This is a higher education student and staff mobility project, please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.

This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from/to third countries not associated to Erasmus+. Students in all study fields and cycles can take part in a study period or traineeship abroad. Higher education teaching and administrative staff can take part in professional development activities abroad, as well as staff from the field of work in order to teach and train students or staff at higher education institutions.

This is a project for higher education student and staff mobility between Programme Countries and Partner Countries. Please consult the website of the organisation to obtain additional details.

This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from EU Member States and third countries associated to Erasmus+ to any country in the world. Students in all study fields and cycles can take part in a study period or traineeship abroad. Higher education teaching and administrative staff can take part in professional development activities abroad, as well as staff from the field of work in order to teach and train students or staff at higher education institutions.

<< Background >>We have applied for this project since we are on daily basis witnessing the challenges family business succession isfacing, e.g. successor has a lack of business knowledge and limited time to acquire needed knowledge for successfultransfer of business.Namely in partner countries, family businesses have been an important part of any economy for decades, especially indeveloped countries with a long tradition of entrepreneurship and private ownership. In developed countries, thepercentage of family entrepreneurship ranges from 50% up to 90%. For example, in Germany, 90% of all Germancompanies are family-controlled companies and in Italy, family businesses represent around 60% of the Italianshareholding market.On 8 September 2015, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on family businesses in Europe, emphasizing theimportance of family businesses, their role in the economic growth and social development of the European Union, andthe reduction of unemployment and investment in human capital. According to the data stated in the resolution, in 2014,85% of all European companies are family businesses, which are in charge of 60% of all jobs in the private sector. Mostfamily businesses are small and medium-sized enterprises, which generate a significant share of the total incomegenerated by all enterprises and thus significantly contribute to employment and economic growth, and success of aparticular country.The countries of Southeast Europe are specific because most small and medium-sized family businesses were created inthe 90s. As is the case in Croatia where about 76% of companies were founded between 1990 and 1994 and now, aftermore than 30 years the largest transfer is happening from the 1st to 2nd generation of family businesses.Inheritance is an extremely important but also challenging topic, especially in the countries of East and Southeast Europewhere the processes of inheritance are still being prepared or taking place. About 150,000 small and medium-sizedenterprises a year have difficulty in overcoming the business transfer process, compared to the estimated 600,000 thatpass through the process each year, thus endangering about 600,000 jobs. In order to further update the issue ofbusiness transfer, in 2000 the European Commission formed a group of business transfer experts to monitor theimplementation of the 1994 recommendations in EU member states. The final report of this group of experts again showsthat the 1994 recommendations are being adopted too slowly. They further estimate that, on average, 25-40% of allcompanies in the European Union will undergo business transfers in the next 10 years, putting 610,000 companies with2.4 million jobs at risk.One of the key challenges is to raise their own competencies and knowledge -as taking over the family business due tothe efficiency of business meant that young heirs had to return to work, not to education. The first generation (owners)through their schooling are not educated on how and in what ways to transfer family businesses. In addition to the alreadymentioned challenge, young people have more and more pressure from taking over the family business, and when theydo, they do not have time to further their education.Because of these challenges and the needs that family businesses have in their succession, we decided to apply for aproject in which we will develop a tailor-made program to help family businesses do the best and most successful transferof ownership and management.<< Objectives >>The project „Small steps to bigger success – developing knowledge/capacity building program for entrepreneurs to foster– through microlearning - better and more successful succession in the family business (SiFB)“ is an Erasmus+ projectaddressing KA2 Collaboration partnership in vocational education and training. This project is contributing to this priority is Contributing to innovation in VET– where we want to encourage innovative learning and teaching practices, develop the student-centered program, and achieve better alignment with the needs of family businesses. Also, the aim is todevelop a flexible way of learning and modular course design for young entrepreneurs by using the micro-learningmethodology. They will adjust the learning at their own pace using digital new methods and advancing digital skills.Besides the above-mentioned priority that our project results will contribute the most, this project is also contributing toother priorities:1) Increasing the flexibility of opportunities in VET – by developing a completely digital, online Program, theproject is supporting these additional priorities, with the aim is to become more interconnected, flexible, innovative, and digital. The partnershave innovative ecosystems in the area of the family business and through this project, we will strengthen the linkbetween education and innovation–related to the business community. By developing