AIMday Stewardship and Sustainability

AIMday Stewardship and Sustainability on 21st March 2024

Welcome to AIMday Stewardship and Sustainability, an event hosted at Lancaster University that will bring together academic researchers and industry representatives in the field of family business and sustainability. AIMday® (Academic Industry Meeting day) is structured so that questions and challenges posed by participating companies form the agenda for the day. These questions are matched to academic expertise brought together from multiple areas of specialism for a series of workshops. These  ‘One question, one hour’ workshops enable representatives from family businesses and academia to hold discussions on potential solutions to participating organisations current and future challenges.

After the event, our academics can apply for funding from an exclusive funding call, to work with an AIMday participant on their challenge.

To read more about the AIMday concept please click here.

Background Context

Unsustainability poses an inescapable challenge to family businesses including the need to move rapidly towards net zero carbon emissions, develop nature positive business models and ways to ensure economic justice for business partners. A sustainable business contributes to environmental, economic and social outcomes and through this secures the survival (through innovation and entrepreneurship) of the company for future generation owners. Stewardship asks us to re-imagine business leaders, managers and potential successors actions to support the pursuit of innovative and entrepreneurial opportunities.

Stewardship in business goes beyond merely looking after an organisation. It demands a focus on revising and pursuing what the organisation values the most. Family businesses have a unique view of these challenges and may differ from other organisations in terms of their underlying motivations and objectives, which makes their commitment to sustainability even greater.

Dr Allan Discua Cruz (Director of the Centre for Family Business) and Professor Jan Bebbington (Director of the Pentland Centre for Sustainability in Business) discuss personal experiences growing up in family businesses, the issue of succession and longevity, how family firms address sustainability and consider the Sustainable Development Goals, and how faith and religion can impact their environmental behaviours in this podcast Transforming Tomorrow: Sustainable and Resilient Family Businesses.

Outcomes:

After taking part in this event, you will have a greater appreciation of the various elements that come together to support the stewardship of family businesses and the wider context in which family businesses operate. The design of the day will ensure that practitioners and academics with insights into the problem’s family businesses are facing, in the context of stewardship and sustainability, will come together in active conversation to develop a greater understanding of the problems posed and their potential solutions.

How to participate 

To participate in our AIMday event, organisations will need to submit at least one challenge phrased as a question, which they are open to discussing in a small workshop setting. Each question submitted is tackled by a group of multi-disciplinary researchers, academics, and practitioners with the aim of finding pathways to solutions. If you are wondering how to phrase a good question this link provides some useful information. We are happy to help you come up with or phrase appropriate question(s), so please do not hesitate to get in touch with Stephen King at s.king7@lancaster.ac.uk.

Register your attendance and submit your question(s) by Wednesday 31^st January on the registration page. Spaces are very limited for this event and we expect to be fully booked.

Register