Trailblazers of Family Business Research and Learning

Birgit Suberg is Visiting Professor at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University in Suzhou, China, and Managing Director of a Shanghai-based consulting firm. She began her career in strategic consulting in Germany and has held senior roles in China with P&L responsibility for multinational and family-owned firms.Hermut Kormann served as CFO and CEO of Voith, a 150-year-old German family enterprise, and previously worked at ABB and Booz & Co. He advises owning families on strategy and serves as Professor at Zeppelin University (Germany), Visiting Professor at Leipzig University (Germany), and Senior Research Fellow at Witten University (Germany). He supervises doctoral research on family business strategy.

• The extended family in Africa does not stop with me, my wife, our parents and my siblings – An Interview with Prof. Moses Acquaah.- In the late 1980s, most of the academic community believed that family business could not garner any sustainable interest – An Interview with Prof. Joseph Astrachan.- Traditional Chinese philosophy helps me refine my thinking about family business – An Interview with Prof. Chen Ling.- Family multi-generational prosperity hinges on a whole galaxy of institutions and roles – An Interview with Prof. Alfredo De Massis.- Different interpretations of filial piety and loyalty in Japanese and Chinese culture have a strong impact on family businesses – An Interview with Prof. Dou Shaojie.- When asked, “As entrepreneurship professor, have you ever even started a firm?”, I answered, “Yes, when I was nine” – An Interview with Prof. Kimberly Eddleston.- Pragmatism, determination and a long-term vision; to get up and rebuild, that is a common trait in the region – An Interview with Farida El Agamy.- We need to be able to ask the question, “Who would benefit from creating this foundation?” – An Interview with Prof. Annika HALL.- I studied family business in order to understand the part I had been missing – An Interview with Prof. Peter Jaskiewicz.- How the European SME-Sector will look like in the future, especially with view to ownership structures, is a key question – An Interview with Prof. Nadine Kammerlander.- When researching professionalization of family firms, I found that there is what I call a ‘doubles game’ – An Interview with Prof. Kavil Ramachandran.- For understanding and advising family businesses we should look at how the family has been ‘managed’ – An Interview with Prof. Manfred Kets de Vries.- When teaching family business, caution to not inadvertently transmit our own values and preferences is advisable – An Interview with Prof. Hermut Kormann.- Ideally, the emotional dimension should be included in every paper on family business – An Interview with Prof. Rania Labaki.- Initially, the US-based global Family Firm Institute had just six members; we were a small, close-knit group – An Interview with Prof. Ivan Lansberg.- Our expression to ‘preserve a trade’ is a contradiction in itself; it is impossible to keep a business alive by maintaining it as it is – An Interview with Prof. Li Xinchun.- Family business owners are visible owners, investing and taking risks; with their own money, with their heart and soul – An Interview with Prof. Mattias Nordqvist.- Sometimes I take my Family Business classroom ‘on the road’ so that the students can learn in real life settings – An Interview with Prof. Pei Rong.- Systemic therapy does not see ‘problems’ as something that resides inside an individual, who then is ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ or ‘crazy’ – An Interview with Prof. Arist von Schlippe.- Hopefully, we inspire young researchers but also encourage enough educators; knowledge needs to be transmitted – An Interview with Prof. Pramodita Sharma.- Management begins at the point beyond either-or; I want to invite thinking about potential synergies – An Interview with Prof. Thomas Zellweger.