Business innovation through tradition

In steering toward the future, business leaders are commonly advised to dismiss the old and make way for the new. Yet, several older family businesses have been able to innovate successfully based on their tradition. This new approach is called innovating through tradition (ITT). 

Josip Kotlar, Family Owned Business Institute Scholar in Residence at Grand Valley, will give a presentation, "Innovating Through Tradition: A New Innovation Strategy for Family Firms."

The event will be held September 11, from 8:30-9:30 a.m., at The Bicycle Factory on the Pew Grand Rapids Campus. RSVP to Amy Gascon by September 4 at [email protected].

Kotlar, an assistant professor of family business at Lancaster University Management School in England, will show how firms that build long-lasting and intimate links with their traditions can still be extremely innovative.

Kotlar will be in West Michigan September 7-18 and will visit area family-owned businesses. He is considered one of the top up-and-coming family business researchers, with award-winning research spanning a wide range of topics involving strategy, entrepreneurship and innovation. Most recently, he has done studies on family firms’ innovation capability and competitive advantage that looks at the factors that encourage or inhibit the absorptive capacity of family firms.

For more information, contact Joseph Horak, director of the Family Owned Business Institute in the Seidman College of Business, at (616) 331-7278.