Climate exposure & the second life of property · Original source
Sara Jane Wilkinson; Hilde Remoy
The built environment contributes 40% of total global greenhouse gas emissions and 87% of the buildings we will have in 2050 are already built. If predicted climate changes are correct, we need to adapt existing stock sustainably. Outside Australia there is a history of office to residential conversions. These conversions number few in Sydney although evidence suggests a trend is emerging in conversion adaptations. In 2014, 102 000 m2 of office space was earmarked for residential conversion in Sydney as demand for central residential property grows and low interest rates create good conditions. The Central Business District (CBD) population is projected to increase by 4% to 2031 requiring 45 000 new homes and this coincides with a stock of ageing offices. Furthermore, the Sydney office market is set to be flooded with the Barangaroo development supply in 2017; thus conditions for conversion are better than ever. However, what is the level of sustainability in these projects? And, are stakeholders cognisant of sustainability in these projects? Moreover, is a voluntary a mandatory approach going to deliver more sustainability in this market? Through a series of interviews with key stakeholders, this paper investigates the nature and extent of the phenomena in Sydney, as well as the political, economic, social, environmental and technological drivers and barriers to conversion. No major study exists on conversion adaptation in Sydney and the most residential development is new build. There is substantial potential to change the nature of the CBD and enhance sustainability with the residential conversion of office space. The findings show that opportunities are being overlooked to appreciate and acknowledge the sustainability of this type of adaptation and that there is a need for a rating tool to encourage greater levels of sustainability and to acknowledge existing levels of sustainability achieved in these projects.
Climate exposure & the second life of property · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A long holding period does not guarantee that a building’s original use will remain viable. Drawing on Wilkinson and Remoy’s qualitative study of office-to-residential conversion in Sydney, this companion proposes a staged assessment of alternative uses, technical constraints, economic feasibility and sustainability. It treats adaptability as an evidence question. The protocol is a new practice framework, not a validated scoring system, development recommendation or claim about data-center conversion feasibility.
Succession, tenants & responsible continuity · Original source
Julia Suess-Reyes
The development of a transgenerational orientation is one of the most significant challenges that family businesses face and only a small number actually survive across generations. While prior research has focused on the business unit to provide us with a solid understanding of how corporate governance affects business performance and continuity, the role of the business family in the development of a transgenerational orientation has received less attention. To address this gap, this article applies a new systems and social identity theory framework to examine how family governance and business family identity can contribute to strengthening the transgenerational orientation of the business. A transgenerational orientation is defined as a decision premise to maintain the family’s control over the business across generations. Using a large data set, findings show that the presence of family governance measures and the business family’s identity are positively related to a transgenerational orientation of the business, with business family identity acting as a mediator. Thus, the development of family governance measures can foster communication within the business family and enhance the family members’ emotional investment in the business which strengthens the transgenerational orientation in the business.
Succession, tenants & responsible continuity · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A family can preserve its name while losing the capacity to make difficult decisions together. This practical companion translates research on family governance and transgenerational orientation into a proposed stewardship curriculum for real-estate-owning families. It distinguishes communication from control, participation from entitlement, and continuity from compulsory succession. The framework produces decision records and learning evidence; it does not claim that governance ceremonies cause investment returns or successful succession.
Succession, tenants & responsible continuity · Original source
Erika M. Brown; Rahim Moineddin; Ayu Hapsari; Peter Gozdyra; Steve Durant; Andrew D. Pinto
Objective Bans on evictions were implemented to reduce the spread of COVID-19 and to protect vulnerable populations during a public health crisis. Our objective was to examine how three bans on eviction enforcement impacted eviction filings from March 2020 through January 2022 in Ontario, Canada. Methods Data were derived from eviction application records kept by the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board. We used segmented regression analysis to model changes in the average weekly filing rates for evictions due to non-payment of rent (L1 filings) and reasons other than non-payment of rent (L2 filings). Results The average number of weekly L1 and L2 applications dropped by 67.5 (95% CI: 55.2, 79.9) and 31.7 (95% CI: 26.7, 36.6) filings per 100,000 rental dwellings, respectively, following the first ban on eviction enforcement ( p < 0.0001). Notably, they did not fall to zero. Level changes during the second and third bans were insubstantial and slope changes for L2 applications varied throughout the study period. The L1 filing rate appeared to increase towards the end of the study period (slope change: 1.3; 95% CI: 0.1, 2.6; p = 0.0387). Conclusion Our findings suggest that while the first ban on eviction enforcement appeared to substantially reduce filing rates, subsequent bans were less effective and none of them eliminated eviction filings altogether. Enacting upstream policies that tackle the root causes of displacement would better equip jurisdictions during future public health emergencies.
