EQUA Foundation supports the project "Scandals in Family Businesses"

This research project is conducted at the Family Business Center under the direction of Prof. Dr. Anita Zehrer and Dr. Gabriela Leiß together with Lena Leifeld. The EQUA Foundation supported the project from January 2020 to December 2020. The EQUA Foundation aims to provide scientific and practical knowledge about and for family businesses and entrepreneurial families. The EQUA Foundation, therefore, supports relevant research projects and studies both in terms of content and material.

The central research questions of the project are: How do entrepreneurial families deal with scandals? What measures should family businesses take in crises (before – during – after the crisis)? 

Based on qualitative guided interviews, these research questions are answered. The challenges, problems, and consequences of a (public) scandal in family businesses are elaborated. The project aims to take a closer look at the phenomenon of scandal in the business family and to examine it from different perspectives. For this reason, the research project is interdisciplinary and combines the different research disciplines of economics, sociology, and communication sciences. In detail, the project deals primarily with handling strategies before, during, and after the scandal. As a result, action implications for family businesses will be developed to enable family businesses to better deal with scandals.

The research results have been successfully presented and discussed at various conferences (e.g. FIFU 2020 as well as the G-Forum 2020). Furthermore, the results are published in a book article and further publications are planned.