FAMILY BUSINESS RESEARCH DASHBOARD
A comprehensive, AI-assisted mapping of the global scholarly output on family business.
Family business research has matured into one of the most active fields in management studies, but its breadth makes the landscape hard to see as a whole. To address this, the WIFU Foundation launched two initiatives: the Family Business Research Dashboard and the annual Family Business Research Index. The dashboard maps where the field's knowledge currently lives, across four decades and 9,500+ publications. The index recognises the scholars and institutions building it. Both extend the Purpose of the WIFU Foundation of disseminating high-quality knowledge about family businesses by making the research community itself visible — to scholars, practitioners, and the families whose questions the field exists to answer.
Every article is retrieved from OpenAlex, then processed through an AI-powered pipeline that classifies research topics, theoretical frameworks, methodological approaches, and country contexts at three hierarchical levels — from broad categories down to specific theories, methods, and themes. The dashboard tracks who publishes, where they publish, what theories and methods they use, and which countries and contexts they study. Scholars and institutions, and journals are indexed using a fractional authorship model weighted by journal quality (AJG 2024).
Each year, the index publishes the top 200 authors. Did you make the list? You can grab a personalised certificate — a small digital seal showing your position, edition year, and AJG-weighted score. Think of it as a merit badge for family business scholarship. Share it on your website, email signature, or wherever you like.
The dashboard and the index are initiatives of the WIFU Foundation, powered by the Centre for Family Entrepreneurship and Ownership (CeFEO) at Jönköping International Business School (JIBS).
