John walked into the corner office. He had just been named CEO a week earlier, following his father’s unexpected death. He had spent twenty years working alongside him, preparing for that moment. He was the designated successor. And yet, sitting in that chair for the first time, he realized he had inherited the title, the […]
Family investment companies in times of COVID19: a story of resilience
The pandemic has triggered times of unprecedented disruption for firms worldwide, highlighting the critical need for organizational resilience and flexibility. How have European family investment companies (FICs) performed in this context of uncertainty? As part of our ongoing research on European FICs, John Learmonth and I tracked a broad sample of companies, both before and […]
The impact of informal institutions in family firms
Family-controlled firms (FCFs) are the world’s most common organizational structure, with distinct strategies and characteristics that set them apart from non-family-controlled firms. Around the world, the prevalence, strategy and financial success of family-owned firms all vary but what are the core drivers of these differences? To date, research has largely focused on the impact of […]
Family council: preventative medicine or surgical intervention?
If we were to apply medical terminology to the realm of family-owned firms, our first observation would be that all families run the risk of contracting “diseases” and sustaining “injuries.” When the family also owns a business, however, these risks are substantially higher. No business family is “immune” to these risks, which when left unchecked, […]
Digitalize your company by digitalizing your board
How is digitalization impacting our customers’ habits and behaviors? How will they interact with our products and services in 10 years’ time? How “digitally mature” is our sector? How are our competitors applying technology? What percentage of our revenues and margin could we lose over the next five years if we do nothing? What investments […]
New times, same purpose
This is my first-ever blog post and it couldn’t be in a more ideal setting: IESE’s Family-Owned Business Blog, which today enters a new phase as Josep Tàpies advanced last week in his post. From now on, this blog will be a group effort, with contributions from every member of IESE’s Chair of Family-Owned Business’ […]