Family Business in Changing Times

Family-run businesses constitute over 90% of all companies and over 70% of the workforce in Germany and Japan, and they include some of the oldest businesses in the world which go back many centuries. But how are they coping with the challenges of the 21st century? Can they maintain their position and their character amidst a changing environment of slower growth, lower returns, declining birth rates and more frequent economic crises?

In the third DWIH Coffee Talk moderator Axel Karpenstein (DWIH Tokyo) meets three experts on family business and economics in Germany and Japan – Dr. Sigrun Caspary of the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU), Prof. Toshio Goto of the Japan University of Economics, and Prof. Masahiro Nagata of Reitaku University. Together they will explore the role family companies play in the German and Japanese economies, how it is changing, and the potential the family business model holds for the future.