Two scholars from the Australian Centre for Family Business, Francesco Barbera and Tim Hasso have been granted funding for their research projects from the US-based Family Owned Business Institute (FOBI).
Francesco’s project "Allocative Differences in Production: An Investigation into the Productivity of Family Firms"; and Tim’s project "Inherent Family Business Brand Equity & Consumers' Product Preferences" were the only individual winners of the FOBI research grants. The program attracted applications from research scholars worldwide including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Philippines, and Spain.
The mission of the Family Owned Business Institute at Grand Valley State University is to promote, preserve, influence, and impact family businesses through quality academic research, curriculum, and information services. As part of its research mission, the Family Owned Business Institute (FOBI) created the Research Scholars Program.
The purpose of the Scholars Program is to encourage faculty to conduct new high quality research with an emphasis on family business issues. Research may involve a broad range of issues and methodologies including theoretical, empirical, case study, and other.
FOBI Research Scholars will be expected to disseminate the results of their research through meetings, seminars, publications, and the classroom. It is anticipated that FOBI Scholar awardees will present their research findings at the FERC (Family Enterprise Research Conference) 2011, and in addition to convert their research into published journal articles.