Desarrollo de Estrategias Familiares en Familias Empresarias

In the practical guide „Family Strategy Development in Entrepreneurial Families,“ published by the WIFU Foundation (2025), Tom A. Rüsen, Arist von Schlippe, and Torsten Groth introduce the Witten Model of Family Strategy Development. The guide is based on more than two decades of research by the Witten Institute for Family Business and systematizes the strategic self-organization of entrepreneurial families as an independent, long-term design task alongside corporate strategy.

A central component is a twelve-step model that addresses essential areas of family governance in a structured manner. These include, among others, the commitment to family entrepreneurship, the definition of the family and shareholder group, values and goals, roles of family members in the company and as shareholders, decision-making logic, distribution policy, and the establishment of family and corporate bodies. The guide clarifies that family strategy should be understood not as a one-time document, but as a reflective process that integrates questions of identity, potential conflicts, and intergenerational perspectives.

Particular attention is paid to practical applicability: numerous guiding questions, examples from family constitutions, and references to empirical studies help entrepreneurial families to make implicit rules explicit and develop viable governance structures. The guide positions family strategy as an ongoing task for responsible owner families and provides a sound framework for the long-term safeguarding of family cohesion, shareholder capacity, and business sustainability.