Family Business Research Initiative

Leadership In Family Business Research Initiative (LIFBRI)

Professor Nigel Nicholson and his research team are seeking to make London Business School one of the world´s leading centres for the study of family business.

The initiative includes the development of a new theoretical framework for the study of family business, bringing together ideas from evolutionary biology, anthropology, family psychology, economics and organisational behaviour.

The core of the theory is that family firms have unique performance capabilities if they can overcome their special challenges. Indeed, doing so seems to confer a cultural advantage on them. Leadership choices in the domains of governance, succession and ownership are the key to success, and these are both constrained and enabled by the family system. The theory elaborates on the key features of the family system, including structure, personality and culture. It is these areas that future research will be devoted to exploring.

Support for the research is given by The Institute for Family Business, William Grant & Sons and the Butane Group through the creation of the IFB Fellowship. The research is carried out in association with Åsa Björnberg.

Past sponsors: ESRC (RES-000-22-0302); BDO Centre for Family Business.