Baylor's Institute for Family Business Designated Regional Coordinator for the North American Affiliate Board of the Babson College STEP Project

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Baylor University's Institute for Family Business, within the Hankamer School of Business, has been designated as regional coordinator for the North American Affiliate Board of the Babson College Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) project. Babson and Baylor are consistently ranked within the top Entrepreneurship programs in the nation.
Hankamer's Institute for Family Business promotes the well-being of family-owned businesses through rigorous scholarly research, engaged student learning, and empathetic relationship building between family-owned businesses and Baylor University. It has been the sponsor organization for the Texas Family Business of the Year program for the past 22 years.
"Baylor University is well-known for excellent education and high-impact research in family business," said William Worthington, Ph.D., assistant professor of strategy and family business at the Hankamer School of Business. "As a partner affiliate, Baylor will coordinate the works of scholars and researchers from other universities in our region. We are pleased to work with other leading entrepreneurship programs including Northwestern, Syracuse and Thunderbird as co-affiliates in this program."
"The STEP research profile blends qualitative and quantitative research methodologies, a leading-edge research technique called for by the Academy of Management, to maximize scholarly rigor with practical relevance. Involvement in this program provides a vehicle for Hankamer to merge its capabilities in both qualitative case study and quantitative research analysis within the niche of family business for which Baylor is known," Worthington said.
Baylor produces one of the leading journals for research for family business, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and participates in annual conferences to raise awareness of family business as an important part of entrepreneurship.
The STEP project began in 2005 at Babson as a collaborative research effort to understand the spread of entrepreneurship across generations in successful family businesses. Summits are held around the world each year so families and scholars can work together to gather more knowledge about family businesses.
The project operates in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific, as well as North America. Partners in the organization submit at least one case study every two years. In 2010, the STEP project had accumulated 72 cases, giving scholars access to a multitude of transgenerational family business research.

Media contact: Frank Raczkiewicz
Baylor University Media Communications
(254) 710-1964 or Frank_Raczkiewicz@baylor.edu