Using a unique sample of 36 elite family firm directors having served on 615 boards with an aggregate 1447 years’ experience, learn how the multiple role identity struggles experienced by family directors are managed in the board. {…}
Articles: John Davis' Insights
Article
Families Today Must Think Like Owners
Having an owner’s mindset in today’s disruptive environment means excelling at making four types of owner-level decisions. All four are central to the long-term success of the family and its enterprise. To remain competitive in today’s environment—one defined by disruption, borderless competition, rapid economic transitions, and constant technological transformation—families need to reconsider the way they […]
Article
Family Resilience in the Time of Corona
The Covid-19 crisis is a time when you should gauge your family’s resilience—and build more of it. An enterprising family’s goal is to not just cope with adversity, but grow stronger as a result of it. Here are ways to achieve that. […]
Article
What Makes a Family Business Last?
Harvard Business Review
John Davis discusses with Harvard Business Review the performance edge family businesses have over their non-family business counterparts. And how family firms tend to take a long-term view of investments and relationships, stay in ownership control to do things their way, focus on persistent improvement and innovation, develop loyal stakeholder relationships, build key talent in select individuals, carry lower debt, and build greater financial stability. […]
Article
Help Families Future-Proof Their Businesses
MIT Sloan Executive Education faculty member John Davis, a pioneer in the study of family companies and the director of MIT Sloan’s portfolio of Family Enterprise Programs, is bemused by the sudden interest of corporations in ‘long termism’. […]
Article
Nobody Does It Better: How family companies quietly outperform other companies (even in today’s disruptive environment)
MIT Sloan Executive Education faculty member John Davis, a pioneer in the study of family companies and the director of MIT Sloan’s portfolio of Family Enterprise Programs, is bemused by the sudden interest of corporations in ‘long termism’. […]
Article
What to Watch When Planning a Family Enterprise Succession
John Davis offers key guidelines for family businesses that are facing a shift between generations. While each generational transition presents distinctive challenges, these four management principles apply universally […]
Article
The Future of the Three-Circle Model: A conversation between Pramodita Sharma and John Davis
Two-part series commemorating the 40th anniversary of the influential Three-Circle Model. FFI Fellows, Pramodita Sharma, and John Davis share their insightful conversation about the future of the model, research, and the field. […]
Article
Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the Three-Circle Model: An interview with John Davis
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the legendary Three-Circle Model, FFI Practitioner shares two editions about the model. For the first edition, Pramodita Sharma interviews Johns Davis, about the inception and impact of the model on the field. […]
Article
How Three Circles Changed the Way We Understand Family Business
A family business advisor sits with a founder and his two daughters in a conference room in Chicago, helping the family with an intense discussion they are having about the future of their family-owned brewery. The elder daughter works in the business. […]
Article
Dual-class shares, family businesses, institutional investors…and Marx
Family Capital
Dual-class stock listings, often favored by founders and families who take their companies public, have a bad rap with a number of stock markets, stock analysts and especially with institutional investors. […]
Article
What’s Missing in Trump’s View of Nepotism
Huffington Post
The pictures of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump participating in executive and ceremonial meetings with foreign leaders draw the ire of many. These images raise central questions about the legitimacy and utility of nepotism in the White House. […]
Article
Viewpoint: Succession with Chinese Characteristics
Family Capital
Perhaps the most challenging issue for China’s private businesses in the years ahead is how they deal with succession. Given the country’s brief 30 year experience with a market economy, China’s family businesses have yet to fully embrace succession. […]
Article
Governing the Family-Run Business
Corporate governance can be difficult enough—but what happens when your board of directors is comprised of your cousins? Or when your CEO is your sister? Harvard Business School Professor John Davis discusses governance issues unique to the family-run business. […]
Commentary
Veja por que o mercado de moda no Brasil é o que mais cresce
Exame
Campo Bom – O mineiro Alexandre Birman é um viciado em sapatos — os de salto agulha, de preferência. Enquanto executivos e empresários normais interrompem conversas para checar e-mails no telefone, Birman se distrai o tempo todo porque analisa os sapatos de cada mulher com quem cruza na rua, esbarra em eventos ou mesmo vê na televisão. […]
Interview
Q&A with John A Davis
Business Family
John A Davis, who has taught at Harvard for 20 years and owns a respected family business consultancy, is one of the best-known voices in the world of family business. We caught up with him and quizzed him about his latest thinking. What do you think are the biggest issues facing family businesses? […]
Article
Managing the Family Business: Preparing to Sell
HBS Working Knowledge
On important occasions, we gather for family portraits. If you were to take a picture of your family business today, what would it show? Family businesses represent the aspirations, achievements, and struggles of one or more generations of a family. We would see all those things in the portrait of the family business. […]
Article
Managing the Family Business: Are Optimists or Pessimists Better Leaders?
HBS Working Knowledge
Optimism and pessimism are strong, stable traits that reflect our coping strategies. We live in an uncertain world. To cope with uncertainty, most people basically assume that things will either turn out well (the optimists) or turn out badly (the pessimists). So here’s a question to ponder: Is it better to have an optimist or a pessimist leading your family organization? […]
Article
Five Steps to Better Family Negotiations
HBS Working Knowledge
Negotiations between family members who own a business are different—different from negotiations between non-family members and also different from negotiations between family members who don’t have a business. This is because family relationships are distinctive kinds of relationships, and having a family business raises the stakes of—and often complicates—a family negotiation. […]
Article
The Three Components of Family Governance
HBS Working Knowledge
Having described the framework of family business governance and the governance of the business, John Davis discusses the most challenging of the family business governance topics—governance of the family itself. […]