Succession, tenants & responsible continuity · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
Tenant stability belongs in the operating architecture of long-horizon real estate. Drawing on an Ontario interrupted time-series study of eviction filings, this companion proposes an early-warning, assistance and review protocol for family-owned rental portfolios. It separates arrears, filings, completed evictions and displacement, and assigns accountable owners to each response. It offers no claim that concessions increase returns or that one jurisdiction’s emergency legislation applies elsewhere.
Co-investment & consequential governance · Original source
Mattias Nordqvist; Marco Mismetti; Fredrik Holmberg; Lorenz Schwab
Single-family offices are increasingly important actors in impact investing, yet little is known about how they translate impact intentions into desired outcomes after investing. Drawing on the socioemotional wealth perspective, we conduct an abductive qualitative study based on a dual perspective of nine single-family offices and eight portfolio companies. We identify four impact intention translation strategies, three barriers, and two enabling mechanisms. Building on these findings, we develop a typology of four impact translation logics—hands-on controllers, embedded stewards, relational investors, and formalized partners—that explains heterogeneity in how family-based priorities and intentions shape impact translation.
Co-investment & consequential governance · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
Shared access to a deal does not establish shared capacity to govern it. This companion uses qualitative research on single-family offices and their portfolio companies to propose a pre-investment governance compact. The compact specifies ownership rights, nonfinancial contribution, information flows, intervention boundaries and response to disappointment. It treats networks and patient capital as potentially useful resources whose effects require evidence, rather than as guarantees of outperformance.
AI diligence & calibrated judgment · Original source
Philipp Winder; Christian Hildebrand; Jochen Hartmann
Large language models are increasingly used by private investors seeking financial advice. The current paper examines the potential of these models to perpetuate investment biases and affect the economic security of individuals at scale. We provide a systematic assessment of how large language models used for investment advice shape the portfolio risks of private investors. We offer a comprehensive model of large language model investment advice risk, examining five key dimensions of portfolio risks (geographical cluster risk, sector cluster risk, trend chasing risk, active investment allocation risk, and total expense risk). We demonstrate across four studies that large language models used for investment advice induce increased portfolio risks across all five risk dimensions, and that a range of debiasing interventions only partially mitigate these risks. Our findings show that large language models exhibit similar “cognitive” biases as human investors, reinforcing existing investment biases inherent in their training data. These findings have important implications for private investors, policymakers, artificial intelligence developers, financial institutions, and the responsible development of large language models in the financial sector.
AI diligence & calibrated judgment · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A private placement memorandum is an advocacy document with legal significance. Turning it into a fluent summary does not establish that its assumptions, disclosures, or financial relationships are sound. For a family office, the useful question is therefore not whether an assistant can read a memorandum quickly. It is whether an independently reviewable record connects every consequential conclusion to the exact document, version, passage, and calculation supporting it. This companion proposes a document-diligence workflow for an authorized internal team. It does not recommend an allocation, endorse an issuer, or replace qualified legal, tax, accounting, or investment review. The workflow is an original practice design, not a tested intervention.
AI diligence & calibrated judgment · Original source
Torsten Maier; Jessica Menold; Christopher McComb
Artificial intelligence (AI) is fundamentally changing how people work in nearly every field, including online finance. However, our ability to interact with AI is moderated by factors such as performance, complexity, and trust. The work presented in this study analyzes the effect of performance on trust in a robo-advisor (AI which assists in managing investments) through an empirical investment simulation. Results show that for applications where humans and AI have comparable capabilities, the difference in performance (between the human and AI) is a moderate indicator of change in trust; however, human or AI performance individually were weak indicators. Additionally, results indicate that biases typically seen in human-human interactions may also occur in human-AI interactions when AI transparency is low.
