Welcome to The Science of Ownership – a blog about state-of-the art information on ownership in research & practice from a non-legal perspective!

When we talk about ownership, we usually refer to it as a psychological phenomenon. In a nutshell, we refer to the feeling that something is “mine”, a feeling that everybody knows and is able to relate to. Research on ownership has increased in popularity over the past years. There have been 3 special issue calls on ownership in the last year alone! So people are interested but the field is diverse and sometimes incoherent in terms of interpretations and conceptualizations. In part, this is because people across disciplines have been working on it. With fundamental cultural and societal developments and changes such as collaborative consumption, the sharing economy, co-creation of value and the homogenization of global lifestyles ahead of us, collecting, understanding and synthesizing the myriad of insights has become essential.

We have, therefore, declared it a number one priority to merge existing knowledge by building a community of researchers, as eager as us, devoted to looking across disciplines and to developing a common understanding of ownership as a psychological phenomenon.

The Science of Ownership was created to provide a “one-stop-information-shop” on all things related to the broad academic field of ownership from a non-legal perspective. If you are not familiar with the topic but overwhelmingly curious, you might want to visit the About section first, which features information about this blog as well as the topic per se.

Based on our vision to build a network of people with the common goal to advance our understanding of ownership, we are also going to feature and introduce affiliated researchers and partners on this site. Under Faces & Voices you will find two subpages called Community and Featured. On the Community page, you will find an overview of people who are in one or the other way affiliated with ownership research in general and with this blog in particular. Anyone interested to contribute or appear on this blog is welcome to join our community. Contact us and you will be added to this very page.

On the Featured page, you will find interviews with leading scholars and those who have advanced the field of ownership.

Of course there will also be featured articles and posts on the topic, either written or curated by our contributing team. For those interested in the details there will be a comprehensive, frequently updated reference list on publications touching the topic of ownership. Again we are grateful for any pointers. There is also a growing collection of useful links, resources and happenings.

Finally, we consider this project a collaborative and dynamic one, which means that we intend to prosper and grow without strict limitations. There is much more to come in the future.

Behind this blog stands a passionate group of researchers from the Institute for Marketing & Consumer Research – or m.core if you prefer it short – at WU Vienna University of Economics and Business. Headed by Prof. Bernadette Kamleitner, our team consists of associate professors, PhD students, as well as international research partners and is constantly growing and evolving.

Some of us have dedicated their entire careers to the topic of ownership, some of us are exploring it in new and innovative contexts, some of us are old stagers already and some of us have just started. Independent of age, experience, context or expertise, we share one common attitude though: all of us are in this 100%. The diversity that we represent in our research will benefit this project and we are looking forward to add to this mixture by inviting you to join our community. For more information about the contributing team of The Science of Ownership click here.

The topic is massive, it has occupied many minds and so should this blog. This blog is a collaborative project, we cordially invite YOU to contribute as well – either as a guest author, content and resource scout, or featured as an affiliate and community member. Click here to directly contact us if you are interested in joining the community or want more information on the various collaboration options we provide!