The Global Center for Family Enterprise (GCFE) focuses on the interplay between the “family” and the “enterprise”. The Center’s research focuses on three main research areas: Sustainability, New Technologies and Innovation and Strategy and Governance in Family Enterprises. It is of utmost importance for the GCFE to take an interdisciplinary research approach by incorporating diverse perspectives (e.g. psychological, sociological, economic and legal) to examine family enterprise behavior. The Center’s research is mostly evidence-based and its goal is to achieve academic excellence while researching highly relevant topics. It is also the Center’s mission not only to create but to disseminate knowledge within Germany, Europe and the world.
We examine the theory, conceptual underpinnings, and implications of sustainability for family enterprises. We apply a multi-dimensional approach on (corporate) sustainability and provide insights on how family enterprises can generate long-term value for their owners and stakeholders fostering companies’ longevity. Thereby, we take responsible leadership, business, innovation practices, and forward-looking training activities as the basis for family enterprises’ sustainable development. More specifically, we aim to better understand how family enterprises contribute to solving the grand societal challenges of the 21st century, promote gender equality, and how they effectively pursue responsible business activities. We focus also our interest on investigating topics such as sustainable entrepreneurship. We aim to understand how families can sustain their business for the long-run and across generations and develop the competences to adapt to structural and environmental changes in terms of adjusting their human capital, cognitive skills, and corporate governance structure to changing environmental demands.
New technologies, e.g., artificial intelligence (AI), digital technologies and block chain technology, are considered to be path-breaking drivers of organizational change and innovation in family enterprises. New ground-breaking technologies pose significant new challenges for organization in research and business, particularly with regard to responsible leadership, business and innovation practices, and social integrity. Family enterprises face the challenge to efficiently react to and shape these new technologies. We are interested in examining how family enterprises implement strategies, structures, and employee training using their unique competences to leverage the potential arising from these new technologies.
For instance, AI might lead to faster and more accurate decisions of managers while also having the ability to transform interactions between humans and AI within teams and organizations. We are interested in investigating how family enterprises can effectively deploy path-breaking technologies and aim to generate knowledge to how family enterprises of the 21st may look like. For example, we provide insights on managerial practices and strategies that help family enterprises to leverage disruptive technological changes, design technology-based forms of collaboration, and to effectively establish human-machine interaction.
Family enterprises are characterized by a unique governance structure. Those enterprises need to sustain competitive advantages in rapidly changing business environments with high uncertainty and time pressure. While the specific governance constellations of family enterprises having ownership and management within the family might diminish e.g., owners’ impatience and managerial short-termism, and agency costs, issues may arise due to company succession, nepotism, stakeholder interactions, and family conflicts. We are thus interested in understanding how governance (i.e., corporate governance, ownership and family governance) can be strategically employed to achieve competitive advantage and effective resource deployment within family enterprises. Hence, we investigate for instance topics such as strategic ownership, ownership competence, corporate and contract governance, and contract negotiations to ensure family enterprises’ long-term success.
2ND AUGUST 2022
BEST TEACHING AWARD 2022 ASSIGNED TO JANNIS VON NITZSCH
We are glad to announce that Ph.D. student Jannis von Nitzsch (Professorship Entrepreneurship & Family Enterprise, Prof. Miriam Bird) has received the Best Teaching Award 2022 awarded by the TUM School of Management among all faculty and scientific employees for the “Advanced Seminar in Innovation & Entrepreneurship: Corporate Entrepreneurship”.
Jannis is grateful for this recognition as it shows how dedicated Jannis and all other team members are in implementing innovative cutting-edge teaching methods within our courses and lectures to ensure students’ learning. As one of our students puts it: “This is the best course I have ever taken”.
Congratulations, Jannis, well deserved!
31ST AUGUST 2021
JANNIS VON NITZSCH WINS BEST REVIEWER AWARD 2021
Congratulations to our Ph.D. student Jannis von Nitzsch for receiving the Best Reviewer Award 2021 in the Entrepreneurship Division of the 81st Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management. This award is assigned to scholars who provide excellent feedback to the working papers submitted to conference. This year participants from all of the world discussed the theme “Bringing the Manager back in Management”. We enjoyed exciting talks and discussions and already look forward to next year!
17TH NOVEMBER 2020
PAPER OF PROF. BIRD IS THE WINNER OF THE EBS BEST PAPER AWARD
The paper “When the former CEO stays on board: The role of the predecessor’s board retention for product innovation in family firms” (Stephanie Querbach, Miriam Bird, Priscilla Sarai Kraft, and Nadine Kammerlander) won the EBS Best Paper Award which recognizes outstanding research articles with practical relevance in innovation, entrepreneurship and transformation.