AI diligence & calibrated judgment · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A family office may use an assistant to locate provisions, compare documents, reconcile a schedule, or prepare questions for an adviser. Those are different tasks with different error consequences. Trust in one should not automatically authorize another. An assistant that reliably locates a paragraph has not demonstrated competence to interpret its legal effect or decide whether an investment fits a family’s objectives. This companion proposes a controlled way to calibrate reliance on financial-document tools against independently checked performance. It addresses operating discipline, not security selection or investment recommendations. The proposed system is an original practical framework; it has not been evaluated as a family-office intervention.
Real estate, legacy & resilient capital · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A long investment horizon is an intention; the ability to remain an owner through adverse conditions is an organizational accomplishment. This article develops an editorial framework for real-estate stewardship from an attendee-supplied discussion at the 2026 Family Office & Private Wealth Management Forum WEST and selected research on property liquidity, debt structure, climate exposure, adaptive reuse, family governance and human–AI judgment. Its central proposition is that legacy depends on continuity capacity: the ability to meet obligations, maintain useful assets, sustain legitimate relationships and transfer decision authority while circumstances change. These capacities can conflict. A decision that preserves cash can defer necessary repairs; diversification can introduce unfamiliar governance; faster analysis can amplify an investor’s prior beliefs. The article proposes a quarterly review organized around observable dependencies and failure conditions. It is a conceptual editorial synthesis, not a new empirical study, systematic review or investment recommendation. A separate companion translates the framework into responsibilities, evidence records and an evaluation plan.
Real estate, legacy & resilient capital · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
This practical companion proposes a recurring review of the obligations, assets, relationships and decision rights that allow a real-estate-owning family office to operate through change. It produces five evidence records and a small action register rather than a composite legacy score. The protocol combines a cash and maturity calendar, property-use assessment, tenant-service review, succession exercise and AI evidence audit. Its quarterly cadence is an editorial design choice, not an empirically validated optimum. No family-office trial or investment-performance improvement is claimed. The objective of a pilot is to test whether consequential dependencies become visible early enough for accountable people to address them.
Governance & succession · Original source
Muhammad Kamal Subhani; Marie Mikušová; Lech Nierostek
This study explores intergenerational challenges in family businesses, focusing on differences between Generation X and Generation Y regarding socioemotional wealth, innovation, social media, technology adoption, and succession planning. The research aims to identify generational differences in perceptions and behaviors that affect family legacy preservation and succession processes. A qualitative design was used, combining literature review with 18 semi-structured interviews of GenX and GenY owners of small and medium-sized family firms. Thematic and cluster analyses were applied to identify patterns across generations. Findings reveal a clear generational divide. These tensions impact on maintaining the family legacy. The results show that even for companies that have already experienced the changeover at least twice, there remains a generational gap in the approach to modernization. It can be argued that the approach to change exhibited by the next generation is not different from that of previous generations. Insights can guide family firms in balancing tradition with innovation through intergenerational dialogue, structured succession planning, and embracing technology.
Governance & succession · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A successor’s fluency with new tools does not itself confer authority to change a family enterprise. This companion proposes a bounded experiment charter that makes senior owners’ concerns, successors’ permissions, and evidence of value explicit before a technology pilot begins.
Governance & succession · Original source
Mengjuan Ling; Xiaoting Wang; Mingjun Wang
Despite extensive research on the internationalization of firms in emerging economies, why family firms under similar institutional conditions follow divergent global expansion paths remains poorly understood. This study examines how industrial diversification affects the scale and scope of internationalization in family firms and the moderating role of family governance structures. Using panel data from Chinese-listed manufacturing family firms from 2013 to 2020, we reveal that industrial diversification generally impedes both the scale and scope of internationalization. We address this research gap by proposing a novel theoretical distinction between “restrictive” and “broad” family governance structures. This distinction elucidates why family firms in similar institutional environments exhibit divergent internationalization paths, thereby bridging the gap in the literature on family firm strategy interactions. Specifically, we demonstrate that restrictive governance structures limit strategic flexibility and exacerbate the negative effect of diversification on internationalization, whereas broad governance structures mitigate this effect by enabling more adaptive strategic behavior. Furthermore, heterogeneity analysis further shows that the constraining effect is stronger in “natural” family firms. These findings advance our understanding of governance heterogeneity in family firms and offer practical strategic insights for family firms seeking to balance diversification and internationalization through governance reforms.
