Ideas with Impact
UNB Faculty of Management

UNB's International Business and Entrepreneurship Centre (IBEC) combined National Small Business Week (October 19 - 24) with its visiting scholar series by bringing Dr. Reg Litz, from the I. H. Asper School of Business at the University of Manitoba.

A professor of entrepreneurship with research and teaching interests in small business, family enterprise and business ethics, Dr. Litz facilitated two research sessions for UNB students and faculty. The first session was entitled "Kitty Hawk in the Classroom" and focused on entrepreneurship.

In his second session, "Two Sides of a One-Sided Phenomenon: Conceptualizing the Family Business and Business Family as a Mobius Strip", Dr. Litz discussed the his paper of the same title (published in Family Business Review, September 2008) in which he compares the family business and the business family to a one-sided strip known as the "Mobius strip."

Dr. Litz received his PhD in strategic planning and policy from the University of Pittsburgh in 1997, and focuses his research on small incumbent strategy, family enterprise, and business ethics. The recipient of several awards at the university and faculty level, Dr. Litz teaches courses in new, small and family business. His work has been published in several leading entrepreneurial and family firm research journals including Theory & Practice, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Small Business Management and Family Business Review.

IBEC concluded National Small Business Week with a panel discussion centred on family business. The four panellists were Dr. Litz; Terry Malley, president of his own family business, Malley Industries Ltd.; Doug Motty, Executive Director of Enterprise Fredericton; and Michelle Audas, Senior Business Advisor with CIBC Small Business. The panel addressed the concerns and questions members of the audience had about starting new businesses, obtaining financing for new businesses or new projects, and succession planning. The audience was made of students and faculty members from UNB, and small business owners in the Fredericton area.

For almost 30 years, the Business Development Bank of Canada has organized Small Business Week, which encourages everyone to pay tribute to our Canadian entrepreneurs. The theme of this year's Small Business Week was a world without boundaries, open to new markets.

"The theme recognizes the efforts and contributions of Canadian entrepreneurs to the national economy and acknowledges the importance of financial and consulting support for innovative and promising ideas," said the Business Development Bank of Canada.