Good practice:

Initiative "Entrepreneurial Family"

Family businesses are an important part of the economic development in Lithuania. According to various calculations, these companies account for around 38-40 percent of all business. Yet, most of the companies are still run by the first generation leaders, meaning that the topic of business succession will become more and more important in the upcoming years. Taking this into account, it is important to foster the creation of environment, which would enable successful business successions on a large scale.
The main reason why business transfers fail is that business owners and other stakeholders are not prepared for the process due to a lack of knowledge, competencies and willingness. For this reason, it is important to raise public awareness about the issues related to family businesses and business succession, and it is implemented through the initiative "Entrepreneurial Family". Under this initiative, various activities are implemented: events and discussions in Lithuanian regions; final conference; family business nominations and awards; dissemination of news and articles related to family companies.
The main target group of this initiative is family companies, but it is also relevant for business support structures, policymakers and society.

The initiative is mostly initiated by the team of VU Business School, however various partner organizations are also involved (15min, INVEGA, Vilnius Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Crafts, Family Credit Union), as their representatives are involved in various activities and discussions.

The series of "Entrepreneurial Family" events have been organised for five consecutive years and has attracted considerable attention from the business community and the general public. Also, the initiative has attracted the attention of high-level policymakers and implementers, f. e. from the minister of Economy and Innovation. In addition, one of the biggest media channels in Lithuania "15min" regularly disseminated news and information about the initiative and family business stories.

Awareness-raising is one of the top priorities regarding family businesses and business succession. On the one hand, it is noted that business owners and potential business successors do not think about business succession processes and therefore do not make any moves to prepare for it. On the other hand, policymakers, implementers and the public, in general, are also not fully aware of the topic (what are the benefits of business transfers and why it is important to promote this process). With all this in mind, initiatives that promote the publicity of the problem are extremely important and need to be as widespread as possible. Initiative "Entrepreneurial Family" is an example of just that, where a specific institution brings together a range of stakeholders, for whom this topic could be interesting and organize various activities, which increase the relevance of the topic in public.