Name of the project:

Family business – solutions to social and economic disparities of municipalities

Grant recipient

Technical University of Liberec, Faculty of Economics, Czech Republic

Head of the project:

Project coordinator

prof. Ing. Ivan Jáč, CSc.
doc. Ing. Petra Rydvalová, Ph.D.

Abstract of the project:

The aim of the project is to specify family business as a tool of the economic and social environment in municipalities, with emphasis on village communities. The above mentioned environment is further defined by subregion structure of the Czech Rep. The communities are specified in terms of their location and role in the wider area, mainly with regard to travel to amenities and economic activities. This functional defining is confronted with administrative regions. The reason is to form the framework for support of economic and social community development, and that linked to family business activities. Partial intentions are to identify and rank family businesses, and analyse forms of their support including education. Users of the project outcomes will be state and local authorities, and the family businesses.

Grant provider:

TA CR

Project code:

TD03000035

Key words:

Family business, enterprise; Business environment; Sub-region; Municipality; Community in a wider area; Typology of family enterprises; Evaluation indicators; Factors of development; Balanced socio-economic development; Sub-regional disparities.

Duration of the project:

2016 – 2017

Total budget:

2 962 646 CZK

WWW:

http://vyzkum.ef.tul.cz/td03000035/

Project description

A new idea of the project is: if we want to remove regional inequalities in the development of rural areas it is necessary to use specific tools, which will enable its inhabitants to "find life purpose in the country and accept some inequality associated with it".

In connection with the project aim the following partial goals (PG) will be achieved:

• PG1 – Creating the legislative specification and typology of the family businesses (by 31 December 2016).
• PG2 – Setting the particularities and defining the indicators of family business enterprise in terms of psychological, legal, financial, operational and managerial aspects and the use of ICT.
• PG3 – Processing a questionnaire survey within the Czech Republic aimed at finding family businesses in village communities. The next step will be collecting data from public registers about the revealed family firms (by 30 June 2017).
• PG4 – Defining the concept of evaluating the development status of the family businesses and consequently preparing the system of education including e-learning support.
• PG5 – Proposing measures to improve the development of family businesses in rural areas in the form of direct and indirect support.
• PG6 – Formulating recommendations and implementing procedures for output transfers.

Outcomes

• Specification of family business parameters and its identification within the conditions in the Czech Republic.
• Database with the data from primary and secondary survey, as well as socio-economic data from Public Database of CZSO (Czech Statistical Office). Thus, the database of family businesses in village communities in the Czech Republic will be created with the possibility of registration new ones.
• Knowledge and information system with the functions:

- Registration of the family businesses in the Czech Republic.

- Evaluation of the economic health of family business in terms of administration and legal aspect, economic and financial aspect, operational and managerial aspect. See Method of Evaluating the Family Business Vitality – Brief Summary.

- Information basis regarding the possibility of enterprise promotion focused on businesses in village communities.

• Lifelong distant education in the form of modules (methodology for founding, life and ending of family enterprise). The platform will also include educational publications, consultations and e-learning.
• The intention is to create the system of "Managed network of mentors for family enterprise".

Team

The head of the project is responsible for achieving the goals and completing the outcomes. Research Board was set up with start of the project and it will supervise meeting the partial goals so that they can be applied in practice.

Key members of the team:

prof. Ing. Ivan Jáč, CSc. – Head of the project, business environment expert

doc. Ong. Petra Rydvalová, Ph.D. – Coordinator, SME expert

doc. Ing. Klára Antlová, Ph.D. – GUESSS survey guarantor, IS expert

JUDr. Eva Karhanová Horynová – Civil and Family law expert

Ing. Magdalena Zbránková, Ph.D. – Sustainable development expert

Ing. Eliška Valentová, Ph.D. – Expert in strategic development of municipalities

Ing. Eva Štichhauerová, Ph.D. – Expert in the field of operational analysis and processing statistics data

doc. Ing. Jiří Vacek, Ph.D. – Expert in innovation strategies modelling

doc. RNDr. Lubomír Popelínský, Ph.D. – ICT, programming expert

Mgr. Jiří Šmída, Ph.D. – GIS expert