Courses                          Resources

Development for Small to Medium Family Enterprises.
Co-financed by the European Community's Commission, , Leonardo Da Vinci programme.

Issues. Objectives. Methods. Outputs. Roles. Members.


Isues to be resolved:

The development for Small to Medium Family Enterprise (SMFEs) Project tackles the following issues:

1. To discover the mechanisms presently used (or not used) by owner-founders to plan the succession of family businesses.
2.To aid the survival of Family SMEs.
3.To train the owner-founder to plan survival strategies thus creating jobs.
4.To train the owner-founder to plan his succession using validated models.
5. . To introduce independent training for SME managers, with the help of personalised distance tuition and colaborative learning.
 
Objectives

The overall objective of the project is to create, assess and distribute distance training modules in electronic format with which the SME manager will be able to develop his key competencies.

Some specific objectives are:
1. To analyse useful solutions which can aid family SME survival.
2. To improve planning and succession in Family SMEs
3. To improve continuous training of Family SME managers
4. To create and evaluate educational software which will develop key competencies for:
 
Planning and implementing organisational development for one's own SME.
  • Planning business strategies.
  • Assessing and self-assessing returns
  • Assessing and self-assessing the achievement of objectives.

    • 5.To establish and maintain a European database which will aid the development of family SMEs.
     
    Methods which have been assessed

      1. Networking.
      2. Continuous professional training modules.
      3. Learning projects within the transnational team.
      4. Collaborative network learning.
      5. European database of planning, strategy and management styles in SMEs.

       
    Outputs

    1. Report "Analysis of training needs"
    2. Training proposal and pedagogical model
    3. On-line database with resources
    4. Project Evaluation plan
    5. Marketing strategy
    6. Organisational model for networks of local teams.
    7. Organisational model for networks of transnational teams.
    8. Ten self-training modules with threefold tutor attendance:

    1. Tutor group, one session with a tutor each month.
    2. Distance tuition via the internet.
    3. Distance collaborative learning via the internet.
    Completed between December 1997 and March 2001

    Distribution of roles and/or tasks

    The project team is made up of:
  • Management teams.
  • Production teams.

    •  

    Members