With the financial crisis and Great Recession, some economists have begun to question the orthodox approach to production and capital/labor relations over the last two to three decades. This orthodoxy has been thrown into question due to concerns of poor corporate decision-making, corporate capture of regulators, perceived rewards for failure, and uneven productivity growth. But a new spirit of introspection and doubt about orthodox approaches has created some impetus leading to greater interest in themes, such as worker ownership, sharing rewards, co-operatives, and employee involvement practices which feature heavily in the 'Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labor-Managed Firms' series. This 'new spirit' is apparent for all to see in the 12 contributions to this volume of 'Advances' which cover co-operatives, effects of worker participation on firm performance, the diffusion of high involvement management practices, and outcomes for workers.