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International Family Enterprise Research Academy 2013 Annual Conference

"Ownership, Governance, and Value in Family Firms"

For details please visit http://ifera.org

Submission deadline: February 3, 2013

The International Family Enterprise Research Academy (IFERA) and the University of St.Gallen invite you to participate in the 2013 IFERA Annual Conference (IFERA 2013). This global conference will take place in St.Gallen, Switzerland from July 2nd to 5th, 2013.

The purpose of the conference is to advance family business scholarship by serving as a platform for presentation of carefully crafted contributions seeking to find home in top-tier academic journals, advancement of papers that need further development in order to make a meaningful contribution, testing of new ideas and plans that will benefit of advice from other members of the IFERA family and our distinguished guests, and raising of new and relevant questions concerning family business. Highlighting the role of IFERA as a bridge between intellectual framings and praxis of family business, the conference also brings together different actors to identify and advance best practices and policies in the family business. Finally, with the IFERA tradition of having fun, the conference provides an inspiring and unique atmosphere for networking and exchanging ideas.

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE THEME 

Given the enduring centrality of ownership and governance related topics in scholarly discussions on family firms as well as their important implications for theory and practice, the IFERA 2013 overall theme is dedicated to "Ownership, Governance, and Value in Family Firms". This topic also reflects the increasing interest of governance scholars in family businesses.

Ownership and governance in family firms have attracted broad scholarly attention as critical determinants of family involvement that have the potential to influence firms' goal setting, strategic activities, and finally performance. Researchers have applied an ample set of theoretical perspectives – including agency theory, stewardship theory, and resource based view, to mention only a few – to investigate the different types of governance, related formalized and non-formalized governance mechanisms, and their implications on a variety of stakeholders – family, outside minority investors, community, society/nation as a whole. Related to this topic, value creation – including the achievement of short and long term financial and non-economic goals of the family – has long been a core theme in family business literature. In addition, some voices have questioned whether a predominance of family ownership destroys value at a macro level, by creating incentives to pervert the political process and creating entry barriers to entrepreneurship by first generation entrepreneurs. 

To-date, despite the relevance of these core family business topics, many of the critical antecedents, precise mechanisms and key implications of family governance and ownership, still remain ambiguous. We thus encourage scholars to apply theoretical rigor, systematic research designs, and a wide variety of methodological approaches in order to shed further light on these central family business research areas. 

IFERA 2013 welcomes all high quality theoretical and empirical contributions to the general field of family business and in particular those relating to the conference theme.

Submission Guidelines

Three scholarly submissions will be accepted:

Full Paper (FP) is a submission of a finished product - an original completed research manuscript that is ready for peer review. FP submissions will be assessed according to a double blind process with at least two reviewers. Only FPs are eligible for Best Conference Paper Awards and if your submission is under consideration for such, you will be required to declare its originality.

Work in Progress (WIP) is a submission of a well developed original idea that is not yet completed. WIP submissions include at a minimum the research question, preliminary literature review, conceptual/theoretical framework, methodology (if relevant) and its contribution to theory and practice. WIP submissions require a maximum of 7 pages; that is, 5 pages for the body which can include charts, graphs, diagrams, etc. and up to 2 pages of references. WIP submissions will be evaluated for their potential and promise according to a double blind process with at least two reviewers.

 Originality Defined

IFERA conference will include only original, unpublished work for two submission types: FP and WIP.If your submission (FP or WIP) is identical or substantially similar to work that was already published; submitted, under review, accepted or presented via another conference or publication, please submit it under the following submission category of RD.

Research Dissemination (RD) is a submission of a manuscript that has already been submitted, under review, accepted or presented at a different forum such as a conference or a workshop or a manuscript that has already been published by the authors but needs to be disseminated to the IFERAThe purpose of RD submissions is to provide access to IFERA attendees to research that may not have received a wide audience and yet holds promise for the development of the field. RD submission has a maximum limit of 10 pages or 5000 words all inclusive.  RD submissions will be assessed by the 2013 Conference Team.

Journal Special Issues: Conference submissions 

are invited for publication in Journal of Family Business Strategy (JFBS) and Corporate Governance International Review.

Submission Deadlines (No extension will be provided)

February 3, 2013   -  All Main Conference Submissions; Full Papers (FP), Work-in-Progress (WIP), Research Dissemination (RD)

March 14, 2013     - Notification of acceptance

All submissions will be accepted via our online submission system starting December 1.

Please check www.ifera.org for details

Regards,

Ranjan Karri
----------------------------------------------
Ranjan Karri, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor of Management
College of Business and Management, UHB 4060
University of Illinois Springfield 
One University Plaza, Springfield, IL 62703
Phone: 217-206-7917
Fax: 217-206-7543
karri.ranjan@uis.edu