and York, and has degrees from Oxford and Bath.  He is a Fellow and Mentor at the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University, USA, and a Board Member of Employee Ownership Australia. Along with Andrew Robinson, Pendleton is a co-founder of the White Rose Employee Ownership Centre, which has provided the ‘statistical backbone’ to the growth of the employee ownership sector in the UK.

Andrew Robinson is Professor of Accounting and Performance at the Leeds University Business School. He is a Fellow and Mentor at the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University, USA and sits on the Council of the International Association for the Economics of Participation (IAFEP). Along with Andrew Pendleton, Robinson is a co-founder of the White Rose Employee Ownership Centre, which has provided the ‘statistical backbone’ to the growth of the employee ownership sector in the UK.

About the winning research

Employee ownership trusts: an employee ownership success story is published in the International Review of Applied Economics 2025, VOL. 39, NOS. 2–3, 241–260.

Abstract: Since its creation in 2014, the employee ownership trust (EOT) has become a widespread form of employee ownership in the UK, and has transformed the country’s employee ownership scene. Given that it is over a decade since its inception into UK legislation, and with the EOT now firmly established as a key business succession tool, it is timely to take a closer, critical look at the role, characteristics, and potential dangers of the UK EOT model. This paper will briefly outline and discuss the key characteristics of EOTs, how the EOT came about, and why it has been so successful. Using several unique data-sets of UK employee-owned businesses, it will profile key features of EOTs, and show how the flexible approach of the EOT provides the potential to sidestep many of the obstacles faced by other forms of employee ownership.