• CO-ORGANISED BY
• CHAIRPERSONS
• KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
• PROGRAMME
• BACKGROUND
• CALL FOR PAPERS
• SUBMISSION GUIDELINES
• DEADLINES
• AWARDS
• PUBLICATION OPORTUNITIES
• PRACTICALITIES
• LIST OF PARTICIPANTS
• DOWNLOAD ACCEPTED PAPERS

Alfredo De Massis*, Tommaso Minola, Lucio Cassia, Center for Young and Family Enterprise – CYFE
University of Bergamo, Italy
Leif Melin, Mattias Nordqvist, Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership – CeFEO
Jönköping International Business School, Sweden
* Centre for Family Business, Lancaster University Management School, U.K.

David Audretsch, Indiana University, USA
Kimberly Eddleston, D'Amore-McKim School of Business, Northeastern University, USA

Click here for the detailed programme.

The EIASM Workshop on Family Firm Management Research has become one of the most important venues for scholars to gather and discuss current research on the family businesses in Europe and beyond. The 10th annual EIASM Workshop, is organized and hosted by University of Bergamo, in Italy. The 10th workshop continues the tradition of successful academic events that have been created at the previous meetings in Jönköping (2005, 2007 & 2012), Nice (2006), Naples (2008), Hasselt (2009), Barcelona (2010), Witten (2011) and Helsinki (2013). Like the previous workshops, the 10th EIASM workshop will attract a large number of established and emerging scholars from family business research and related fields to share their interest and perspectives on family firm management. The workshop will provide great opportunities for researchers to share their experiences, receive high value feedback on each other’s work and to form new research collaborations.

A systematic process of paper discussants will be organized.
 

Family business research is progressing in terms of theory building and theory testing, and innovation in family firms has become a topic of increasing interest in management research in recent years (De Massis, Sharma, Chua, & Chrisman, 2012).
 
Research indicates that innovative companies do better than their competitors (Davidsson et al., 2010; Thornhill, 2006). This explains why innovation has been the subject of extensive theoretical and empirical studies and is now widely acknowledged as an important determinant of sustained competitive performance and economic development (Van Beers et al., 2008; Zahra et al., 1999). Together with technological and organizational innovation, internationalization is a further means to innovate a business by expanding the business activity to new geographical markets.

Family firms increasingly make use of innovation to nurture their competitive advantage and to overcome economic downturn (De Massis, Frattini, Pizzurno and Cassia, 2014), and the companies Alessi, Benetton and FIAT are just three examples of well-known family firms that have strongly anchored their competitive advantage in innovation.

The study of innovation in family firms is a promising research direction since strong theoretical reasons suggest that the antecedents and outcomes of innovation are different in family and nonfamily firms (Chrisman and Patel, 2012; De Massis, Frattini and Lichtenthaler, 2013). Ownership structure affects the firm’s innovation activities and outcomes (Hoskisson, Hitt, Johnson, and Grossman, 2002) through different level of firms’ risk aversion, diversification plans, and return aspirations (Thomsen and Pedersen, 2000). Moreover, family involvement in ownership, management, and governance can result in resources unique to the family firm (Habbershon & Williams, 1999), that can then be leveraged in ways that may influence the management of innovation. In sum, family firms play an important role in the innovation driven economic development.

During the 10th EIASM Workshop on Family Firm Management we want to encourage scholars to address the family business innovation from new and creative perspectives, including
   - how and why do family businesses innovate and what are appropriate ways to conceptualize and understand their innovation performance,
   - family-centered goals and their effect on innovation inputs, processes and activities,
   - how family firms’ ability to generate and manage idiosyncratic resources over time influences their degree of exploration and exploitation in the innovation process,
   - the role of different types of family influence (ownership, management, control) in the different phases of the innovation process,
   - how enterprising families become sources of new streams of value through new products, new ventures and new markets entry, as well as discontinuous organizational configurations,
   - how family businesses contribute through unique social capital to the transfer of knowledge, collaboration, and the development of innovation systems,
   - the temporal evolution of family firms innovativeness: when do family firms undertake innovative actions, with respect to internal (e.g., succession) and external (e.g., downturn or market saturation) factors.

While submission of papers related to the main theme - Innovation, family firms and economic development - are particularly encouraged, the workshop continues its tradition to accept papers relevant to any area of family firm management and which add value to the development of the family business research field, including:
   - literature review papers focusing on key issues and topics in the family business field:
   - state-of-the-art papers that allow discussing the knowledge already acquired and the main challenges to address in future research,
   - papers that use the family firm context for contributing to the development of general management and entrepreneurship concepts and theories - comparisons between family and non-family firms, but also between different types of family firms belong to this category,
   - papers that draws on sophisticated and rigorous analysis of empirical data (both qualitative and quantitative papers are welcomed).
   - paper that introduce and develop new theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of family firms 

SUBMIT HERE 

The PROPOSAL is composed of a Cover page and the body of the Abstract.
Please note that the proposal must be submitted online as one document. 
The cover page should be a separate sheet including the following information:
- Title
- Each author’s name, his/her affiliation, address, telephone, e-mail, fax
The body of the proposal will consist of an abstract of maximum 2 pages (cover page not included)
- The Proposal should be single spaced in 11-point font (Times New Roman or a similar font).
- The Abstract should include: purpose / topic of research, research method, theories used, contribution of research.

TO UPLOAD THE FINAL PAPER (for accepted papers only) - please follow the steps below:
* go to the EIASM web site (www.eiasm.org) 
* at the top (beneath the EIASM logo and above the graphic banner) you will find the menu bar for the web site
* select the menu item 'Workshops & Conferences' - and then
* select the sub-menu 'Event Administration'
* enter your Login (which is the exact e-mail address as it appears in your EIASM profile)
* enter your Password (in case you have forgotten it, please follow the link and procedure indicated...)
* select CONFERENCE ON FAMILY MANAGEMENT and click on 'DETAIL'
* at that stage, you should see the status Accepted - Final paper needed, so proceed to upload the document
* in case the final paper title differs from the abstract that was originally submitted, please modify it here
* do not forget to click on 'SAVE' after uploading the file!

Should you have further related questions or encounter problems, please contact the Event Manager.
 

Abstract submission: 5 March 2014
Authors notification: as of 26 March 2014
Registration for authors: 23 April, 2014
Final papers: 8 May, 2014

Several awards will be given during the workshop. More details coming soon.

• Journal of Family Business Strategy special issue - Family Business and Regional Development. For details click here

• Small Business Economics Journal special issue - Management Processes in the Family Firm: From “What” to “How". For details click here     

•  Global Strategy Journal special issue - Family Firms and Family Governed Multinationals in the Global Economy. For details click here

VENUE
Università degli Studi di Bergamo,
Via Salvecchio, 19,
24129 Bergamo, Italy
Click here for more location info.

ACCOMMODATION
For a list of recommended hotels CLICK HERE

Information about the city of Bergamo CLICK HERE

TRANSPORTATION

CLICK HERE for transportation details.

ONLINE REGISTRATION

Cancellations made before May 5, 2014 will be reimbursed minus 20% of the total fee. No reimbursement will be possible after that date.

Payments should be made by :

• The following credit cards: Visa or Eurocard/Mastercard/Access

ADMINISTRATION