the digital content, we will guide the creation based on the Europeanframework on the digital competencies of educators and organizations.To sum up, this project brings innovation through digitalization, new digital accessible programs, and innovative techniques, like micro-learning for family businesses, through digital capabilities and knowledge of the higher educationpartners.The main objective of the SiFB project is to prepare and develop the program and offer it to the owners (1st generation)and next-generation (2nd or 3rd generation) to perform a more efficient and successful transfer of family business bycreating a tailor-made, modular online learning program (further referred to as Program) with a specific focus on familybusiness needs and challenges. With Program accompanied with short but focused videos/stories, we want to addressthe challenges typically associated with succession and show the best practices on other successfully transferredbusinesses, enriched with gamification elements and applied micro-learning methodology, and offered as an onlineeducational platform on the SiFB learning platform/website.To achieve these goals, the specific objectives of the SiFB project are:1) to determine what type of challenges exist and what knowledge and information the target group (family businessmembers) need by conducting and analyzing results of research on family business succession/challenges inLuxembourg, Croatia, Germany, Sweden, and France2) to create a tailor-made, modular program on succession in family businesses for all relevant members of familybusinesses3) to transform the previous objective into a tailor-made Program in microlearning units on succession for familybusinesses4) to develop/improve learning space/website.<< Implementation >>First, we will conduct activities related to the primary research and find out what are the need and challenges of the familybusinesses in the process of succession. The research finding will be compared and enriched with the Erasmus+SUFABU project - they are exploring the current state of the succession in family businesses in 6 countries(www.sufabu.eu). After the conducted primary research in every partner country, we will analyze gathered data andbased on the data create a report which will be the basis of creating the tailor-made Program. Activity that follows is thedecomposition of the Program into small educational microlearning units, after which each partner institution will prepareand record specific microlearning units, based on the succession topics/phases (lecturers and examples of the bestpractices). ZSEM will gather all prepared recorded content and do post-production - in this way all the units will have thesame standardized quality and design. The activity that follows is to build the learning space/website after which ZSEMwill upload the prepared content by each partner institution and meet the requirements for a tailor-made Program tobecome visible and available to target groups. In parallel though put the whole project, project partners will use everyopportunity to disseminate the project and make it visible to a wide audience. As well they will use the opportunity topresent the Program and project on specialized family business events (e.g. events organized by the National Chamber ofCommerce in partner countries) whenever possible.Main dissemination will be multiplier events in each partner country.<< Results >>The first result is a research paper on family business challenges from each partner country (Luxembourg, Croatia,Germany, Italy, France and Sweden). These survey results will be a very important input in the process of designingProgram and micro-units for family businesses. Academic experts in the family business, in cooperation with all partnerinstitutions (WHU, EDHEC, JU, ZSEM, LSB), will develop a second result - a tailored-made Program onsuccession in the family business. This Program and accompanying educational material will provide an added value forfurther education both in Partners’ countries and the wider EU level.The aim of this Program is to strengthen the knowledge, skills, and competencies of family business members (owners,next-generation etc.) in the succession, in order to better prepare them for the challenges of the succession process. Alack of theoretical and practical knowledge in the means of best practices in the area of succession is often presentamong family businesses. Due to mentioned reason, provided educational material will be adapted to the needs of familybusinesses (with appropriate theoretical and best practice examples). Also, a tailor-made Program will be adopted to afamily business phase of succession.The family business (owners, next-generation, members) will have the possibility to navigate their own educationaljourney by choosing the tailor-made modules, which will be generated based on their needs and challenges they are in.The selected approach for phases of succession is that each phase is different and unique, for example, the planningphase is - start thinking about the succession process, finding who will be the right person and how the family businesswill approach that phase - in the means of knowledge, skills, and competences. Then the phase of training anddevelopment for succession and then the transfer of power and ownership according to the recommendation of the articleToward an Integrative Model of Effective FOB Succession. In each phase, the preparation in knowledge, skills, andcompetencies is very important.Academic experts (WHU, ZSEM, LSB, EDHEC, and JU) will produce the third result– record lectures and thebest practices (family businesses that successfully transfer the business to the next generation), stories how other familybusinesses succeed or fail in transferring the business. Members from the academic partner institutions, incollaboration with website development experts, will create a fourth result – a learning space/website for uploading the video stories and examples (lectures) to the learning management system. Mentioned materials will be available for both Consortium partners and the wider, on EU level (free access for everyone).