A leading family business research organisation recognised the long-term contribution of a Lancaster University Management School scholar with a lifetime achievement award.

Professor Alfredo De Massis, of the Department of Entrepreneurship and Strategy, was awarded the Family Enterprise Research Conference Lifetime Achievement and Impact Award at Dublin City University.

The award recognises experts who have significantly contributed to the growth and development of family business research, education, and practice. It honours those who have demonstrated distinguished leadership and fostered the field through their research, teaching, advising or practice.

“This is one of the most meaningful awards I’ve ever received,” said Professor De Massis. “Impact goes far beyond academic citations or metrics. True impact is about making a difference – in organisations, in classrooms, in boardrooms, and in society – and from the very beginning of my career, I made a deliberate choice to pursue both rigour and relevance. When you combine the two, that is when change happens. That is when scholarship becomes an impactful force for good.

“I want to thank everyone who has been a part of the journey from the bottom of my heart – my students, the young scholars I have mentored, the businesses I have advised, the institutions where I have served, and my friends and family.”

Professor De Massis is a former Director of the Centre for Family Business in LUMS, and holds positions in Lancaster, at the University of Chieti-Pescara, Italy, and at IMD, Switzerland.

There was further success for Professor De Massis when his paper Toward a model of role settling: An ethnography of family business succession, co-authored with Dr Marco Mismetti, of the Stockholm School of Economic, and Dr Eliana Crosina, of Babsom College, won the Family Firm Institute Best Unpublished Paper Award.