KENNESAW, Ga., July 17, 2006 (PRIMEZONE) -- Italian family business scholar, Gaia Marchisio, Ph.D., has been named a faculty associate of the world-renowned Cox Family Enterprise Center at the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University.
"Europe has a lot to teach America about family businesses," said Cox Family Enterprise Center Director Joe Astrachan, Ph.D., who holds the Wachovia Eminent Scholar Chair of Family Business. "While family businesses in America may last for generations, in Europe they often last hundreds of years. We know that Gaia's insights will be extremely helpful to the center and the businesses it serves."
The Cox Family Enterprise Center is one of the world's leading academic organizations devoted to the study of family business. It has been an example of excellence for countless other family business centers which were based on the "K" model, in which the "K" stands for Kennesaw. Marchisio says she knew of the center long before a position became available.
"The reputations of the Cox Family Enterprise Center and its people are extremely high, and when I came here I was really impressed by their entrepreneurial spirit," Marchisio said. "I'm excited by the creativity and innovation that come from the thoughtful mixing of two cultures -- the old world and the new," she added.
Marchisio joins the Coles College as an Assistant Professor of Management. For the past ten years she taught at Italy's leading business school, SDA Bocconi at Bocconi University in Milano. She served as coordinator of the "AIdAF -- Alberto Falck" Chair in Strategic Management in family business as well as Assistant Director of Bocconi's Entrepreneurs' Research Center. She was previously Assistant Director of the university's MBA Program, which The Wall Street Journal and Forbes magazine count among the top 20 MBA programs in Europe. For the past three years, she has also been a Visiting Professor at Escuela de Administracion de Empresas, or EAE, in Barcelona, Spain, where she taught in the MBA program.
She has participated in research projects with international partners from both the academic and professional environments, and co-authored several articles on family business issues in international academic journals and professional magazines. In 2003, she took part in the Best Practice Committee of the Italian Stock Exchange for the definition of the best practices regarding strategic planning for IPOs. Her family business research primarily concerns entrepreneurship, strategic planning, going public and family offices. She is a member of The Academy of Management, The Family Firm Institute and The Family Business Network (FBN), where she serves on FBN's Next Generation Committee and regularly presents research papers at conferences.
Marchisio attended Bocconi University, Milano, Italy, earning a B.A. degree in Business Administration. In 2005, she received her Ph.D. in Business Administration from Universita degli Studi di Pavia, majoring in Family Business. She is fluent in Italian, English and Spanish.