Follow Up Questions: Bowen Theory and Beyond Research Project Proposal

Bowen Theory and Beyond: In the early development of the family enterprise field, Bowen’s Family Systems Theory sat at the center of the thinking and shaping of conceptualizing advice and consulting for families in business. Today, with decades of experience in practice but less in formal research, we are interested in what specific concepts from systems theory are most helpful to today’s practitioner. How are these concepts useful? What other major concepts from the fields of psychology or psychodynamics, neuroscience, etc. are helpful in sustaining family enterprises across generations?

This research should explore the utility of Bowen Family Systems Theory as it has been applied for decades, as well as other useful concepts from related paradigms.

General Feedback:
* Including people beyond Bowen Theory experts would enhance the proposal
* More discussion on how this research stretches “beyond” Bowen, as suggested in the RFP, would be helpful
* Further elaboration on how the proposed research would be applied, e.g., how will you draw on academic research and in what specific ways might advisors apply the results, would be useful