Visited: Spring 2011
Shaker Zahra, Ph.D
Robert E. Buuck Chair of Entrepreneurship, CSOM Strategic Mgmt & Org, in the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota
Current Research
Global Entrepreneurship in Science & Tech-Based Industries
Innovation & Evolution of Capabilities in Science & Tech-based Global Industries
Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Knowledge-based Competition
Global Strategy & Entrepreneurship in Science/ Tech Industries
Social Entrepreneurship
Expertise
Global Entrepreneurship in Science & Tech-Based industries
Entrepreneurship & National Policy
Corporate entrepreneurship in Science & Tech-Based Industries
Innovation
Global Strategy in Science & Tech Industries
Visited: January 17, 2011
Belén Villalonga, Ph.D.
Belén Villalonga is an Associate Professor in the Finance Unit at the Harvard Business School, where she has been on the faculty since 2001. Professor Villalonga’s teaching and research and interests lie at the intersection of family business, finance, strategy, and governance. She has developed and teaches the MBA elective course Growing, Financing, and Managing Family and Closely Held Firms. She also teaches in two related executive education programs, Families in Business and Strategic Finance for Smaller Businesses, as well as in the doctoral course Management and Markets. In 2010 she received the Harvard Business School Wyss Award for excellence in mentoring doctoral students. Professor Villalonga has written several articles about how family ownership and control influence the management and governance of firms and, ultimately, their performance. She has also done extensive work in the area of corporate diversification and its effect on firm value. Her research has been published in leading academic journals and has received multiple awards, including the 2004 Brattle Prize for the best article published in the Journal of Finance––the most prestigious research award in the field of corporate finance. Her work has been cited over 600 times in academic publications and has been featured in CNBC, NPR, Barron’s, Business Week, The Economist, Expansión, Financial Times, Forbes, Institutional Investor, International Herald Tribune, and many other international business publications. Since 2006, Professor Villalonga has been serving as an independent director on the board of Acciona, a family-controlled Fortune Global 500 company in the infrastructure and renewable energy businesses that is publicly listed in Spain. Professor Villalonga received her Ph.D. in Management and an M.A. in Economics from the University of California at Los Angeles. She also holds a second Ph.D. in Business Economics from the Complutense University of Madrid and an undergraduate degree in Finance from the Colegio Universitario de Estudios Financieros in Madrid. Before entering graduate school she worked as an intern at McKinsey & Co. in Paris. She is fluent in Spanish, English, and French, and conversant in Portuguese and Italian. Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Finance Area, Harvard Business School.
Raffi Amit, PhD
Raphael (“Raffi”) Amit is the Robert B. Goergen Professor of Entrepreneurship and a Professor of Management at the Wharton School. Dr. Amit is the Academic Director of the Goergen Entrepreneurial Management Programs which encompasses all of Wharton’s entrepreneurial programs. As well, he co-founded and leads the Wharton Global Family Alliance (WGFA), a unique academic-family business partnership established to enhance the marketplace advantage and the social wealth creation contributions of global families through thought leadership, knowledge transfer and the sharing of ideas and best practices among influential global families. Dr. Amit holds B.A. and M.A. degrees in Economics, and received his Ph.D. in Managerial Economics and Decision Sciences from Northwestern University’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Dr. Amit’s current research and teaching interests center on family business management, governance, and finance, on venture capital and private equity investments, on entrepreneurship, on the design of business models and on business strategy. He has published extensively in leading academic journals and is frequently quoted in a broad range of practitioner outlets.
Dr. Amit is a family business expert. He is frequently engaged with a broad range of substantial families, their family offices, and their family businesses, in the Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. His work on family offices, and his work on ownership, control, governance and financing growth of family businesses, won global acclaim and is widely cited.
Professor Amit has held a range of management and Board of Directors positions in various companies. He served as Chair of the Board of Directors of Creo Products Inc. for 6 years. Professor Amit has helped form the Korean Global IT Fund, a $100 million VC fund and has served as the first Chairman of the KGIF Advisory Board. He now serves on the Board of Directors of Alvarion Ltd., a leading wireless communication equipment company, and is a member of the Audit and Compensation Committees of Alvarion. Dr. Amit consults to numerous family businesses, and publicly held firms on a broad range of strategic, governance and financial issues.
Visited: October 29, 2010
Strategic Entrepreneurship in Family Firms
To survive and succeed over time, firms have to be both strategic and entrepreneurial (regardless of the size, age or prior success of the firm). That is, firms must simultaneously seek to gain and sustain competitive advantages in current markets and seek to identify/create and exploit new opportunities in existing or new markets. Family firms have some special advantages that facilitate their practice of strategic entrepreneurship but also sometimes have constraints on their ability to be both strategic and entrepreneurial. In this session, we will discuss the importance of practicing strategic entrepreneurship using several case examples. We will then explore the processes necessary to develop the appropriate strategies and how to achieve and maintain a competitive advantage. Finally, we will examine how to build and organization that is continuously seeking to improve and to be innovative. We will conclude with prescriptions for strategic entrepreneurship its outcomes in family firms.
