The students of the class “Powerful Practices in Family Enterprising: Strategies and Structures for Stimulating Innovation in Family Groups (EPS3576)” are involved in a unique learning experience of research and interaction with regional family firms. Treating the classroom as a professional environment, the students are forced to drive their projects and work together in teams to achieve their research goals. The students collaborate throughout the semester to create their own instrument measuring the innovativeness of family firms, specifically trying to discover the impact of the “familiness” of the firm on its innovation capabilities. The students work with their teams and Professor Habbershon to conduct on site interviews with each company using dialogue questions designed to complement the online surveys. Each team has at least one session with the Owner/CEO and then another with the top management team of the firm.

 
A Fall 2004 Student Team visits onsite at Aubuchon Hardware

The results of these interview sessions coupled with the data from the online survey instrument will be used to assess each firm’s innovativeness. The research and knowledge base collected by the students will then be used to produce a series of Powerful Practices which can be applied to family firms to improve their innovation capabilities.

Official Course Description:
This course explores the strategies and structures utilized by family groups to stimulate innovation and lead growth. It will provide students with a framework for understanding the family form of business organization and allow them to investigate the innovation and growth practices of real family companies. The class will function as a powerful practices laboratory where students conduct background research on innovation in family groups and then work in investigative teams to conduct an applied research study of a particular company. The goal for the class is to investigate companies and produce a Powerful Practices Newsletter to report their findings and apply them to family groups. The class will provide students with a significant experiential learning opportunity.

"Like no class I had ever taken at Babson, EPS3576 was truly a unique experience. Being led by the students, the class had no limits. The unique teaching approach allowed me to learn how family plays a dynamic role in innovation. I would highly recommend this class to any aspiring future entrepreneurs, they can truly learn a lot from this class." 
       Lauren Greenberg

Fall 2004 Course:
The Fall course on innovation proved to be a great success as students and companies derived valuable knowledge from this mutual learning experience. 

Research Findings:
We will be reporting the "Powerful Practice" research findings in the near future.  Here is a preview of some of the class insights:

Each of the firms which participated in our study were found to be "dominant" in their region or industry.  Here is a complete list:
Gentle Giant
Aubuchon Hardware
Pet Foods Experts
Furniture World
Scrubadub Autowash

One particular student, Jason Bedrick, was in the unique position of having his family's business participate in the research study.  Jason is actively involved in Furniture World and expects to return there sometime after he graduates.  Here's what Jason had to say about how the class had an impact on him: 

“The class gave me a unique opportunity to examine the impact of ‘familiness’ on my family business and to evaluate the importance of innovation with relation to performance. I am now more prepared to enter my family business after I graduate and I believe I better understand how to help it improve.”

The students report on the innovation study findings in presentations on their companies.