Differential Strengths and the Pursuit of Social Utility: A Comparative Analysis of Profit-Motivated, Charitable and Public Ownership Structures
Ruhani Surana
13/10/2026
This study analyses how public, charitable and private (profit-motivated) ownership structures differ in their capacity to generate social utility. Rooted in John Stuart Mill’s conception of utility, it develops an interdisciplinary theoretical framework for evaluating ownership structures and their capacity to generate social utility based on three parameters: their assignment of value to various types of utility sources, the temporality of their decision-making approach and their capacity for innovation and risk-taking. Through a thematic critical review of literature across disciplines, the study posits that ownership structures embed differing incentive systems that shape organisational decision-making and the forms of social utility they have the greatest propensity to generate.
The paper’s central contribution is its demonstration of the differential strengths of these ownership models in increasing social utility across all three parameters; public ownership assigns value to the broadest range of social goods (sources of utility), charitable ownership employs the most long-termist decision-making approach and innovation is characterised by comparative strengths distributed between all three ownership models. A secondary contribution is the reframing of debates surrounding the design of institutional structures; rather than asking which ownership model is the best, this paper suggests that policymakers and academics should consider how different ownership structures’ strengths should be accounted for in economies to increase social utility. Therefore, the paper advances a model of enhancing social utility rooted in the differential strengths of ownership structures within economies and societies.