Publications

August 2022
Case

One Tiger Per Mountain: The He Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen, Fei Wu and Grace Headinger

Roy He, founder and majority shareholder of his family construction material production company, was preparing to pass down the family business through its first generational handover to his children. His decision would establish his familial legacy and set a precedent... View Details

Keywords: Governance Structure; Family Business; Family Ownership; Strategic Planning; Family and Family Relationships; Leadership; Construction Industry; Canton (city, China); Canton (province, China); China

13 Feb 2014
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: Leadership Roles

organization to be successful, it needs to be led, managed, and governed well. Leading, Managing, And Governing Governance provides a broad sense of purpose or mission for the group and gives the group a sense of stability. Without stability, we cannot View Details

Keywords: by John A. Davis

January 2001 (Revised March 2002)
Case

Ford Motor Company's Value Enhancement Plan

By: Andre F. Perold

In April 2000, Ford Motor Co. announced a shareholder Value Enhancement Plan (VEP) to significantly recapitalize the firm's ownership structure. Ford had accumulated $23 billion in cash reserves and under the VEP would return as much as $10 billion of this cash to... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Forecasting and Prediction; Capital Structure; Cash; Financial Liquidity; Policy; Business and Shareholder Relations; Value; Auto Industry

31 Jul 2017
HBS Case

It’s Hard to Fix the Family Business Without Offending the Family

finds equally beneficial lessons in a much different setting: a small family-owned Vietnamese restaurant in Boston’s inner-city neighborhood of Dorchester. Challenges lie in navigating complex family relationships, transitioning from... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Food & Beverage

30 Mar 2015
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: Preparing to Sell

following six key activities that achieve, then propel, their success. 1. Planning. They develop a family strategic plan—usually with the help of trusted advisors—to specify their goals and values and clarify how they will achieve those... View Details

Keywords: by Jonathan Pellegrin; Food & Beverage; Retail

15 Jan 2014
Research & Ideas

Managing the Family Business: It Takes a Village

I led on family business management in Santiago in 1999. I've worked with their family business system ever since. Nelson, then CEO of RBS and also leader of his family branch,... View Details

May 11, 2020
Article

Steer Your Family Businesses Through an Unplanned Transition

By: Josh Baron and Nick Di Loreto

In a perfect world, family businesses will transition leadership from one generation to the next along a predictable and well-planned process — whether that’s determined within the business, the ownership group, or the family itself — passing the baton after years of... View Details

Keywords: Transition; Planning; Family Business; Management Succession

Register to Read

24 Nov 2015
Research & Ideas

Developing Your Next CEO for the Family Business

steeped in the Hermès and William Grant family businesses himself, succeeded Family Insider Jean-Louis Dumas after Dumas’ storied 28-year term (See Fig. 1). The Non-Family Insider View Details

Keywords: Re: Andi Wang; Retail; Auto

09 Mar 2021
Cold Call Podcast

A Family Business at a Crossroads: Scaling and Succession

Keywords: Re: Christina R. Wing; Real Estate

November 2020
Case

The 1,000-Year Plan: Lee Kum Kee and Sustaining a Family Culture

By: Lauren Cohen, Dawn H. Lau and Billy Chan

The Lee family, whose Hong Kong-based Lee Kum Kee company has established itself as a legend within the Chinese and Asian sauce world, sets out to create a daring new vision of what family legacy means. With the family business having been established in 1888, and by... View Details

Keywords: Family Business; Mission and Purpose; Values and Beliefs; Business and Community Relations; Organizational Structure; Strategic Planning

October 2024 (Revised January 2025)
Case

MDH Partners: Evolving a Family Legacy

By: Christina R. Wing and Sarah Mehta

This case is about succession planning for MDH Partners, an Atlanta-based industrial real estate investment firm founded in 2005. When Jeffrey Small, Jr. cofounded MDH Partners, he named the company in honor of his grandfather, Mark Durward (MD) Hodges, an early... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Ventures; Ownership; Business Exit or Shutdown; Family Business; Management Succession; Personal Development and Career; Financial Services Industry; Real Estate Industry; United States; Georgia (state, US); Atlanta

June 1997 (Revised February 2000)
Case

Walker and Company: Profit Plan Decisions

By: Robert L. Simons and Ramsey Walker

Ramsey Walker, a second-year MBA student, must decide how to control a family business as an absentee owner. After providing background details on the publishing industry, the case requires the reader to: 1) make a product segmentation decision; 2) prepare a profit... View Details

Keywords: Organizational Structure; Family and Family Relationships; Market Design; Management Systems; Planning; Profit; Performance Evaluation; Segmentation; Corporate Strategy; Investment Return; Publishing Industry

21 Jan 2015
Lessons from the Classroom

Managing the Family Business: Market Basket’s Lessons About Buyouts

owner's shares, there are other uses for the money-mainly, growing the business and paying dividends. Most families and business leaders do not plan ahead for buyouts and do not budget funds for them. Every... View Details

Keywords: Retail

June 2024
Teaching Plan

Can Families Conquer Private Equity? Pritzker Private Capital

By: Lauren Cohen and Sophia Pan

Teaching Plan for HBS Case No. 224-078. View Details

September 2019 (Revised May 2020)
Supplement

Keroche (F): Future Growth Plans

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Pippa Tubman Armerding

This case describes Keroche co-founder Tabitha Karanja’s 2012 decision to invest in additional production capacity. In November 2012, with a loan from Barclay’s bank, Keroche began constructing a new state-of-the-art beer brewery using German technology. The new plant,... View Details