Witten Institute for Family Businesses (WIFU)

WIFU Endowed Chair in Corporate Entrepreneurship and Digitalisation in Family Businesses

WIFU Endowed Chair in Family Business Law

WIFU Endowed Chair in the Organisation and Development of Entrepreneurial Families

Chair in Family Entrepreneurship and Innovation (WIFU Endowed Junior Professorship)

The research is structured around the following thematic areas:

• the governance of family businesses and entrepreneurial families, i.e. the question of appropriate organisational and leadership principles;
• familiarity, which is realised and manifested in particular through the transgenerational nature of this form of enterprise;
• continuity, which can be understood, for example, in terms of sustainability as both an environmental and a social motivation for the long-term preservation of the business, the family and their values;
• transformation, that is, the question of how family businesses and entrepreneurial families navigate processes of change amidst the tension between tradition and innovation;
• entrepreneurship as the fundamental individual and organisational mindset required to lead family businesses and entrepreneurial families into the future, particularly in times of digitalisation and the technological challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution; and finally
• strategy as the process that confronts the leadership of family businesses and entrepreneurial families with the task of proactively addressing key entrepreneurial and family development challenges and implementing appropriate solutions.

In exploring these strands of research, the Institute’s primary aim is to work towards further developing the empirical and theoretical foundations of the academic understanding of family businesses and entrepreneurial families. In doing so, WIFU sees itself both as a centre for academic research and as a platform for the reciprocal exchange between theory and practice.

Current projects:

• The Elgar Companion to Family Business and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (book project)
• Technology implementation in family businesses
• Digital transformation in German SMEs, particularly in family businesses
• The social, cultural and religious context of family businesses and entrepreneurial families
• Sustainability in family businesses
• Mental health in family businesses
• Japan Project
• Narratives of Survival
• Harmony or Dissonance? – Start-up investments and family businesses
• Socialisation and Lifestyle in Family Businesses
• The Effectiveness and Experience of Systemic Constellations
• Family Entrepreneurship in East Germany
• Between Repression and Coming to Terms with the Past – Family Businesses during the Nazi Era
• Growth of family businesses in the skilled trades
• Couple formation amidst the tension between cohesion and the development of entrepreneurial families
• Value-oriented family entrepreneurship: the example of anthroposophically-inspired enterprises
• Income tax independent of legal form
• Legal and business-related limitations on severance pay restrictions in family businesses
• Legal facts – the limits of quantitative research

Completed projects:

• Tobias Köllner et al. The social, cultural and religious embeddedness of family businesses and entrepreneurial families
• Muhammad Anwar, Business Model Innovation in Family Firms
• Andrea Gerlitz, Sustainability in Family Business
• Christina Strauß, Psychosocial Aspects of Digital Communication – A Comparison of Family Businesses and Public Companies
• Lina Nagel: The cybernetics of the entrepreneurial family. A theoretical framework for understanding a specific social system, focusing on conflict dynamics and communication patterns based on the epistemology of second-order cybernetics
• Theresa Arnold: Paradoxical communication and divergent logics in business families and family businesses: systems-theoretical frameworks and applications
• Fabian Simons: The Trustee Mentality in Dynastic Entrepreneurial Families. The Formation of a Wealth-Strategic Attitude as a Social Process
• Moritz Schulze: Wealthy but hungry. The theory of wealth and entrepreneurial socialisation
• Verena Kopp: “At first, there wasn’t even a social thought behind it…” Labour market inclusion of refugees in small and medium-sized family businesses as corporate social responsibility
• Caroline Heil: Child resilience in entrepreneurial families. An empirical and socialisation-theoretical analysis
• Rebecca Kleine: Frames of Digital Transformation: Cognition and Behavioural Aspects of Individuals

Bachelor’s, Master’s, continuing professional development – We develop and deepen knowledge in the field of family businesses and entrepreneurial families. For those interested in a career in academia, we offer the opportunity to undertake a PhD and habilitation on interdisciplinary topics in this field.