In Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand the parents have a dominant role in guidance and traditional principles that their kids need to follow by. Therefore, in a family run business if there are any new ideas with innovation or creativity the younger generation will have to consult with their parents first to get the permission to do so. In hindsight, any action done must not lead to a loss of reputation because the image is highly important when dealing with social functions or events.

In Southeast Asia, particularly Thailand the parents have a dominant role in guidance and traditional principles that their kids need to follow by. Therefore, in a family run business if there are any new ideas with innovation or creativity the younger generation will have to consult with their parents first to get the permission to do so. In hindsight, any action done must not lead to a loss of reputation because the image is highly important when dealing with social functions or events.

Current high intellectual intensive and innovative companies should not focus too much on past practice because it does not mean a lot. We can see by many companies going bankrupt that relied too much on the past reputation or brand. Every single day is a new day for proving a competitive advantage on the market.

Current companies must research very well what is not present on the market, where they operate, and to find a small market niche. Taking into consideration that most of the things are already explored, companies must combine different disciplines or business fields in order to gain greater competitive advantage and financial results. The keyword here is multidisciplinarity.

Traditional and undivided family firms are best in balancing in the past and of course mostly it is performing good in the present.

New trends in the business make it difficult to balance elders and youngsters.

In many family businesses specialized in specific business operations, intergenerational succession is particularly relevant in this respect.

Greetings,

Dariusz Prokopowicz

You need experts to successfully manage business processes and connect the past in the best way with the present

This indeed looks like a great title for research.

My suggestion will be to understand the perspective from both the family firm’s and market’s point of view. Innovation is a direct function of market requirements. An innovation which fails to solve a customer problem effectively (providing better solutions) may not succeed. So family firms do not innovate because they are sitting on past knowledge (which btw may be redundant in the present times). They innovate because there is a strong opportunity to capitalize on that innovation in the marketplace

The answer to the balance between the past and present will vary among product categories for example a perpetual category like power or automobiles will throw very different results compared to an ecommerce or elearning.

In India, the biggest business families are nowhere in ecommerce, even though they have tried their level best to penetrate the category but when we look at the other conventional categories like Power, textile et al they are among the leaders.

Hi Scato. My tip regarding the questionnaire is to ask the past generation how deep they are familiar with and use new technologies.

My proposition is: the deeper the past generation is involved with and use new technologies, faster the family will find the balance.

I hope this tip is useful... and wish you success with you Master Thesis.

Dear Scato,

This is an interesting topic area. One angle that you can look into is the need to disrupt the past as a potential strategy through which family firms create new knowledge, new possibilities, new capabilities in order to manage current and future challenges. I'd be interested to follow developments.

En una exposición traté el tema de la empresas familiares, MyPes, muchas veces nacen los emprendimientos familiares por necesidad y por la formación en las universidad y por la experiencia, pero cuando se gana la experiencia, viene la etapa de crecimiento por lo tanto el dueño de la empresa familiar debe delegar a otro familiar la parte operativa, y el dueño debe iniciar a planificar, nuevos objetivos, FODA, con los nuevos conocimientos y innovación aprovechar las oportunidades que se presentan,.. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeJbHbrby5PxHE0hw75IHVw

Innovation is an ongoing process and the past innovation can be upgraded to be the present innovation, therefore managing it is a matter of being at bar with the market and innovate in what can bring growth in the present

Family's entrepreneur when starting in generation have a lot of experience in innovated or family firms. This reason one of the important that named "firm's culture ". Also this organized culture making market better management.

Hi Scato,

I did a very similar dissertation for my MSc., albeit many years ago. If an organisation is multi generational and if the founder is still active in the firm then past innovation should be drawn on, for the very fact that the firm is still surviving. Experience (successful and none successful innovation) can help inform future innovation. The amount that it will inform future innovation depends on the attitudes and values of the generations involved and the matriarch/patriarch viewpoint, if they still head up the firm. Succession plays a very important factor to the attitudes towards growth, there is also some dependence on the tiers of succession, second, third and fourth generations are each very different.

My colleagues and I produced a conference paper, available on this site as full text, if it helps - A Case Study Investigation of Innovation as a Key to Growth in the Family SME (Mayho, Miller and Thomas).

Good luck

Family businesses, like all, need to perpetuate themselves. Tools such as Boards of Directors help to make the Corporate Governance process more robust.

Article:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325203076_Corporate_governance_concepts_situational_analysis_and_reflections_on_the_situations_based_on_theoretical_framework_of_L'Huillier_2014_and_Martin_SantosDias_Filho_2004

Keeping authenticity and building on it.

You should distinguish between sustaining innovations and disruptive innovations. Sustaining innovations allow for the balance between the past and the present.