Developing Enterprising Families

Entrepreneurs in Every Generation: How Successful Family Businesses Develop Their Next Leaders is a seven-chapter book published by Berrett-Koehler Publisher in 2016. Entrepreneurs in Every Generation shows readers how success in family business means assuring next generation entrepreneurial leadership in three dimensions: the business, the owning family, and the organization that nurtures both. Applying the entrepreneurial mind-set to all three dimensions, professors Allan Cohen and Pramodita Sharma define the challenges and the role for leadership; applying the entrepreneurial mind-set in all three dimensions is what sets family enterprises apart. The book not only reviews best practices, but it also urges special attention to the uniqueness of context. It also guides the reader through work sheets on how to understand and adapt to context. In Chapter 4 (20 pages), Cohen and Sharma argue that regardless of the form and focus of innovation, entrepreneurial efforts are necessary for the long-term survival of a family enterprise not only in older economies of Japan or Sweden but also in the emerging economies of countries like Argentina. Enterprising families embrace purposeful and focused change. Yet changing amidst a backdrop of generational success and powerful personalities needs collective familial buy-in and efforts. As the family and its enterprises grow, the family needs to create structures and systems that ensure open communication and accountability while still maintaining family harmony and unity.

• Entrepreneurial management
• Succession planning
• Family businesses
• Leadership
• Business growth