MCI graduate honored by IMF Institute in Hamburg

Janina Berkmann, a graduate of the English-language bachelor's program "Business & Management" at MCI in Innsbruck, was recently awarded the IMF Thesis Award of the Institute for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Family Businesses (IMF) in Hamburg for her bachelor's thesis. Based on several criteria such as structure and argumentation, academic quality and practical relevance for the small and medium-sized enterprises, the excellent work of Mrs. Berkmann convinced in all aspects.

In her work entitled "When the senior leaves and the junior takes over - preparing employees for succession in a family business", Ms. Berkmann takes up an omnipresent challenge for family businesses. In particular, she deals with the role of employees in the succession process in family businesses. She concludes that predecessors and successors can prepare employees for the change in management through the right signals, open communication and trusting relationships.

With the awarding of the IMF Thesis Award, the renowned Hamburg Institute for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Family Businesses honors the Bachelor's and Master's theses that make a special contribution to the understanding and further development of small and medium-sized enterprises and family businesses. The prize was awarded for the first time in 2018. 

The head of the ZFU Center for Family Business at MCI and MCI Professor Anita Zehrer, assigns this prize an important function to secure the business location: "The handover of a company is one of the most difficult entrepreneurial challenges facing family businesses. The award shows the importance of the topic. I thank the IMF for this valuable initiative."