Governance & succession · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
Industrial diversification and geographic expansion can compete for the same managerial attention. This companion proposes a decision record that evaluates both fronts together, separates ownership rights from operating capacity, and makes the conditions for postponing an expansion explicit.
Governance & succession · Original source
Vasco M. C. E. Prazeres; Fernando A. F. Ferreira; Neuza C. M. Q. F. Ferreira; João J. M. Ferreira; Ieva Meidutė-Kavaliauskienė
Family businesses are increasingly recognized for their significance in the global economy, constituting a growing portion of companies worldwide and elevating the importance of this topic on governmental agendas. Unique challenges confront family firms, intertwining business decisions with familial repercussions. Among these challenges, the succession process emerges as a critical threat to their continuity. Inadequate solutions to the question of succession often lead to organizational failure, underscoring the urgency of addressing this issue. This study endeavors to construct an analysis model to support decision-makers throughout the succession journey, integrating a constructivist approach that merges cognitive mapping and interpretive structural modeling (ISM). This dual methodology facilitates the swift identification and analysis of factors crucial for smoother family business succession. The model development leverages insights from an expert panel and entails delineating cause-and-effect relationships among identified determinants and prioritizing these factors based on their significance. Subsequently, the model undergoes validation through a consolidation session with experts from the Associação de Empresas Familiares ( i.e. , Family Business Association in Portuguese), who assess its practical applicability. This includes perspectives from a Brazilian expert renowned for his understanding of family business dynamics within an emerging economy—Brazil. The insights gleaned from these sessions inform recommendations on implementing the tested procedures within real-life family enterprises, thereby contributing to the sustainability and longevity of these businesses.
Governance & succession · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
Succession decisions often begin with a person and leave the surrounding dependencies implicit. This companion proposes a facilitated map of authority, ownership, knowledge and communication, using expert judgments as hypotheses that must be checked against actual transfer tasks.
Governance & succession · Original source
Francesco Debellis; Michele Pinelli; Marcel Hülsbeck; Anne Heider
In one of the most influential studies on family firm internationalization, Sciascia et al. ( 2012 ) advance a curvilinear relationship between family ownership and firm internationalization. We replicate their study adopting a three-step approach. First, we use the same measures on a different sample to test the generalizability of their findings. Second, we change the independent variable and hypothesize a negative relationship between family involvement in the board of directors and firm internationalization. Third, we introduce and measure the moderating role of firm age and firm size in this relationship. Our study advances the family firm internationalization literature both theoretically and methodologically. Theoretically, we show that it is not so much family ownership per se, but the influence the family obtains through board directorship that affects the family firm internationalization strategy. In addition, we show that this effect is moderated by firm age and size. Methodologically, our study is an important step forward toward increasingly transparent and replicable family business research.
Governance & succession · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A family’s equity share does not fully describe how it governs international strategy. This companion translates a replication study into a board review of decision influence, relevant expertise, institutional context and the evidence required before a cross-border commitment.
Governance & succession · Original source
Dominik van Aaken; Maximilian Göbel; Daniel Meindl
This paper examines how the involvement of family members in family firms affects the roles of supervisory boards in two-tier board systems. Taking an agency and resource-based perspective, we argue that the occurrence of monitoring and advisory tasks of the board depends on the entanglement of family management and family ownership. This entanglement creates special governance requirements for family firms in two-tier board systems. We use a unique dataset of 186 German family firm observations to show that family involvement in management as well as a high family ownership reduces the occurrence of the monitoring tasks that the supervisory board performs. Moreover, we show that a growing number of owning family branches increases the monitoring tasks. We also provide evidence that family involvement increases the occurrence of the advisory tasks in relation to the monitoring ones.
