Arist von Schlippe

To the WIFU Endowed Chair of Leadership and Dynamics in Family Businesses
 

The WIFU Endowed Chair of Leadership and Dynamics in Family Businesses focuses its research and teaching on psychological, family-psychological and sociological issues relating to family businesses and their connection to economics. From a systems theory perspective, families and companies are viewed as specific social systems whose expectation structures appear so different or contradictory that the members repeatedly find themselves in situations that can be reconstructed as paradoxes.

Specifically, questions are addressed that examine how business families of different sizes deal with such "impossibilities", i.e.

• what specific conflict situations the actors find themselves in and how these are dealt with,
• which specific family strategies developed in the medium and long term prove to be sustainable, which family governance instruments prove to be effective for which constellation and
• which diverse family and entrepreneurial questions about business succession they pose and which forms of dealing with them business families develop.

Professor von Schlippe (born 1951) is a qualified psychologist, psychological psychotherapist, systemic family therapist and family psychologist.

Since 2017
Endowed Chair of Leadership and Dynamics in Family Businesses at WIFU Endowed Chair with a reduced teaching load

2007 and 2017
Academic Director of the Witten Institute for Family Entrepreneurship (WIFU)

2005
Appointment to the Chair of Leadership and Dynamics of Family Businesses at the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU) at Witten/Herdecke University as a recognised expert in family psychology

2003 - 2004
Deputy Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Jena

2001
Postdoctoral university lecturing qualification in psychotherapy and clinical psychology at the University of Osnabrück

1999 - 2005
First chairman of the Systemic Society, Berlin

1986 - 2015
Voluntary work as a learning therapist and teaching supervisor at the IF Weinheim, Institute for Systemic Training and Development

1986
Doctoral studies at the University of Osnabrück

1981 - 2005
Teaching and research activities in psychotherapy and clinical psychology

1976 - 1981
Ward manager in two child and adolescent psychiatric clinics

1976
Graduate psychologist

until 1976
Studied psychology at the University of Hamburg
 

Courses at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Society as part of the Master's degree programmes General Management (M. A.) and Strategy & Organization (M. Sc.): Conflicts and conflict management - especially in family businesses
 

Family business

• Success patterns of long-lived family businesses
• Management of shareholder groups
• Owner-management/non-family management
• Generation change/succession
• Resolution of shareholder conflicts/conflict management
• Family coaching/training young entrepreneurs

Organisation and management

• Narrative theory of the organisation
• Stories in (family) businesses
• Systemic management

Counselling

• Systemic counselling
• Range of services, training and counselling
   

Advisory board and reviewer activities

• Editorial advisory board of the specialist journal "Familiendynamik" (Klett-Cotta Verlag)
• Advisory board member of the journals "Organisationsberatung, Supervision, Coaching" (Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften), "Konfliktdynamik" (Nomos-Verlag), "Kontext" (V&R unipress) and "Systeme" (ÖAS-Verlag, Vienna)
• Scientific advisory board for the book programme of the publishing house Carl Auer Systeme (Heidelberg)
• Review activities for the journals "ETP" (Entrepreneurship, Theory and Practice) and "Management Review Quarterly"

Memberships

• Member of the Commission Governance Code for Family Businesses
• Member of the Board of Trustees of the EQUA Foundation, Munich
• Honorary member of the Systemic Society, Berlin
• Honorary member of the Berufsverband für Beratung, Pädagogik & Psychotherapie e. V. (BVPPT), Eschweiler
• Honorary member of the Fördergemeinschaft Mediation DACH e. V., Hamburg
• Honorary member of the Latvian Family Therapy Association, Riga