Scottish Family Business Day puts spotlight on Covid recovery
Family firms are the engine room of the Scottish economy with around 300,000 family firms providing around 1 million jobs. The oldest family firm in Scotland is Auchtermuchty-based John White & Sons which dates back to 1715, clearly demonstrating that family firms have the ability to last successfully for generations.
However, Covid-19 has created an extremely challenging business environment, especially for hospitality and tourism businesses, a sector with many family run enterprises, and there are calls for strong solutions that increase both the range of support available and the routes by which young and new entrepreneurs can access support for growing businesses.
Claire Seaman, Professor in Enterprise and Family Business at Queen Margaret University (QMU), said:
“We are proud to support family businesses and Scottish Family Business Day 2022. Growing our economy post-Covid is a priority, and we recognise how difficult it is in today’s environment for enterprising businesses to access much-needed financial help and policy support. Through our research and training opportunities, QMU is actively contributing to the process of improving routes to financial and policy support growing and recovering businesses need.”
Working with a group of Scottish Universities, QMU recently took part in the development of the Scottish Scale Up Programme which aims to improve access for businesses to the support they need to scale their business, and to build stronger routes for new and growing businesses to develop.
Recently published research by QMU and European partners has highlighted the extent entrepreneurial families depend on informal mechanisms to engage with local policy and access support.
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Notes to Editor
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