Governance

Are We Protecting the Business, or Protecting It From Growth?A new study of 247 Swiss family firms, published this year in the Journal of the International Council for Small Business, offers a sharp finding: as family ownership grows more concentrated, financial goals tend to grow more conservative. That's not always a failure of ambition. Often it's a family protecting things a balance sheet can't measure, independence, identity, control. But the researchers found ambitious goals were the strongest predictor of stronger performance, which raises the real question: is your caution a deliberate choice, or has it simply become the default? This month's entertainment feature picks up the same tension, three generations deep.

A World Cup final compresses years of effort into seconds. A 250th anniversary stretches decades into centuries. Family enterprises operate within both registers of time, required to act decisively in moments of consequence while remaining accountable to decisions whose effects unfold across generations. Major anniversaries surface this tension directly, prompting not merely a reckoning with what an enterprise has survived, but a deliberate choice about which version of its founder, and of itself, it will continue to remember. Drawing on Paul Morrow's centennial research, a study by Börje Boers and Andrea Calabrò, and the Hénokiens, this piece considers what history is ultimately for.

This month we mark National Family Owned and Operated Businesses Day, and the phrase rewards a second look. We celebrate the business, and rightly so. The business may be the source of wealth, the center of identity, the training ground for leadership, and the shared project that connects generations. Behind many of these enterprises are remarkable stories: founders and families who began with almost nothing and built something lasting through years of work, risk, and sacrifice.But the wealth a business creates does not stay inside it. Over time it takes other forms: liquidity, portfolios, real estate, trusts, foundations, direct investments, philanthropy, and new ventures. It also includes wealth that never appears on a balance sheet at all: a family's knowledge, judgment, relationships, reputation, and capacity to make decisions together. The organization a family builds to hold all of that is the family office.It is usually described as a structure for managing wealth. True, but incomplete. A systematic review published this year helps widen the frame. Reviewing 60 peer-reviewed studies published between 1980 and 2024, Siaba, Rivera, and Currais argue that the family office is better understood not only as a service platform but as a governance structure that mediates among the family, the business, and the wealth.

As Columbia Business School deepens its institutional commitment to AI through its AI in Business Initiative and the upcoming "MBA Transformed: AI and Beyond" teaching symposium on June 1, 2026, family enterprises face a parallel question: is AI a threat to legacy, or a new way to coauthor it? A recent study in the Journal of Product Innovation Management, "AI Adoption in Family Firms: A Mixed-Methods Study on the Paradoxical Roles of Passive and Active Family Involvement," suggests AI adoption is as much a relationship and governance challenge as a technological one. Drawing on 125 interviews and survey data from 1,444 German firms, the authors find that passive family ownership may slow adoption, while active family management can accelerate it, particularly when paired with strong external ties to suppliers, customers, and even competitors. For enterprising families, the deeper insight is that legacy is not static; it is interpreted and renewed across generations. AI may become a voice of the next generation, offering younger family members a concrete way to contribute to continuity, if families are willing to turn legacy into a living conversation. Read the full article, Is AI a Threat to Legacy, or a New Way to Coauthor It?

A Reflection on the 2026 CBS Family Enterprise Conference: Legacying TogetherFriday, April 17thColumbia Business School

A global survey of 525 family firm decision-makers across 21 countries finds that founder identity, whether Missionary or Darwinian, shapes philanthropic behavior across generations. Missionary founders, driven by social purpose, produce giving that grows stronger over time as their legacy is idealized and absorbed into family identity. Darwinian founders, motivated by competitive logic, engage in more reputational giving that can shift with other priorities. Transgenerational control intentions further complicate the picture: families focused on succession may quietly redirect philanthropic energy inward. For advisors, the implication is clear: identity, not just structure, determines whether family giving becomes a lasting legacy or a secondary priority. Read the full article, What Our Giving Says About Us, and explore the Richards & Kammerlander study in Family Business Review.

What does it truly take to advise a family enterprise? This spring break, 19 second-year MBA students set out to find the answer firsthand. Through Columbia Business School's Consulting and Advising Family Enterprises (CAFE) program, developed in partnership with the Jerome A. Chazen Institute for Global Business, students traveled across five cities and visited ten organizations, moving through Milan, Parma, Rimini, Ravenna, and Florence to meet the families and leaders behind Vibram, Barilla, Ferragamo, Nuova Energia Holding, Castello di Monsanto, Famiglia Cecchi, and Bocconi University, among others. Candid conversations on governance, succession, and legacy unfolded naturally within Italy's culture of trust and authenticity, proving once again to be the perfect classroom for this kind of relational learning.

A large-scale global study of 3,322 publicly listed firms across 32 OECD countries finds that family involvement is, on average, associated with lower market valuation, particularly when renewal investment is weak or governance rigor is unclear. While family ownership is discounted less in strong institutional environments, the valuation penalty tied to family CEOs persists across contexts. Crucially, underinvestment in R&D partially explains this performance gap, suggesting that visible, disciplined innovation is a key credibility signal to markets.For family enterprises, the message is not anti-control. It is structural: legacy, governance, and geography determine whether family influence fuels long-term value or quietly contributes to “innovation reluctance.”

Seven days, five Italian cities, six company visits, and more than a dozen engaging sessions—the “CAFE in Italy” Global Immersion course took 16 graduate students on a deep dive into the heart of Italian family enterprises. Led by Professor Gaia Marchisio, participants met with owners, next‐generation leaders, and seasoned advisors. Stops included Barilla, Petrolifera Italo Rumena (PIR), Ascoli Bottoni, Acetaia Giusti, Ferragamo, and Frescobaldi, as well as discussions with DeAgostini, Bocconi University, Association of Italian Family Businesses, and Fideuram Intesa Sanpaolo. Students gained behind‐the‐scenes insight on succession, brand evolution, governance, and family values. The result was a vivid illustration of how tradition and innovation can combine to keep family legacies thriving across centuries.