The topic of succession has a long history and has never been limited to the exclusive domain of family business. Putting it into perspective can give us a deeper understanding of its importance in all organizations, both family- and non-family-owned. After writing this post, I thought it was perhaps more suited to an academic readership,…

My colleague Prof. Marta Elvira asked me if I could write about family business and globalization. I do so with pleasure but with the fear that some readers might find my conclusions disappointing. In this post, I won’t refer to large corporations but to medium-sized companies, defined by the European Union as firms with revenues…

A clear purpose drives results. These are the words of Claudine Gartenberg, a Wharton School professor and co-author of one of the largest studies ever conducted on corporate purpose. According to Prof. Gartenberg, purpose is “a set of beliefs about the meaning of a company's work beyond quantitative measures of financial performance.” In a recent…