Presenter - Michael Hitt, Ph.D.
- Texas A&M University
- Professor, Joe B. Foster '56 Chair in Business Leadership, Department of Management
- Coauthored or co-edited 26 books and authored or coauthored many journal articles
- The Times Higher Education in 2010 listed him among the top scholars in economics, finance and management
- Received the 1996 Award for Outstanding Academic Contributions to Competitiveness and the 1999 Award for Outstanding Intellectual Contributions to Competitiveness Research from the American Society for Competitiveness
- A member of the Academy of Management Journals’ Hall of Fame
Visited: April 12 - 24, 2010
Professor Pietro Mazzola
Full Professor, Strategic Management
IULM University, Milan Italy
Main research topics:
- strategic planning
- growth strategies
- family business
- investor relation and voluntary disclosure to financial markets
- reputation on financial markets
- international strategy
Visited: March 4 - 5, 2010
Professor Jess Chua
Professorship in Family Business Management
Centre for Family Business Management & Entrepreneurship Finance
Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary
“Family Firm Valuation by Family CEOS: The Role of Socioemotional Value”
Abstract
Based on contentions of prospect theory that ownership endows possessions with a value premium, this study provides evidence that socioemotional value in family firms influences the financial value attached to the firm by individual family owners. While previous work suggests an imputed link between socioemotional value and family firm behavior, the ability to measure the concept is a critical step toward establishing its direct linkage with behavior. The results from two different samples show that the perceived financial value attached to family firms by owner-CEOs increases with their intention for transgenerational sustainability, a distinctive socioemotional attribute of family firm ownership.
Visited: March 1 - June 20, 2010
Professor Thomas M. Zellweger
University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
“Emotional Value: Corporate Value beyond the Financial Paradigm”
Abstract
Research on emotional value examines how owners of firms subjectively value their ownership stake in monetary terms. We utilize endowment and possession attachment literature to investigate how emotional benefits and costs related to organizational ownership affect emotional value. Emotional value is defined as that part of willingness to accept (minimum acceptable sales price) unexplained by the financial value of the ownership stake and the private financial benefits of control accruing to the owner. This research provides new insight into firm owners’ psychology and value considerations where an owner values non-financial aspects of the ownership stake. It provides insight into how affect biases monetary appraisal of corporate ownership.
Visited: January 19 - 22, 2010
Professor Franz W. Kellermanns, Ph.D
Henry Family Notable Scholar & Richard C. Adkerson Notable Scholar
Associate Editor Family Business Review
Associate Professor of Management (Mississippi State University)
Associate Faculty Member (WHU)
Department of Management and Information Systems
“Family Involvement and New Vanture Debt Financing”
Abstract
New ventures often require debt financing but face difficulties convincing lenders of their creditworthiness because of agency problems. Researchers have shown that social capital can help small firms reduce lenders’ agency concerns but new ventures do not yet have their own social capital. We propose that family involvement increases a venture’s ability to borrow family social capital for the purpose of obtaining debt financing. Empirical tests with 1,267 new ventures suggest that family involvement directly and indirectly improves a new venture’s access to debt financing.
Visited: December 1 - 3, 2009
Professor Pramodita Sharma, Ph.D
Professor at the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University
Editor of Family Business Review – a SAGE publication and the only SSCI listed scientific
Leader and advisor at the Family Firm Institute and the International Family Enterprise Research Academy (IFERA)
Co-founder (w. Mark Green) of the annual Family Enterprise Research Conference (FERC)
"Next-Generation’s Commitment: Predictors and Consequences"
Abstract
Amidst aging population trends, trans-generational succession of family firms is a major topic of interest to scholars, practitioners and policy makers alike. Around the globe, research focused on understanding the desirable attributes of next-generation leaders of family firms, reveals ‘successor commitment’ as a key attribute. As the quest for finding the most suitable next-generation successors continues, this research project addresses the following questions:
Are all next-generation family members, who decide to pursue a career in their family firms, equally committed to these firms?
If not, what underlying bases or mind-sets drive the nature and extent of commitment of these family members?
What factors influence the different mind-sets?
What are the behavioral and performance outcomes of different levels of commitment?
Drawing on the organizational commitment literature, we propose four bases of successor commitment to family firm—affective (based on perceived desire), normative (based on perceived sense of obligation), calculative (based on perceived opportunity costs involved), and imperative (based on perceived need). A model of predictors and expected behavioral outcomes of each of these bases of commitment is developed and tested using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Highlights of this SSHRC funded research project are shared in this presentation