According to popular wisdom, people tend to get more conservative as they age. But is this actually true? And if so, how does it impact CEOs and the organizations they lead? If we look to previous research, business leaders indeed show a tendency toward risk aversion as their corporate careers wind down, favoring quick wins…

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…