This week, ESADE Business School has launched “Family Businesses: Management, Direction and Succession” (taught in Spanish under the title “Empresa familiar: gestión, dirección y sucesión”). This online course consists of three four-week modules in which students learn the keys to successfully running a family business. Taught by ESADE faculty members Alberto Gimeno and María José Parada, the new course is an initiative of ESADE’s Family Business Lab. The course was developed in collaboration with Homuork, a company specialised in the design and production of massive open online courses (MOOCs), and is available through the online training platform Coursera. “This course is designed for business families of all types, regardless of the size of the company or group, as they all require an adequate family strategy,” commented Prof. Gimeno, co-director of the Family Business Lab at ESADE.

Family businesses account for over 50% of global wealth and play a central role in job creation and innovation processes. The management of family businesses has certain peculiarities, in terms of the roles of the various family members as well as work dynamics and the methods of attracting investment.

Commitment to the MOOC format

With the launch of then new “Family Businesses” programme, ESADE, Coursera and Homuork have renewed their collaboration on the production and launch of MOOCs, which began two years ago with the course “Geopolitics and Global Governance: Risks and Opportunities”, taught by ESADEgeo President Javier Solana to more than 11,000 students. Registration for that programme was 20% higher than the Coursera average, and the fee for participants, who pay to receive their final certificate, was four times higher than the average. On the heels of a successful first experience, ESADE has maintained its commitment to the MOOC open learning format because of its attractive design, interactive nature and ability to reach people of any profile who may be interested in the content.

The new course forms part of Coursera’s recently adopted strategy of tripling its offering of online courses in Spanish and expanding access to its programmes throughout the Spanish-speaking community. “The Latin American market is a priority for Coursera, and we’ve been able to open many doors by working with well-established players in the region such as ESADE, with high-quality Spanish-language products such as the MOOCs developed by Homuork,” commented Giovanni Dubois, Head of Iberoamerica Partnerships at Coursera.

To enrol in the course: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/empresa-familiar-gestion