Meet Francesco (Frank) Barbera! He is an assistant professor/ director of the Family Enterprise Center (FEC) at Stetson University’s School of Business Administration. Frank is also the leader for Stetson University’s Successful Trans-generational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) project. Frank received his Ph.D. from Bond University in Queensland, Australia, and then went on to earn a master of commerce, with honors, degree from Bond University in economics. Under an International Postgraduate Research Scholarship, he investigated Australian small to medium-sized family enterprises as a research associate at the Australian Centre for Family Business (ACFB). He is currently teaching three courses on Advanced Topics in Business: Family Enterprise Case Intensive Seminar; Personal, Professional, and Leadership Development; and Applying Self Awareness to College and Career. His research interests incorporate many economic issues applied to family businesses, entrepreneurship, developing the next generation, and small business management.
Recently, Frank received the 2014 Academic Award for Best Dissertation, presented by the Family Firm Institute, Inc. (FFI). FFI has members from over eighty eight countries, and is the oldest and most distinguished multidisciplinary professional association in the world for family enterprise. According to the Family Firm Institute, Inc., the Best Doctoral Dissertation Award is given to encourage and recognize outstanding academic achievement in the field of family business study. It is presented annually after a blind review of all dissertation submissions. Frank’s award-winning dissertation, which took him five years, is entitled, “Financing, Firm Size and Productive Efficiency: The Effect of Family Ownership.” After speaking with Frank about what keeps him motivated through it all, he said, “I had plenty of people who kept me motivated: key faculty at Bond, my family, my wife, my fellow PhD candidates, and my daughter, who was born in the middle of my candidature, so I was extremely driven to complete after that.”