P1: Universita degli Studi di Palermo, Italy

 

The University of Palermo is an acknowledged public academic institution in central-western Sicily. Its 5 schools (Medicine and Surgery; Polytechnic; Law, Social and economic Sciences; Applied Sciences; Humanities and Cultural Heritage) and 20 Departments cover the most important domains of scientific and technological knowledge, and offers about 124 courses (53 first, 63 second and 8 full cycle) as well as 33 professional master courses, 44 specialization courses and 16 PhD courses, targeted to the training of specific professional profiles.

 

UNIPA has a consolidated expertise in Family Business and in the topic of the project, as it is confirmed by the CVs of the key staff involved and by the most recent Erasmus+KA projects on entrepreneurship such as:

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• REady for BUSiness–Integrating and validating practical entrepreneurship skills in engineering and ICT studies,

• AspiRing enTrepreneurIal families to perpetuate cultural buSiness Across geNerations – ARTISAN, and

• “Family Business and Sustainability in the Digital Economy: managing “VUCA”, granted by the University of Western Australia.

P2: GrantXpert Consulting, Cyprus

 

GrantXpert Consulting is a company formed in 2009, with extensive expertise in providing training and consulting services to local organisations for European and national programmes, in implementing research work on entrepreneurial topics and on education-related topics, and in the development of innovative educational programmes.

 

GrantXpert currently employs 10 people, with different research expertise and with more than 20 years of accumulated working experience in EU-funding projects and in the development of educational programmes. GrantXpert has developed research expertise in the areas of entrepreneurship education for start-up founders, leadership skills, employability programmes, teacher’s skills related to Positive Psychology, Educational Psychology and Character development, innovation and creativity skills for university students, knowledge alliances between academia and industry, enhancement of women and youth entrepreneurship.

P3: EDHEC Business School, France

 

EDHEC is a private school and has operated as a non-profit entity since 1958. More than a century after its initial foundation, EDHEC has operating campuses in Lille, Nice, Paris, London and Singapore, and is one of the world’s top 20 business schools. It is ranked 14th in Europe in the Financial Times Global Business Schools ranking. EDHEC is also in The Economist’s European Top 10 for its Full Time MBA and among the top five Business Schools in France.

 

Its Master Programme in Finance is ranked 1st in the world by the Financial Times in its worldwide ranking of Master of Sciences in Finance (3-year average). The excellence of EDHEC Business School has also been recognised through its triple accreditation: AACSB, AMBA and EQUIS. As such, it is one of just 80 business schools that have the EQUIS, AACSB and AMBA Triple Crown Accreditation.

 

The EDHEC Family Business Centre (EFBC) is a reflection of the EDHEC Business School strong, historical links with family businesses. Its main interests deal with four axes: family business entrepreneurship, succession, financial, tax and legal framework, and socio-cultural impact. It provides management training, undertakes and publishes research and organises events that address the specific needs of family businesses both on the national and international levels. Its international team includes 12 multidisciplinary researchers allowing to address the needs of family businesses from different angles. EFBC supports family businesses to deal with the challenges stemming out of their unique characteristics and the increasingly complex global business world.

P4: Universitat de Valencia, Spain

 

The University has 45,800 degree and 8,600 postgraduate students. On our campuses (Blasco Ibañez, Burjassot-Paterna and Els Tarongers), over 3,300 teachers and researchers, who make up 90 departments, 17 institutes and other research units, carry out their work, aided by over 1,700 administration and service staff. Its libraries hold almost 1,5 million books, are subscribed to more than 26,000 journals and provide 4,300 reading places for its almost 60,000 users. Along with the human resources, the magnitude of its facilities and the available up-to-date instrumental equipment guarantee the quality of a vast scientific and technologic offer to the service of society.

P5: University UCLan Cyprus

 

The School of Business and Management places academic research at the core of its strategic mission and aspires to become one of the leading local business schools; a research-oriented institution of international repute. More specifically, our research strategy builds on five strands: advancing theoretical and conceptual thinking ; broadening our expertise in terms of research methodologies; informing on best practice; contributing to the policy debate; and building partnerships across networks of stakeholders representing university research centres; business associations, professional bodies; and enterprise development agencies.

 

Currently, the research clusters in the school are the following:

• Governance and Finance;

• Entrepreneurship;

• Hospitality and Tourism;

• International Business;

• Education and Linguistics, covering TESOL methodologies, educational leadership and innovation in education.

 

The School in collaboration with CEDAR is very active locally, regionally and internationally, in terms of research cooperation, knowledge transfer and engagement with industry, SMEs, family firms, and entrepreneurs across the business life cycle.

P6: Universidade da Beira Interior, Portugal

 

UBI is a recent public university in Portugal but a landmark institution in the educational, research, innovation, business, entrepreneurship, communication and marketing and management fields. The evolution of the number of students has been increasing, having surpassed the 7000 students from across the country and all over the world. UBI presents 27 1st, 47 2nd and 26 3rd cycle programs, functioning in its 5 faculties –Sciences, Engineering, Social and Human Sciences, Arts and Letters and Health Sciences - and 14 R&D units, carefully implemented. UBI has the UBInnovative which is the technology transfer office. It supports all the administrative and financial management of R&D projects, helps the researchers in the negotiation, execution and preparation of reports, supports the research efforts of UBI and enables the dissemination and implementation of the technologies developed in the UBI into the market / industry. This process also involves the evaluation of intellectual property, market potential analysis, licensing and commercialisation rights as well as brokering deals with potential investors, which also functions in this office.

P7: William Battle Learning Limited, UK

 

William Battle Limited (WBL) is a small enterprise that specialises in applied research to create programmes that will create Sustainable Change for the delivery of simultaneous Economic, Social and Environmental Sustainability.

