Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
Sustainable Business Research Institute
Developing a family business influenced curriculum to support developments in work-based learning and e-learning.
Family businesses struggle to survive due to a lack of formal and practical education and low staff retention. This project aims to overcome these challenges by providing both formal and practical education in entrepreneurship and sustainability in SME family businesses and by providing a new, easily accessible, opportunity to make their company more sustainable while investing in, and encouraging retention of, their employees.
The Approach
The partners are working together to design and develop family business influenced curriculum that combines traditional approaches to higher education with the latest developments in work-based learning and e-learning. FAME encourages universities and industry to work together to develop masters level modules to support the development and growth of family businesses. The project aims to conduct further in-depth research into how strategies developed for large companies can be adapted for small-medium enterprise (SME) family businesses.
The Impact
From the research, the partners will develop a Masters level course in Entrepreneurship with a specific focus on SME family business sustainability issues. During the project, the partners will develop online resources to enable students to complement the classroom based teaching and embed work-based learning periods into the course.
So far, the programme has been successfully introduced to the academic public at Budapest Business School's Annual Research Days event, which aimed to introduce more academia and research groups to each other and all university citizens. Moreover, learnings have been shared at conferences internationally. For instance, lessons were shared at the 40th Anniversary Conference of the Institute for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (ISBE) Conference in Belfast, and as a result of the work and other associated projects, the ISBE’s Special Interest Group (SIG) in Family Business was launched to inform policy and practice.
Study for a research degree at Leeds Beckett and you'll join a thriving academic community in an inspiring and supportive environment. The Graduate School supports our increasingly active postgraduate research community and encourages students to make a difference to the university’s research culture and environment.
Leeds Beckett University can conduct research on your behalf to help you to implement change and realise your business potential. Validating your ideas with academic evidence can be an essential part of winning contracts and fuelling business growth.
