JIBS researchers strengthen the family entrepreneurs of Europe
Researchers from JIBS will represent Sweden at a meeting with researchers from all over Europe. At the STEP summit in St. Gallen they will discuss ways to strengthen entrepreneurship processes in family businesses.
Eleven research teams will meet at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland on 28-30 April. The Swedish STEP research team consists of Ethel Brundin, Lisa Bäckvall, Leif Melin and Mattias Nordqvist from the Centre of Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO) at JIBS.
STEP organizes summits like this every year in Europe, Latin America and Asia-Australia (a North American STEP project is planned during 2011). The summits consist of an active dialogue between academics, and the global dimension gives the participants a unique opportunity to compare and discuss their results with people with the same research interests, but with several different cultural backgrounds.
STEP stands for Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices. The project was founded in 2005 at Babson College with CeFEO/JIBS as one of the five founding partners. Today it is a global research venture that aims to investigate how family businesses develop and pass on their entrepreneurial mind-sets and capabilities from one generation to another. It also explores the entrepreneurial process within business families and generates solutions that are immediately applicable on the businesses.
Family businesses are the dominant form of business organizations worldwide – they play a leading role in the creation of social and economic wealth in communities and countries. To achieve continued growth and continuity, the families must hand over not only their business, but also their values and competence for the next generation to build on and adapt to future challenges. This is what is referred to as transgenerational entrepreneurship.
