Dr Bingbing Ge (Entrepreneurship and Strategy) has been awarded a Case Centre Case Writing Scholarship for her family business research.

Dr Ge will work with Kevin Shaw, managing director of Heatherlea (Scotland) Ltd, who operate birding and wildlife holidays in Scotland and worldwide.

She will study what happens to family businesses when the family hands over running of the company to employee ownership rather than the next generation. The findings will be applied and explored in her both her research and her teaching.

The Case Writing Scholarship will be used to help Dr Ge pay for a field trip to Heatherlea to collect interviews, to observe the daily work interactions, to obtain key archives, and to observe selected key events.

Dr Ge recently took part in an Institute for Family Business (IFB) research symposium, Governance in Family Businesses: 2022 & Beyond. The event brought together family business researchers and practitioners to discuss the direction of travel for family business research in the UK.

Dr Bingbing Ge (second right) taking part in the IFB 'Governance in Family Businesses: 2022 & Beyond' event

Dr Ge was part of a panel discussing ‘Hot topics in family business research in 2022’ at Loughborough University's Stratford campus in London. She discussed her research on the importance of family business history for companies in building a customer base and gaining an advantage over competitors – even if past generations had no involvement in the current firm.

The Symposium built on a successful IFB virtual family business event held last year in partnership with LUMS, which focused on the twin themes of social impact and Covid-19.