Research

Dr. Kris Thys investigated strategic decision-making processes within private family firms, focusing on the collaborative dynamics between top management teams (TMTs) and boards of directors as a unified strategic leadership system (SLS). Using multiteam systems theory, the research examined collaboration, conflict, and diversity between the TMT and board through data collected from all top managers and board members in 41 Belgian family firms, yielding individual data on 387 SLS members. The most important findings revealed that high collaboration between TMT and board significantly enhances strategic decision-making quality, particularly in complex environments. Conversely, task conflict negatively impacts a shared strategic vision within the SLS, especially when leadership roles remain unclear. Additionally, the research found that diverse knowledge within the SLS affects decision-making quality depending on the degree to which members vary in their inclination to pursue family-oriented goals versus financial objectives.
These findings are crucial for family businesses because they underscore the critical role of interdependence between the TMT and board in improving strategic decisions, offering practical insights for enhancing governance practices by demonstrating the importance of integrating diverse knowledge while mitigating conflict.

Dr. Maren Forier conducted research investigating the impact of the legal context and CEO legal literacy on the growth and internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Given the critical role SMEs play in driving economic growth, fostering innovation, and creating employment, understanding how they navigate complex international legal frameworks is essential. The research employed a dual methodological approach: an empirical analysis using public data from 25,284 Belgian SMEs, focusing on their financial behavior before and after a law change, and a survey of 209 CEOs to assess how their legal literacy influences internationalization efforts. The findings revealed that while a more debtor-friendly insolvency law may encourage entrepreneurship, it can complicate access to debt financing, especially for growth-oriented SMEs. Moreover, CEOs with higher levels of legal literacy are more effective in turning internationalization intentions into actual expansion, with their confidence in their international legal knowledge playing a crucial role. 
This research is important for family businesses because it underscores the necessity of balancing legal reforms to avoid unintended negative consequences for SMEs and highlights that improving CEO legal literacy could be a key factor in overcoming legal challenges and successfully navigating both domestic and international markets.

Dr. Lien Vekemans made significant contributions to understanding how financial institutions behave toward family firms, focusing on the critical intersection between corporate bank lending practices and the unique dynamics inherent in family businesses. Bank financing is a cornerstone of business growth and sustainability, particularly for SMEs, as it provides necessary capital for expansion, innovation, and operational stability. For family firms, which often rely on internal funds and are more risk-averse, securing external financing through banks is crucial when internal resources are insufficient to fuel growth. The research involved conducting in-depth interviews and comprehensive surveys with bank loan officers. Through this empirical approach, the study discovered that financial professionals tend to view family firms differently from non-family counterparts, and this distinction in perception directly impacts how loan officers evaluate and decide on loan requests. The findings suggest that when family firms demonstrate a higher level of professionalization—such as formalized governance structures—they are more likely to receive favorable consideration for bank loans.
This research is important for family businesses because it sheds light on often-unseen biases in the banking sector, demonstrating that the degree of professionalization can significantly influence lending outcomes, thereby helping family firms better position themselves for success in securing financial resources needed for growth and sustainability.

Dr. Rik Vanhees examined how entrepreneurial passion affects family businesses, particularly through the actions of family CEOs. Understanding this relationship is important because it reveals how family CEOs' passion not only drives business success but also influences their personal work-family balance. The research comprised three studies: first, investigating how a family CEO's entrepreneurial passion affects the firm's entrepreneurial orientation, finding that the impact is strongest in first-generation CEOs and becomes negative in third-or-later generation CEOs; second, exploring how different types of passion—harmonious and obsessive—affect the work-family conflict experienced by the CEO, revealing that harmonious passion reduces conflict, particularly when there is open communication within the family, while obsessive passion increases it; and third, developing a new scale to measure "Family Entrepreneurial Passion," capturing the unique passion family CEOs have for working with their family, an area previously overlooked in research. The key finding is that the type of entrepreneurial passion a CEO possesses can significantly influence both the business's entrepreneurial behavior and the CEO's work-family balance.
This research is important for family businesses because it suggests that nurturing the right kind of passion and fostering open communication can lead to better business outcomes and a healthier family life, with practical applications for helping family businesses succeed while ensuring the well-being of those who run them.

Dr. Hannah Verleye investigated the governance of family firm internationalization from a family perspective, addressing the urgent need to pay greater attention to the family component of family business despite the central role played by the family itself in family firms' internationalization. The researcher conducted a thorough literature review on the topic and sent out a survey to CEOs of Belgian firms, performing quantitative statistical analyses on survey data from a sample of 182 Belgian private family firms. The research focuses on three different governance angles: first, exploring the impact of family CEOs on internationalization and how this relationship is moderated by family communication patterns, finding that family CEO education has a positive effect on internationalization, but this effect decreases as family conformity orientation increases; second, offering a novel conceptualization of family firms' board of directors, explaining how the family and the board essentially comprise a multiteam system and jointly affect internationalization decisions as a result of carrying out specific shared tasks; and third, demonstrating that family firms' internationalization could be a direct reflection of the functioning of the family itself due to families' various ways of intrinsic functioning that spill over into business processes and strategic decisions.
This research is important for family businesses because it may help families become aware of the powerful role of unconscious family forces that influence business outcomes, providing a fruitful starting point for understanding how family communication patterns and governance structures can either facilitate or hinder international expansion efforts.