15TH OCTOBER 2020
PAPER OF PROF. DR. MIRIAM BIRD NOMINATED FOR EBS BEST PAPER AWARD
The recently published paper “When the former CEO stays on board: The role of the predecessor’s board retention for product innovation in family firms” (Stephanie Querbach, Miriam Bird, Priscilla Sarai Kraft, and Nadine Kammerlander) is nominated for the EBS Best Paper Award 2020. The paper will be presented during the award ceremony on November 17th, 2020. Papers with outstanding scientific and practical contribution on innovation, entrepreneurship and transformation are honored each year with the EBS Best Paper Award.
25TH JANUARY 2022
“THE ESSENTIALS OF CONTRACT NEGOTIATION” NOW AVAILABLE IN SPANISH
The new book “Claves para la negociación de contratos” of Prof. Stefanie Jung and Prof. Peter Krebs (University of Siegen) has just been released.
Now you can read about the essentials of contract negotiations in Spanish, English and German. We are looking forward to discussing best practices in negotiations now in three languages. Find the book here and take a look inside.
5TH OCTOBER 2021
EUROPEAN BUSINESS LAW REVIEW – NEW ARTICLE
We are pleased to share with you the new article by Professor Stefanie Jung and Professor Peter Krebs (University of Siegen): “Reconsideration of the European Groups Law”. So far, the EU has not yet established rules governing company groups. Given the possible benefits of such a regulation, the paper proposes a new concept for a legally binding European group law. The proposal aims to develop an innovative concept that is both, practicable for the parent company in the sense of an enabling law, and which simultaneously protects minority shareholders and creditors. In this context, the article also discusses group solidarity.
13TH JULY 2021
NEW ARTICLE OF PROF. JUNG AND MICHAEL MATEJEK
Prof. Stefanie Jung and Michael Matejek released a new publication: „Multidimensionalität von (Mediations-)Verhandlungen“. This first part of the paper deals with the challenges of the multidimensionality of the BATNA (Best Alternative to Negotiated Agreement) and the ZOPA (Zone of Possible Agreement) in contract negotiations. The second part of the article will then address possible solutions for dealing with these challenges.
9TH MARCH 2021
PROF. JUNG’S PUBLICATION: FEELING OF JUSTICE IN BUSINESS CONTRACTS
Prof. Stefanie Jung’s new article “Das Rechtsgefühl im unternehmerischen Vertragsrecht“ deals with the sense of justice in business contracts. The article demonstrates that this feeling can be measured empirically. In summary, it is argued that the observed “Rechtsgefühl” should be used as an argument in contract law when there is room for interpretation.
8TH FEBRUARY 2021
NEW ARTICLE BY PROF. JUNG: THE PANDEMIC’S INFUENCES ON TENANCY LAW
Professor Stefanie Jung’s new article “Coronabedingte Störung der Geschäftsgrundlage bei gewerblichen Miet- und Pachtverhältnissen – Gesetzesänderung bleibt auf halbem Wege stehen” is published now. In short: the Corona pandemic forced the German government to close almost all types of businesses. Some are struggling to pay their rent now. Federal lawmakers had already prohibited the revocation of leases and rental agreements for nonperformance during the first lockdown caused by the pandemic’s aftermath, so it was unclear whether the rules on contract frustration still applied – a new law now declares them applicable.
16TH DECEMBER 2020
NEW ARTICLE OF PROF. JUNG PUBLISHED
Prof. Jung recently published the new article “European Legal Forms – Underlying Systematic and Principles”.
The article examines the historical development of European legal forms such as the Societas Europaea (SE), their significance in practice, their effect on the competition between EU and national level and the regulatory techniques used to deal with the multi-level challenges.
20TH JUNE 2020
PROF. DR. MIRIAM BIRD JOINS THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF JOURNAL OF BUSINESS VENTURING
Miriam Bird has been selected to join the editorial review board of Journal of Business Venturing (JBV). JBV is one of the top-tier journals publishing entrepreneurship research. More information can be found here.
10TH JUNE 2020
NEW PUBLICATION BY PROF. DR. MIRIAM BIRD
Former owner-managers often “stay on board” after succession has taken place in small- and medium-sized family firms. But is that a good idea? In the newly published JPIM Journal of Product Innovation Management article “When the Former CEO Stays on Board: The Role of the Predecessor’s Board Retention for Product Innovation in Family Firms”, Prof. Dr. Miriam Bird and her co-authors aim to answer this question (joint study by Stephanie Querbach, Miriam Bird, Priscilla Sarai Kraft, and Nadine Kammerlander): The study can be found here.