 

The key activities of the organisation are:

• Lecturing to Groups of CEO UK wide on Business related key topics;

• Delivering Business Transformation from within following route maps designed by the company as part of our £5m R&D partnerships with Universities and others over the last fifteen years. The approach is to become a Non-Exec Director and drive change and support leaders and managers to become all that they can be;

• Delivering Pro-Bono talks to Charitable organisations on the need for change and the process where they can ensure that they survive and thrive;

• Consultancy within the Public Sector in Local Government and Health to achieve more with less and secure services by releasing the creativity of their entire workforces.

P8: ABB Training Center, Germany

 

ABB Training Center is responsible for all training activities on behalf of ABB Germany within the Dual Training System. ABB Training Center has about 50 full time employees taking care of 600 business and technical trainees and students. ABB has specialised student courses running in cooperation with the state university of Baden-Württemberg (DHBW). Also, taking into consideration that dual studies in Germany cover a period of 3 to 4 years (depending on the course), students, during their time as apprentices, have to spend half of the time doing practical work within the company – here ABB and affiliated enterprises – and the other half of their time they attend the local vocational college.

 

Furthermore, ABB has been aware of the problem of succession within the company for quite a long time and has several programmes in place to try to identify the special skills of their workforce to avoid losing special skills when employees change their job or retire. Within ABB HR and recruiting department there are talent management tools. Starting at the age of 50 there are various keystones in place to ensure that employees have started thinking about their retirement and also to start training potential successors. This is of course even more important when the employees reach the age of 60, and there ABB has a quite a few people working in tandem – the employee who has retired (Senior Expert) or is going to retire to gather with the successor. This tandem work can be up to one year.

 

The plan within this project is twofold – to pass on our information and skills to our partners in the project, but also to learn from them and companies which also face the challenge of succession. This programme of passing on skills has been in effect for over 10 years. Additionaly, through rather intricate job interviews at the beginning of somebody’s employment and then through annual performance appraisals, ABB endeavors to find out about hidden skills of the employees as well as discuss current key skills and plans for the future including necessary training courses. As a German based company we have good collaboration with German Chambers of Commerce, as every German company is automatically a paying up member to the Chamber of Commerce. In our case this means that we have contacts with the Chambers of Commerce in Heidelberg, Mannheim, and Berlin.

P9: KEDIA International Ltd, Malta

 

Kedia International Ltd. is a start-up organisation backed up by years of experience working and collaborating with International organisations from the EU and beyond. It specialises in staff and student mobilites, training and participation in EU projects. The organisation aims to bring together the knowledge and experience to further develop and improve institutions, organisations, businesses and individuals, assisting in their requirements to further grow and become more competitive in their respective fields and markets to the benefit and well-being of society and the economy.

 

Staff and partners of Kedia International are also experienced in writing up, designing and coordinating specific training programmes and courses, organising and delivery of training for management and staff in businesses and departments, marketing and dissemination of activities, networking events, conferences, webinars etc. Kedia team was involved in creating and designing customised handbooks, policies and specific software to help family businesses and SMEs, become more efficient and effective to be able to maximise their resources, competitiveness and enhance development, growth and profits margin through new strategies and policies, improve company performance through financial strategies, implement strategic solutions to maximise organisation competitiveness and growth.

P.10: European Family Businesses, GEIE, Belgium

 

European Family Businesses is the EU Federation of national associations representing long-term family owned enterprises, including small, medium-sized and larger companies, having more than 10,000 family business members currently. EFB’s mission is to press for policies that recognise the fundamental contribution of family businesses in Europe’s economy and create a level playing field when compared to other types of companies.

 

Regarding succession and business transfers, since its inception, EFB has been campaigning both at the national and European level to create a legal, fiscal and administrative regulatory framework that supports family business continuity. EFB has also been trying to raise awareness about the difficulties in the transfer of business process. In 2009, various EFB stakeholders were part of the Expert Group on family business, which proposed various recommendations for the improvement of the business transfer environment. In 2013, EFB was an observer in the Expert Group on Transfers of Business (E02840) organised by the European Commission. EFB has released and will continue to release a major study with KPMG, the Global Tax Monitor, which looks at effective tax rates on the transfer of ownership both in the EU and globally. In addition, at each of EFB’s annual family business summits, there is at least one panel discussion about the transfer of business or succession.

 

EFB’s role will consist of a combination of tasks: firstly, EFB will disseminate the project’s results to business owners around Europe by using our (extensive) network of relevant business con

business owners and other relevant actors (such ex-owners who have successfully transferred their business) with the project’s academics to create a practical and efficient channel of communication. EFB will promptly bring any research resulting from the project to the attention of as many relevant people as possible by helping to transform it into an applicable and relevant guide aimed at business owners getting ready to start planning their succession and the transfer of their business. At the same time EFB will use its network of members and contacts to deliver first-hand experience of the succession process as well as sharing previously established best practices. Having had experience organising multiple family business summits in multiple European cities, EFB will assist with the organisation of the closing grand event.

P.11: CYBAN Cyprus Business Angels Network Ltd, Cyprus

 

Cyprus Business Angels Network (CYBAN) is the only Angel Investment Network in Cyprus. It is a full member of the European and Global Business Angel Networks (EBAN & GBAN). The Network connects innovative, fast-growth companies to equity finance through its membership of 40+ experienced angel investors. More than 100 businesses per year apply for investment funding and are reviewed to find the most exciting and cutting-edge companies. From these, the Network selects up to 15 each year to pitch to its members in specialised Company Presentations Events.

 

Each company selected to present to the network receives an intensive training programme in the run up to the company presentations event at CYBAN’s offices run by some of the most experienced local investors, to help the selected companies prepare for their funding pitch. The training programme includes advice on the investment process and how to interact with the investor community and professional pitch training.