Michela Floris
Researcher
The communication between generations.
The research of Michela Floris.
The researcher’s article
Family businesses have a lot to teach.
Family businesses represent 90% of the entrepreneurial models spread on the global territory, and, therefore, they represent the backbone of the economy. Italy, in particular, boasts virtuous and important examples of small family businesses that over time became established companies at national and international level.
If you tell a story, then everything changes.
Listen to Michela Floris
Small and medium-sized business survive the great companies on the market. The secret lies in the relationship that the entrepreneur has with the audience. Clients are people with whom share the head of the business share values and principles that are at the base of the entrepreneurial activity. The university’s research tells how it is possible.

Michela Floris
Professor of Economy and Management and Family Business Management.
Research field in reference of the short film: generational transition within the family-run companies.
Michela Floris is a professor of Economy and Management. She also teaches Family Business Management at University of Cagliari. The relationship between Bruno and Lorenzo inside the family business is about one of the researches which inspired the web series.
Download scientific papers
Every company is born with a purpose, a characteristic that its founders pursue over time, through a passing of the baton to the new generation that establishes continuity with the past. This is a very important moment where the business philosophy finds its application in the practices of its successors.
There are cases in which, however, the passing of the baton is accompanied by a phase of rupture that marks a caesura, sometimes sharp, between past and present, between old and new ways of understanding the conduct of the family business.
In both cases, whether we remain anchored to tradition or open ourselves to the emerging trends, every family business has important values at its base.
This passage is fundamental, because it concerns the survival of the enterprise itself and that’s why the values on which the management of a company rests must be solid. Like a trademark, corporate values explain why a company carries out a specific activity and how it believes it can make, through its work, an effective improvement in the social fabric. The same values are them a winning card inside the competitive context dominated by large companies. In fact, the studies show how the tenacity and the resistance of small and medium-sized family businesses lies precisely in the values that qualify the product and the service offered to the customer, intertwining with the philosophy of the company, that the public, recognising himself, hugs it in its turn.
The Impact of Storytelling on Innovation: a Multi Case Study
Academy 2015
How small family-owned businesses may compete with retail superstores
JSBED 2014
The Impact of Shared Stories on Family Firm Innovation: A Multicase Study
Kammerlander 2015
Read more on the same theme
Cinzia Dessì – Piccole e medie imprese: competitività e rapporti interpersonali.
Non tutte le piccole e medie imprese familiari hanno ceduto il passo alle grandi attività commerciali. Molte hanno saputo essere competitive, resistendo all’attrattività delle metropoli del commercio.
Discover now the in-depth videos for the first episode.
