Family Businesses and Enterprises - WICFE

The unique dynamics and strategy of family firms

Summary of the MBA Elective course
Family Businesses and Enterprises is an elective that explores the how unique management, leadership, and governance challenges of a family firm arise from a set of key assets and constraints that are similar across firms, countries and cultures. The course applies thinking from multiple disciplines of economics and management research to address the fundamental decisions of ownership, succession, and exit in family firms. It uses a variety of teaching approaches that include case studies, lectures, benchmarking, exercises, class discussion, and guest speakers (depending on availability), and aims to deliver a set of tools to identify and execute efficient management and governance strategies that improve the well-being of the firms and the families behind the firms.
An important benefit from taking the course is the interaction between participants who have a family business background and participants who do not. The course is of interest to anyone who seeks a role in family business management or finance, including:

• Individuals who are members of families who operate a business
• Individuals with an interest in a career that includes employment in family businesses or other closely held firms, or consulting, banking, or other advisory roles for them
• Individuals with an interest in taking ownership or governance roles in family businesses, including buying or selling family firms either through a future management buy-in or through working in investment banking and/or private equity

Course overview
Business schools have now recognised that family-controlled firms are both the prevalent form of business organisation around the world and that they create unique competitive advantages and challenges. Well-known companies like Bertelsmann, BMW, Cargill, Michelin, Tetra Laval, Hermes, Roche, Wendel, LVMH, GAP, Peugeot, Ford, Heineken, the Swire Group, Henkel, Kikkoman, Timken, Wal-Mart, Solvay, Lego, Yamaha have a family or families as controlling shareholder. They represent one third of the S&P 500 list in the US, between 80 and 90% in Europe and over 90% of the businesses in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. Family firms are the most common firms participating in mergers and acquisitions all over the world.
The key points covered in this course include specific family business content but also process thinking that applies in any context:

• Acquiring long term planning tools to analyse and improving the sustainability of the current ownership and management structure of a family firm.
• Understanding the unique dynamics of family firms and the recurrent themes of family dynamics, business strategy, governance, ownership, finance, succession, and conflict.
• Developing new personal insights about you, your family of origin and your career (whether you are from a family business or not).
• Sharing experiences and interacting with other participants, guest speakers about the opportunities and challenges that family firms face, including challenges of family members or non-family employee, consultants, professionals or service providers working with a business family.