EBS Paris Honoured At The 2026 Global Family Business Summit

Aymen Habib, Professor of Finance at European Business School Paris, has been recognised among the top 3 best papers at the 2026 Global Family Business Summit. This international distinction highlights the academic excellence of EBS Paris faculty and the school’s capacity to produce finance and management research with direct relevance for today’s business leaders.

An International Award Presented in Nice, at a Leading Academic Conference

From 26 to 29 May 2026, IPAG Business School in Nice hosted the 2026 SPGC – FERC Global Family Business Summit, one of the world’s most prestigious academic conferences dedicated to family enterprises. Organised under the auspices of FNEGE (Fondation Nationale pour l’Enseignement de la Gestion des Entreprises), in partnership with the STEP Project Global Consortium and the Family Enterprise Research Conference (FERC), the event brought together researchers, professors and practitioners from around the world around the theme: (In)Stability at the Frontiers — Family Business in an Age of Shifting Grounds.

In this context, Aymen Habib‘s research was awarded the Best Paper Award on Forecasting & Responsibility – IPAG Chair Towards an Inclusive Company, ranking among the three highest-rated articles by the international scientific committee.

A Paper Co-Authored with Leading Academic Institutions

The award-winning article, entitled “Sustainable Supply Chain Management in Family Firms: The Role of Family Identity and Governance Structure”, was co-authored with:

• Faten Lakhal — EMLV Business School
• Imene Zarrouki — Université Paris Nanterre
• Assil Guizani — EDC Paris Business School

This cross-institutional collaboration reflects EBS Paris’s growing influence within the French and international research ecosystem in management, corporate governance and sustainable finance. It also illustrates the school’s commitment to building bridges between grandes écoles and universities to produce rigorous, applied, high-impact research.

Key Research Findings: Family Governance and Sustainable Supply Chains

The research by Aymen Habib and his co-authors sheds new light on the CSR behaviour of French family firms — and more specifically on their commitment to Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM). Three major findings emerge from this study:

• French family firms demonstrate a stronger commitment to sustainable supply chain management than their non-family counterparts. The reason: a long-term vision rooted in intergenerational transmission, a deeper attachment to the firm’s reputation, and a sharper sense of responsibility towards stakeholders — employees, suppliers, and local communities.
• This commitment is reinforced by strong family identification with the company, particularly through eponymy (the family name carried by the firm) and generational involvement. The more symbolically and emotionally the family is tied to the business, the more it acts as a steward of its environmental and social impact.
• This commitment is further amplified when decision-making power is concentrated within the family: when a family member holds the position of CEO or Chairman of the Board, decisions in favour of responsible supply chains are more frequent and more substantive.

These findings contribute to a central debate in corporate finance and governance: are family firms naturally better positioned to address sustainability challenges? Aymen Habib and his co-authors offer a nuanced yet illuminating answer — family governance structure alone is not sufficient; it is the quality of identification with the firm that determines the depth of CSR commitment.

Research at the Crossroads of Finance, Responsible Management and Strategy

Beyond academic recognition, this research has direct managerial relevance. It provides family business leaders — and their boards — with actionable frameworks for strengthening CSR commitment in a structured way, and gives institutional investors additional criteria to assess the sustainability credentials of family-owned business models.

For EBS Paris, these findings resonate deeply with the school’s own DNA: EBS itself is part of GA Education, a family-owned and independent group. Training responsible, humanist and forward-thinking managers is precisely the mission EBS has set for itself. Aymen Habib‘s research embodies this conviction: academic excellence and managerial relevance can, and must, go hand in hand.

EBS Paris Faculty: Research in Service of Teaching

European Business School Paris structures its research activities around three strategic pillars, directly connected to its Master’s specialisations and the contemporary challenges facing management:

• Customer & Service Experience — service relationships, customer journeys, proximity and growth
• Business Sustainability & Family Enterprise — governance, strategy, resilience in competitive and uncertain markets
• Digital Transformation & Artificial Intelligence — new uses, digital behaviours, AI applied to business

Aymen Habib‘s work sits squarely within the second pillar, directly enriching the content of EBS’s Finance, Audit & Corporate Governance and Sustainable Global Business Development specialisations within the Programme Grande École.

At EBS Paris, research is not a parallel activity to teaching — it is its driving force. Each publication, each distinction, enriches the pedagogical content and strengthens the relevance of the training delivered to the next generation of managers.