28TH APRIL 2023
GIRLS DAY AT TUM CAMPUS HEILBRONN
The Girls' Day is an annual, nationwide career orientation day for girls from the 5th grade onwards. The TUM Heilbronn Campus opened its doors on April 27, 2023, and offered 50 girls an insight into careers as researchers in a panel discussion with professors and scientific staff. In addition to Prof. Dr. Luise Pufahl, Karoline Bax, PhD, and Dr. Franziska Schmidt, PhD Candidate research associate Sidney Hribersek from the Global Center for Family Enterprise talked about her career path and her enthusiasm for a career in science. She also answered questions about her daily tasks and research topics to give young girls a realistic insight into her professional life and to inspire them in their search for their own career path.
7TH NOVEMBER 2022
FIRST IN-PERSON EVENT FOR FAMILY ENTREPRENEURS AT TUM CAMPUS HEILBRONN
The event included insightful talks by Prof. Dr. Miriam Bird, Dr. Gunther Wobser and Christian Mohr who illustrated the topic from an academic and practical point of view. Those talks were followed by a panel discussion on the challenges of implementing corporate entrepreneurship in family businesses.
In case you would like to learn more about our cooperation offers for family entrepreneurs feel free to contact us at: office.gcfe@mgt.tum.de.
4TH OCTOBER 2022
NEW VENTURE TEAM DESIGN CONFERENCE AT TUM CAMPUS HEILBRONN
On September 29-30, we welcomed participants from all over the world to the research conference "New Venture Team Design" at the TUM Campus Heilbronn. Prof. Dr. Miriam Bird (Director of Global Center for Family Enterprise), Prof. Dr. Rebecca Preller (University of Bayreuth) and Dr. Paula Martínez-Sanchis (Post-Doc at Global Center for Family Enterprise) organized the conference in cooperation with the DFG network group "Venturing Together" - represented by Prof. Dr. Nicola Breugst and Dr. Isabell Stamm - to discuss the fundamental question of how to design new venture teams in a way that is conducive to firm success. The program entailed keynotes by Prof. Dr. Vangelis Souitaris (Bayes Business School) and Prof. Dr. Ella Miron-Spektor (INSEAD) on new venture team diversity and team formation, respectively. Further, participants discussed various topics like power inequality, emotional diversity, identity conflicts, or feedback processing in new venture teams, and used the opportunity of networking with the other participants
12TH SEPTEMBER 2022
WORKSHOP ON FIELD EXPERIMENTS IN ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS AT TUM CAMPUS HEILBRONN
On September 5-6, we welcomed participants from all over the world to our first Workshop on Field Experiments in Economics and Business at the TUM Campus Heilbronn organized by our professor of economics Philipp Lergetporer, Simon Wiederhold, Henning Hermes, and Frauke Peter.
10TH NOVEMBER 2021
TUM CONNECT IN HEILBRONN
Last week, our center director Prof. Miriam Bird participated as one of the four thematic experts in the topic of Family Enterprises at this event series. She represented the “Speakers Corner” about the topic of “Family Enterprises and their Innovation capability”. In a discussion round, we had a fruitful and lively exchange of ideas and opinions together with interested guests. The main conclusions in a nutshell:
• Employees are the key to innovation, especially in family businesses where there is a high identification with the company.
• To realize the greatest possible potential of employees, groups such as females and older employee generations need to be given more consideration as valuable resource.
• Alliances and synergies must be created across SMEs to leverage synergies.
20TH OCTOBER 2021
TUM TALK AT CAMPUS HEILBRONN
The second TUM Talk took place on the TUM Campus Heilbronn themed “Family businesses in transition”. We, the GCFE with our center director Prof. Miriam Bird were responsible for the concept and content of the event.
In front of the 100 guests in presence as well as the numerous spectators in the livestream, the designated company successor Sarna Röser of Karl Röser & Sohn GmbH held a thrilling keynote on the topic “Tomorrow’s leaders”.
An exciting evening with a valuable exchange during which we learned one lesson above all: Family businesses as the jewel of the German economy need the impulse of the new generation to continue to survive in the long-term. Especially for our research team, the evening offered interesting impressions and approaches that motivate us to work on new strategies for today’s challenges in cooperation between practice and research.
16TH NOVEMBER 2020
FOUNDERS WEEK IN HEILBRONN: PROF. BIRD TALKS AT STARTUPCITY X EXPERTS ABOUT ENTREPRENEURIAL TEAM FORMATION
During this year’s founders week, Prof. Bird was invited to talk at the StartupCity Meets Experts Event in Heilbronn. Talking to entrepreneurs, Prof. Bird explained how the ideal entrepreneurial team should be formed and which aspects should be considered in designing a successful team. The local newspaper Heilbronner Stimme summarized the main findings in the following article.