Governance & succession · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A trusted board can offer valuable advice while leaving important monitoring tasks unattended. This companion proposes an agenda audit that distinguishes the two functions, identifies branch and management conflicts, and tests whether oversight survives the family’s familiarity with its executives.
Governance & succession · Original source
Rolf Wilmes; Leif Brändle; Andreas Kuckertz
Existing research on family firms emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurship across generations but leaves the role of entrepreneurial transmissions between predecessors and successors relatively unexplore . Building on the concept of entrepreneurial legacy, we ask how interactions of entrepreneurial mindsets and resources influence organizational ambidexterity in family firms. The study’s central argument (and metaphor) is that organizational ambidexterity thrives in multigenerational family firms if successors’ awareness of the family’s entrepreneurial legacy (the right seed) interacts with predecessors’ provision of entrepreneurial resources during succession (the fertile soil), also known as entrepreneurial bridging. We analyze a unique sample of successors from 296 multigenerational family firms in the agricultural sector. Our results point to the relevance of entrepreneurial resources in predecessor-successor collaborations to unlock the family firm’s ability to balance entrepreneurial exploration and exploitation.
Governance & succession · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
Entrepreneurial legacy becomes usable when successors can connect inherited experience to resources for action. This companion proposes a predecessor–successor resource agreement that protects core operations while giving a bounded experiment genuine time, information and authority.
Governance & succession · Original source
Cristina Cruz; Hana Milanov; Judit Klein
Although most business-owning families (BOFs) that operate large family firms practice community social engagement both in private via family foundations and in the business domain via community corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs, the relationship between their activities in the two domains remains unclear. Prior literature speculates that BOFs will deprioritize firms’ community CSR when they have family foundations as more efficient vehicles to achieve socioemotional wealth (SEW), which would imply that such BOFs are less ethical in operating their firms. We contrast these speculations by enriching the socioemotional wealth (SEW) approach with instrumental stakeholder theory and cue consistency arguments and theorize that BOFs seek to ensure consistency between their activities in the two domains. Using data from 2008 to 2018 on the 95 largest US public family firms whose BOFs also operate private foundations, we show a positive relationship between family foundation giving and firm community CSR activity. Furthermore, we provide evidence for the boundary conditions of this relationship, showing that it is weaker for firms that do not share the family’s name and stronger for those firms with family leaders who also lead their families’ foundations.
Governance & succession · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
A family’s foundation and operating company may express related values while serving different purposes and beneficiaries. This companion proposes a two-ledger review that examines consistency without merging budgets, authority or evidence of impact.
Governance & succession · Original source
Stefanie Einhorn; Xaver Heinicke; Thomas W. Guenther
This study uses survey data from top managers to explore how operational (e.g., cost types and cost center accounting) and strategically oriented (e.g., strategic and business planning) management accounting (MA) practices, diagnostic and interactive use of performance measures, and cultural controls are combined (management control package) to achieve high firm performance in family businesses (FBs). In previous research, such management control (MC) packages have received limited attention even though they offer an opportunity to reveal more information on the adoption of MA practices, use of performance measures, and MCs in FBs than analyses of individual control mechanisms. We chose a qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) because this method allows for explicitly addressing the three major challenges of configurational theory: asymmetry, conjunctional causation, and equifinality. By applying QCA, our study identifies six equifinal MC packages (i.e., different configurations of MA practices, types of use, and cultural controls with similar associations with firm performance) and, thus, provides an exploratory approach to describe more complex MA and MC designs that are empirically observable. By further analyzing these MC packages with additional information on the intensity of competition, the intensity of attention focusing, the interpretation of information by top management, and the organizational culture, this study extends the existing literature on FBs. The key finding of our analysis is that, regardless of their business environment, successful FBs place a very strong emphasis on cultural controls and/or have a high degree of interactive use of performance measures to steer their business.
Governance & succession · Solutions companion
Family Office Private Wealth Journal · Editorial research desk
Management controls operate as combinations of information, conversation and organizational expectations. This companion proposes a review of the whole control package, testing whether measures prompt useful decisions and whether cultural commitments are observable in everyday work.