Special Issue: Our Best Teaching Advice

September 13, 2021 - Issue #38

Want to Give Your Entrepreneurship Students Real-World Experience? Try Consulting Projects Students gain exposure to the inner-workings of a business, while entrepreneurs receive a fresh perspective, academic insight and assistance.

Future Family Business Owners Can Learn to Manage Conflict This classroom exercise dissects the five approaches to managing disputes, and their likely outcomes.

Team Exercise: How Parenting Styles Affect The Next Generation This experiential exercise is designed to enhance student learning about the four parenting styles and how they affect the dynamics within the family firm.

Confidentiality Agreements Promote Candor in Family Business Classes For students to share their own good and bad family experiences in a family business class, confidentiality is essential.

Real-Life Drama: Creating a TV Series Based on a Family Business From the "director's chair," students illustrate the challenges of the family firm, and what makes a good one.

To Engage Business Students, Roll Out 'the Barrels' A variation of the childhood "choose your own adventure books" improves understanding of succession planning, governance and ethics.

Videos for the Global Family Business Community These are challenging times for family businesses. These videos share best practices that help business owners, professors and students weather the crisis and manage what comes next.

Design Remote Learning to Help Students Feel Connected Done right, online teaching can help students actually engage more with their professors and with one another.

Learn to Defend Your Family Firm This classroom exercise helps future family firm members learn to anticipate outside threats to their business and defend it.

Search & Save Enter search below to create an easy reading list

Designing and Experiencing the Family Business Advisory

Acres of Diamonds: Advantages of Working in Your Family Business

Why Didn’t I Think of That? A Classroom Exercise for Developing Entrepreneurial Thinking

What the Public Gets Wrong About Family Businesses

Popular Topics

Money

Financing, revenue, profits

Team

Staffing, succession, relationships

Manage

Best practices for running the business

Grow

Increase customers and revenue

Strategy

Making better decisions

Operations

How the best firms run

Recent

How Families Can Move From Conflict to Forgiveness

by Kimberly Eddleston / Interviews

Set boundaries clearly and often, understand your own hot buttons, and be genuinely curious about why the other side thinks the way they do. Read more...

What Japan's Oldest Businesses Can Teach Us About Longevity

by Peter Vogel / Commentary

Should longevity always be the goal? And if so, what exactly should endure—the operating company, a particular business model, or the family enterprise system itself? Read more...

When Family Business Reputation Helps—and When It Hurts

by Philipp Jaufenthaler, Roland Schroll, and Franz Kellermanns / Research Insight

Family firms often enjoy strong consumer goodwill, until they engage in deliberate misconduct -- when higher expectations can produce deeper disappointment and sharper backlash. Read more...

Why People Risk Belongs on Every Family Business Board Agenda

by Claudia Binz Astrachan and Lars B. Sonderegger / Practice Insight

Boards routinely scrutinize financial and strategic risk. But talent shortages, leadership culture problems, and succession gaps can erode long-term value just as quickly. Read more...

by Sara Stern

How to Run a Family Business Successfully

by Kerry Hannon

How Families Can Re-Engage Reluctant Successors Without Pressure

by John Cater, Roland Kidwell, Megan Harper, and Marilyn Young

Announcing Our 2024-25 Schulze Awards Winners

by Kimberly Eddleston and Mat Hughes

Listening to the Family: The Strategic Value of Surveys

by Claudia Binz Astrachan

What Nonfamily Managers Need From Family Firm Leaders

by Mat Hughes, Alfredo De Massis, Sascha Kraus, Qilin Hu, and Yi-Ying Chang