15TH SEPTEMBER 2021
NEW PROFESSOR FOR ECONOMICS
We warmly welcome Prof. Dr. Philipp Lergetporer as a new member of the GCFE! He will teach in the field of economics and thus enriches the team of professors with another discipline.
He is an empirical economist who conducts policy-relevant research at the intersection of education economics, public economics, and behavioral economics. We are looking forward to a good collaboration, discovering new synergies with other areas and interesting teaching sessions.
We wish him a good start at the GCFE!
1ST SEPTEMBER 2020
THE GLOBAL CENTER FOR FAMILY ENTERPRISE IS GROWING
We warmly welcome Sidney Hribersek as new scientific employee of Prof. Bird and Bernadette Boehl and Lina María Gélvez Álvarez as new part of the scientific staff of Prof. Jung. In addition, we welcome Christina Kößmeier as our center manager and Lena Vorsatz as team assistant human resources & infrastructure.
We wish all our new team members a good start at the GCFE.
27TH AUGUST 2021
RESEARCH GRANT OF THE SWISS NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
We are proud to announce that Prof. Miriam Bird has been awarded a prestigious research grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). In the next four years, the research project will study how venture teams should be designed to achieve firm growth and survival. The study of new venture team design needs to move beyond static perspectives of founding team composition by addressing elements of power distributions within new venture teams, the role of employees in complementing the entrepreneurial team and team dynamics such as entrepreneurial team turnover events. We are looking forward to hosting this cross-university collaboration at the GCFE.
10TH AUGUST 2021
HANIX MAGAZINE INTERVIEWS PROF. JUNG
A newly published article in the local Heilbronn magazine “Hanix” discusses the topic of rationality of lying. As an expert in the field of contract negotiations, Prof. Dr. Stefanie Jung talks in the interview about the phenomenon of lies, bluffs, and their consequences in business negotiations. In short: Lies in business-to-business negotiations are relatively common. Negotiators bluff among other aspects about their reservation price, deadlines, preferences, better offers, and the availability of their products. Such lies are regularly told for one’s own benefit. However, some of these bluffs are still considered to be morally acceptable by professional negotiators, lawyers, and judges. These moral beliefs have to be distinguished from legal beliefs, i.e. which legal consequences people favor. People tend to only advocate legal consequences for severe misrepresentations like bluffs about the contract object (e.g the machine to be sold), the price, or the legal situation.
4TH FEBRUARY 2021
IN THE NEWS: PROF. BIRD TALKS ABOUT FEMALE SUCCESSION IN FAMILY BUSINESSES
A newly published article in the magazine Hanix discusses the topic of “female” succession within German family businesses. As expert in the field of succession in family businesses, Prof. Dr. Miriam Bird talks in the interview about the phenomenon of “female successors”. Given the lack of successors for family businesses, those firms need to be open to also appoint female successors. Females from the family often incorporate higher levels family values, leadership qualities, traditions as well as diverse backgrounds than successors coming from outside the family. In short: family businesses need to recognize the potential of female family members to succeed across generations. The link to the article can be found here.
24TH NOVEMBER 2020
GLOBAL CENTER FOR FAMILY ENTERPRISE NOW ON LINKEDIN
From now on, we are also active on social media. On our LinkedIn page TUM Global Center for Family Enterprise, we will share more about our work and activities. You can find us here.
27TH OCTOBER 2020
IN THE NEWS: PROF. DR. MIRIAM BIRD TALKS ABOUT THE COMPATIBILITY OF FAMILY AND CAREER
Managing career and family is the topic that Prof. Miriam Bird, and two other experts, are discussing this week in an article in the local newspaper “Heilbronner Stimme”. As professor and director of the Global Center for Family Enterprise, and even in the role of a young mother, Prof. Miriam Bird discusses the challenges and possible solutions for how females can handle this issue. The link to the article can be found here.
18TH AUGUST 2020
NEW TEACHING CONCEPT FOR THE WINTER TERM 2020/2021
In response to the Covid-19 crisis, our team at the Global Center for Family Enterprise is working on an innovative teaching concept using the latest technologies for the winter semester 2020/2021.
We are looking forward to welcoming our students in the winter term!
Professors
Professors
Affiliate Members
Scientific Staff
Supporting Staff
On a regular basis, we invite internationally recognized researchers to present and discuss their newest research insights with our GCFE members. These research talks provide us with a unique opportunity to be at the verge of new research contributions. The research talks usually deal with topics related to entrepreneurship and family enterprise.
