When MBAs Meet Henokiens: What can We Learn from Long-Lived Family Firms?

Abstract:     
The corporate world today is changing fast. To survive firms must be competitive, ready for changes, exploiting opportunities presented by globalization, finding finance when crisis hits, and, generally, to be able to adapt to new challenges more rapidly than possibly ever before in corporate history. Given all this, it is no wonder that ownership changes are accelerating, that entrepreneurs sell out more quickly, and that families suffer in the second and third generations more than before. The pace of business plan and ownership changes has possibly never been faster. In such a changing world, it is amazing to see some family firms continue to prosper and survive even when the same family has remained at the helm for centuries. Some families continue to pass ownership from generation to generation and continue to groom new talents that can manage and develop the firms into their 10th generation or more. The Henokiens present possibly the most extreme continuity in the constellation of firms and family firms.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 17

working papers series