Hosted by the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), the first Asia Pacific Successful Trans-generational Entrepreneurship Practice (STEP) Summit has been successfully held on 20-22 November 2008. With more than 160 participants from family businesses and educational institutions of different regions, the summit underwent extensive discussion on entrepreneurial family firms in Asia Pacific rim. The family case studies of Battaglia Family and Deague Family from Australia and Lee Kum Kee Health Products Group Limited of China in the afternoon session marked the climax of the Summit. Both family business executives and scholars benefited from the summit through mutual exchange of ideas.

Summit of the Asia Pacific Consortium of the Successful Trans-Generational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) – November 2008

The STEP Project is a unique applied research study founded by Babson College that examines the successful transgenerational entrepreneurship practices of business families worldwide.  With 32 partner universities around the world, STEP conducts in-depth cases and surveys of family members and business leaders focusing on how they create social and economic wealth across many generations. By better understanding the entrepreneurial mind-set and methods of families, the STEP Project will provide families with benchmarks for success and continuity.

The STEP Summit is a distinctive part of the STEP Project’s applied research design. Following on the inauguration of the Asia Pacific Consortium last year, the research teams have conducted an in-depth study on family businesses. It is through the summit that the STEP Project delivers immediate value back to the families participating in the research. The summit is not a seminar. It is an applied research dialogue between academics and an elite group of family members. At this meeting you are invited to join with your academic partners to join in an intimate dialogue around each other’s cases, findings from the research and shared-learning opportunities.

A partial list of the participating families in STEP from Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan:

Advanced Manufacturing Ltd. (alias used to protect identity): This privately-held manufacturing company was founded in Hong Kong in 1976 and is a pioneer in advanced manufacturing. It currently hires over 3,000 workers and ventures into making its second generations to spin-off technology startups.

Battaglia Family: Base Group and Supplycorp International (www.basegroup.com.au): Base Group Developments Pty Ltd was formed as a company entity in 1996 as a subsidiary company to Base Constructions Pty Ltd.  Base constructions Pty Ltd began with Stefano Bruno Battaglia, an immigrant from Italy. It grew to such a size that it was capable of undertaking developments stretching from Wollongong to Sydney, and all the way to the Gold Coast.

Deague Family:  Asian Pacific Building Corporation (www.apbc.com.au): Since W H. Deague arrived in Australia from England in 1867 and began establishing his reputation as a leading builder in Melbourne, further generations of the family have continued in business as master builders.

Sun Family: Hebei Dawu Farming & Stock Breeding Group Ltd. (www.sundawu.cn/english): Established in 1985 and recognized as one of the top 100 enterprises in China in 2004. It embraces Confucianism but also establish an elaborated governance structure not just for seeking profit but pursuing development and prosperity for the community in the long run.

Han Family: Jong Shyn Shipbuilding Group (www.jongshyn.com): Founded in 1985 by Han Bi Xiang in Taiwan, it now comprises of five factories. In 2000, it passed the ISO-9000 test conducted by Lloyd’s Register in Britain, and in 2003 also obtained certification from Det Norske Veritas. A number of 29 ships are ordered for delivery until 2010, which represent a total value of NT$10.58 billion.

The Centre for Entrepreneurship collaborates with Babson College, the leading entrepreneurship school in the US, to launch a research consortium in Asia. Schools around the Pacific Rim, including China, Singapore, Australia, Korea, and others, are invited to discuss this research project at CUHK on June 27-28, 2007.

In many of our most productive countries—the United States, Germany, Spain, India and China, to name just a few—families control up to 90 percent of the businesses and contribute more than 50 percent of the gross domestic product. In the emerging economies, families are the developmental foundation for new business and future prosperity. Until now, the focus on ensuring prosperity through family businesses was to help them preserve wealth and survive from one generation to the next. Through the STEP Project families will come to understand the requirements for long-run growth and productivity that can generate prosperity for many generations to come. A critical facet of all thriving businesses and growing economies is no secret: Entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship is about “the new” – new products, new processes, new capabilities, new markets, new business models, new ventures. The prosperity challenge is thus clear. If family businesses are the social and economic bedrock of our communities and countries, then how do they nurture the imagination and foresight, and foster the boldness and calculated risk taking that allows them to generate “the new”? The STEP Project is uncovering the answers to this challenge on a global scale by bringing together successful multigenerational family firms worldwide with the most respected business experts and academic institutions in Europe, Latin America, the Pacific Rim and North America. These research collaborations will produce a detailed picture of the practices of family businesses that thrive from one generation to the next. It will compare the strategies from one area of the world with another, giving family firms new, innovative directions to consider.

Perhaps even more importantly, each year regional summits will bring the families and researchers together to discuss the findings, challenges facing family firms, and new directions for exploration. This worldwide network will also have various global gatherings for academics and families to capture the innovation and initiatives of the world’s most important business model—the family firm. As a first of its kind initiative, the STEP Project thus holds the potential to revolutionize views on global prosperity.

We are glad that Ernst & Young, Prudential, and Wall Street Journal Asia are sponsoring this project.

Building on the success of a previous forum in October 2006, this forum will again invite family businesses, professionals, and academics to learn from expert speakers and exchange their views on various issues concerning family enterprises. We will be able to take advantage of the conference organized for the STEP project because experts from all over Asia will be able to share their view and expertise with attendants. We have produced the tentative programme for this one-day event. We are glad that Ernst & Young, Prudential, Wall Street Journal Asia, and probably more organizations will sponsor or support this event.

In this event held in 20 October 2006, founders, owners, and members of closely-held and family businesses gathered at this forum. They received our summary of the latest academic research on family and closely-held businesses and were stimulated to learn though discussions with fellow family entrepreneurs. A summary of the findings is downloadable below.

The press conference held before this forum was extremely well-received and all major press covered this event and our findings. We are glad that several companies, associations, and media were supportive to this event.