School of Business Administration

The activities developed by the Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business are expected to have impact on three different levels: individual level, family and firm level, and regional-community level.

At the individual level, the Chair will:

• help family members to better understand their role as owners and/or managers while being, at the same time, mothers, fathers, siblings, etc.
• improve the abilities and skills of a new generation of family business members to develop and expand their personal and professional career inside and outside the firm
• develop leadership abilities of new generations of family business members to face the challenge of firm survivability and family cohesiveness
• help the incumbent generation to develop a successful succession process

At the family and firm level, the Chair will:

• create healthy and competitive firms and happy and cohesive families
• promote sustainable family business models by strengthening the link between the family and the firm
• improve the transparency in the communication between family, business and society

At the community level, the Chair will:

• increase understanding of family business and business family in the United Arab Emirates, the MENA region, and its role in the international context
• increase integration of local family businesses into the international context
• prepare the country, through its family firms, to assume the challenge of upcoming social and economic changes
• Additionally, as a part of American University of Sharjah, the Sheikh Saoud Bin Khalid Bin Khalid Al Qassimi Chair in Family Business will contribute to the university's research and education excellence.

For AUS, the Chair will:

• increase the intellectual leadership and mentoring in the AUS School of Business Administration, and in the region
• establish a prominent regional center for family business research
• contribute to the research aims of AUS by focusing on family business research
• increase importance and visibility of AUS in the regional and international research market