Business schools at three of the world’s top universities have launched an executive programme to help develop China’s family businesses, which dominate the country’s private sector.
The three institutions span the globe: the Guanghua school at Peking University, Oxford university’s Saïd Business School and Harvard Business School. The programme details were announced in Beijing, where the first module will take place in March 2016. A further two modules will be taught in the US and the UK.
The collaboration is the first time the three institutions have worked together on an executive programme, though Saïd dean Peter Tufano was a long-term academic at HBS before moving to Oxford in 2011. He has recently announced that he will serve for a second term at Saïd.
The programme, Leading and Transforming Family Businesses, addresses the development of Chinese family businesses at a time when many of them are planning to go global, says Cai Hongbin, dean of Guanghua. “From three continents, faculties of this programme are world-leading experts in leadership and management, who know the business community in each continent well but also have deep knowledge and understanding of Chinese family firms.”
Three decades after the start of China’s economic reforms, family businesses are frequently moving from low-cost manufacturing to developing higher value products and services and more innovative companies. However, says Eric Thun, associate professor in Chinese Business Studies at Saïd, “their management practices remain immature, and many are reaching a ‘crunch point’ as the founders need to hand over the reins of the businesses to the second generation.”
Leading and Transforming Family Businesses will be taught in both Chinese and English with simultaneous translation.
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