ERC/FBRF: New Frontiers in Family Business Research Conference

23RD MARCH 2023

BY DR. VICKI BELT & DR. MARTIN KEMP

On 2nd March, the Research Foundation organized its annual research event focusing on UK family business research in collaboration with the Enterprise Research Centre (Aston Business School and Warwick Business School). The conference, New Frontiers in Family Business Research Conference, took place at The Shard, with around 120 people attending, the majority of whom attended in-person.

The conference aimed to bring together researchers, policy makers, and family-business practitioners to discuss current themes and challenges in the family-business research field, and to explore new priorities and avenues for research.

After an opening session from ERC Director Stephen Roper, Sir Michael Bibby Chairman of the Research Foundation emphasized the role of the Research Foundation in bridging the gap between researchers and universities and family business. In particular, he outlined some of the challenges in accessing good quality family business data and in disseminating research insight and evidence among those who run and own family businesses.

This was followed by a keynote presentation from Allan Discua Cruz – Director of the Centre for Family Business at Lancaster University Business School – which highlighted the important role that stories have to play in understanding the experiences of family businesses and business families. His presentation opened with a quotation: “Every family in business has a story to tell, a legend to live up to, a tragedy to lament”, and explored how narratives can help us better understand decision-making in family businesses – a key theme which ran through the day.

ERC Research Fellow Maria Wishart chaired the first panel session of the day. Jane Suter (University of York), Niamh Lenihan (University College Cork), and Eileen Donnelly (Ripple&Co) discussed the theme of wellbeing in family businesses. The importance of creating an environment of psychological safety in family businesses was highlighted, and the role played by culture, values and stories in enabling this. The panellists also drew attention to the importance of line managers in managing workplace mental-health issues, and the emotional toll this can place on them.

After a break, we moved onto the second presentation of the day by Emanuela Rondi (Università degli Studi di Bergamo). Emanuela’s presentation focused on the theme of innovation, arguing that there is significant innovation potential to be unlocked in family businesses. A fascinating discussion followed on the relationship between innovation and tradition, with Emanuela arguing that tradition can be a distinctive asset when it comes to family firm innovation.

The theme of innovation continued into the next presentation, which discussed what works in encouraging digital adoption in family businesses. Halima Jibril, Research Fellow at the ERC, discussed the findings of a randomised control trial evaluation of a programme designed to boost digital adoption in small family businesses. The findings indicate that short, online courses focusing on encouraging adoption can be effective, and that peer learning plays a crucial part in building the confidence to adopt technologies in family firms.

After a networking lunch, we returned to a presentation by Andy Wiggins and Guilherme Pereira of PwC reporting on some of the preliminary findings from the Research Foundation’s Total Tax Contribution study. The study aims to estimate the total tax contribution that UK family firms make to the UK public finances, as part of a wider programme of work by the Research Foundation to better understand the economic impact of UK family firms.

We then moved into a section focusing on family-business data. The ERC’s Stephen Roper returned to the stage, this time in conversation with John Cushing, CEO and Founder of data analytics business mnAi. The discussed explored new opportunities for accessing data on family businesses using AI. A second panel discussion followed which sought to explore how the quality, availability and access to business data might be improved to support new family business research in the UK. The discussion was chaired by Louise Scholes of Loughborough University and included Josh Martin (The Bank of England), Frances Pottier (Department for Business and Trade), and Sharon Ryan (Repgraph). The discussion identified some of the problems involved in defining and identifying family businesses and explored some of the issues that researchers face when seeking to access and use national business data.

Our final session of the day was a panel discussion, chaired by Monder Ram of Aston University, which focused on the theme of family business research into policy and practice. Emanuela Rondi returned to the stage, joined by Julia Rouse (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Kiran Trehan (University of York), for a discussion on the practice of engaged scholarship. We returned to the theme of the power of narrative in family business research, with the panellists exploring how academic researchers can better engage with businesses in their research, questioning whether academic detachment was something desirable or possible. Rather, stories should be at the heart of what researchers do – capturing the complexity of family dynamics, power relations and the role of emotions in family businesses and business families.

Stephen Roper rounded off the day by thanking speakers and delegates for an interesting day of discussion on family businesses, with lots of learning and new connections made, and plenty of inspiration for areas of future research.

Most of the slides from presentations made during the day can be accessed here.

View recordings of the presentations on the FBRF’s YouTube Channel.

Vicki Belt is the Deputy Director at Enterprise Research Centre.
Martin Kemp is the Head of Research at Family Business Research Foundation.