6th meeting of the Family Business Network: Fostering a Bottom-up Culture

The 6th Family Business Network meeting was held at the Osaka Campus, with 26 current and former students participating. This time, Mr. Yoshikawa, who completed EMBA in September 2020, presented a case study on the theme of "Fostering a bottom-up culture" and all participants discussed the case and held a study session.

In this case, the second-generation president, who succeeded the founder and expanded the business through charismatic management for many years, is now approaching the time when he should step down and is wondering about the future organization (management method) of the company. His two sons, who are his successors, have come back to the company after gaining valuable experience in the outside world, and they are playing different roles in the company.

First, a discussion was held on how to run the organization after retirement, and the following opinions were expressed by the participants.

1. Shift from top-down to bottom-up
2. Shift to a divisional system and empower the divisions
3. Letting your children run the business
4. Go public and listen to investors

After these and other diverse opinions were expressed by the participants, the question was raised that methods 1 and 2 above require fostering an organization where employees are actively involved and have opinions, which may not be easy to achieve in the organizational culture unique to family businesses. This problem was raised. In response to this question, the topic was developed on the condition of psychological safety based on the assumption that it is important for employees to have psychological safety. This kind of discussion gave the participants a taste of what case discussions are all about. It was a meaningful study session where we were able to reaffirm the need for a family business specific approach to the method of "fostering a bottom-up culture," which was the theme of this session.

About the Family Business Network

Not only family businesses, but also graduates, current students, and faculty members of the NUCB Business School who are interested in various matters related to business succession will hold active study sessions, with everyone viewing it as their own business issue.