Past Research Talks
2025
Dr. Mohamed Genedy (Post-doc at Stockholm School of Economics): Research projects at the intersection of entrepreneurship and family enterprise using large-scale databases. Research Talk January 31 to February 14, 2025 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Felix Kaysers, M.Sc. (EM Lyon Business School): Terrorism and entrepreneurial entry: Evidence from Egypt. Research Talk on January 30, 2025 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Dr. Julian Schenkenhofer (University of Bergamo): Eponymous Family Name Trademarking and Firm Performance. Research Talk on January 13, 2025 at TUM Campus Heilbronn
2024
Dr. Irenaeus Wolff (Thurgau Institute of Economics at the University of Konstanz): (Gender) Inequality through Selection: The Case of Consistency“ (joint work with A. Chadi, U. Fischbacher, M. Hussien & K. Schmelz). Research Talk on November 19, 2024 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Dr. Mohamed Genedy (Post-doc at the House of Innovation at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden): Navigating career choices in parent-owned businesses: The impact of offspring birth order on joining and leaving the parent’s business. Research Talk on July 25, 2024 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Prof. Dr. Philipp Sieger (Professor for Strategic Entrepreneurship at the Department of Management & Entrepreneurship at the University of Bern, Switzerland): Navigating success: Configurations of founder social identities and strategic entrepreneurship in new ventures. Research Talk on June 27, 2024 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
2023
Prof. Dr. Vangelis Souitaris (Professor of Entrepreneurship at Bayes Business School London, UK): What if you leave me now? The short and long term consequences of founder exit after IPO. Research Talk on June 22, 2023 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Prof. Dr. Karl Wennberg (Barbara Bergström Chair in Educational Leadership and Excellence at the Department of Management and Organization at Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden): How diversified should our founding team be? Insights from simulating the tradeoff between performance and the risk of disruption. Research Talk on Apr 26, 2023 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Prof. Dr. Matthias Waldkirch (Assistant Professor at EBS Universität für Wirtschaft und Recht and director of the new Entrepreneurship & Family Firm Institute (EFFI)): Research on innovation and professionalization processes in family firms, dynamics around ownership and change, and how organizational phenomena unfold in digital spaces. Research Talk on Jan 24, 2023 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
2022
Prof. Dr. Xu Li (Assistant professor of Strategy and Innovation, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark ): Research on organizational hybridization. Research Talk on Nov 3, 2022 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Prof. Dr. Grégoire Croidieu (Professor of Entrepreneurship, Emlyon business school, France): Research on how institutional persistence unfolds. Research Talk on Oct 11, 2022 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Prof. Dr. Stephen Zhang (Professor of Entrepreneurship, University of Adelaide, Australien): Too distressed to lead their businesses toward CSR activities: Entrepreneurs’ mental distress and their businesses’ CSR under the COVID-19 crisis. Research Talk on Sep 28, 2022 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Prof. Dr. Dietmar Fehr (Professor of Economics, University Heidelberg, Germany):Perceived Relative Wealth and Risk Taking. Research Talk on May 18, 2022 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
2021
Prof. Dr. Vangelis Souitaris (Professor of Entrepreneurship at Bayes Business School London, UK): Specialist versus generalist founders’ experience and fundraising at IPO. Research Talk on November 30, 2021 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Prof. Dr. Karl Wennberg (Department of Organization and Management at the Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden): Family Vulnerability and Gender Homophily in Male-Led Ventures. Research Talk on September 28, 2021 at TUM Campus Heilbronn.
2020
Dr. Johannes Kleinhempel (University of Manchester, Presidential Fellow at the Institute for PMO Comparative & International Business): Cultural Roots of Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Second-generation Immigrants. Research Talk on October 20, 2020 at the TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Ed Saiedi (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Industrial Economics and Management): Turned Down in a Downturn? Real Effects of Not Securing Capital in the Global Financial Crisis. Research Talk on October 16, 2020 at the TUM Campus Heilbronn.
Based on our recent publication "von Nitzsch, J., Bird, M. & Saiedi, E. (forthcoming). The strategic role of owners in firm growth: Contextualizing ownership competence in private firms. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal".
Project studies can be either a research or a practical project carried out by a student team in collaboration with a company. The companies provide students with hands-on experience in the context of a specific project. A project study normally consists of teamwork of 2 to 5 students with a project duration of 3 months (full-time).
Find more about other project studies on the TUM Job Board.
Currently there are no vacancies at the Global Center for Family Enterprise.
Postal address:
Bildungscampus 9, 74076 Heilbronn