Rethinking family business education

Purpose – Family businesses consist of a family system, a business system, and an ownership system. Current undergraduate business education only prepares family business students with business system education, thereby leaving the student with a misconception of the environment in which they will work. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Business education must change to provide these students with an integrated curriculum that allows them to make connections across disciplines, and provides the additional soft skills and hard skills needed to accomplish the task. Findings – The authors propose a conception focussed curriculum to accomplish this task and make suggestions on how such a system might be implemented. Originality/value – This approach provides family business educators with a model that they can implement, thereby better preparing family business students for their return to their family work.