HEC Paris and TUM: A Joint Research Workshop on Family Enterprise

Two centers, one shared conviction: the best way to understand what makes family businesses strong, and built to last, is to look at them across disciplines. 

On May 18–19, 2026, part of our team traveled to Heilbronn, warmly hosted by the TUM Global Center for Family Enterprise on the campus of the Technical University of Munich, for a two-day joint research workshop between our two centers. The program brought together faculty, postdoctoral researchers, and PhD fellows from both institutions, with sessions running over two full days in Building L of the Bildungscampus.

THE SPIRIT OF THE WORKSHOP 

What stays with us first is the spirit of these two days. As Angèle Marinelli, PhD Fellow at the Center, put it: We came to present our work to colleagues, and we left with friends we look forward to seeing again next year. 

It was also a real pleasure to see Hanna Brosch again, who had previously spent a week at our Center at HEC Paris. Proof that these ties build over time, and that they open doors to future research partnerships. 

AN INTERDISCIPLINARY LENS ON FAMILY ENTERPRISE

The other highlight was how interdisciplinary the workshop was. Over two days, family enterprise was examined from very different angles: corporate legal analysis and the law of legal forms; hybrid governance and stakeholder governance modes; organizational identity, corporate activism, and public stance-taking; CSR and the substitution effect of legal protection; entrepreneurship, mentorship, and founder exits; AI applied to negotiation management in family enterprises; gender gaps in leadership and worker beliefs about firm training; and investor-founder relationships in technology ventures.

Different lenses that, taken together, sharpen our understanding of the same object.

HEC PARIS CONTRIBUTORS 

The HEC Paris delegation included Julia Emtseva, Angèle Marinelli, Haila Amin, Georg Wernicke, Harrison Munro-Clark, Carlos Serrano, Seungah Sarah Lee, Ghina Chammas, Andrew Montandon, and Gonçalo Pacheco de Almeida. 

On the TUM side, presentations were given by Miriam Bird, Anne-Kathrin Haag, Laura Bregenzer, Lina Gelvez Alvarez, Marvin Kosberg, Hanna Brosch, and Philipp Lergetporer.

A FRANCO-GERMAN COLLABORATION THAT CONTINUES 

The workshop was organized by Philipp Lergetporer, Stefanie Jung, and Georg Wernicke, with the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) – German Research Foundation and the TUM School of Management, whose backing made these two days possible. 

This is a Franco-German collaboration that is only just beginning and we hope to host our TUM colleagues in turn in Jouy-en-Josas.