Mattias Nordqvist

SEB Chair in Entrepreneurship and Family Business, Professor - Department of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology, Director - Center for Family Enterprise

Mattias Nordqvist, Ph.D. is the SEB Chair in Entrepreneurship and Family Business and Professor in Business Administration with a focus on Entrepreneurship at the House of Innovation (HOI), Stockholm School of Economics (SSE). Mattias teaching, research and outreach activities concentrate on entrepreneurship, strategic renewal and governance in closely held, private companies, in particular, family businesses. He focuses on both start-ups/new ventures and established companies.

Current research projects focus on new venture creation and governance, sustainability in large family-controlled businesses, entrepreneurship and strategic renewal in family businesses and the role of literature and fiction to understand entrepreneurship and management.

Mattias joined SSE and HOI in January 2020 from Jönköping International Business School (JIBS) where he was the Director of Center for Family Enterprise and Ownership (CeFEO), Professor in Strategy and Entrepreneurship and the Hamrin International Professor of Family Business. At JIBS he also served as Associate Dean, Program Manager and Co-director for many years. He served as a Co-director for a large global applied research project on family entrepreneurship (The Global STEP Project) at the Arthur M. Blank Center for Entrepreneurship, Babson College where he was also a visiting professor.

In 2019, Mattias was ranked among the top 25 most cited and published researchers within the social sciences in Sweden by the leading weekly news magazine Fokus. He has been listed as one of the world’s leading researchers and academics within the family business field in several international rankings.

Mattias teaches at master, executive and PhD levels. In addition to his teaching and outreach activities, Mattias regularly contributes to international conferences and he is widely published in leading journals within the discipline of management, including the fields of entrepreneurship and family business. For instance, his research appears in journals like Journal of Management, Journal of Management Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, Small Business Economics, Journal of Product Innovation Management, Long Range Planning, Human Resource Management Review, Family Business Review, Corporate Governance: An International Review and several others. He is the founding co-editor of Journal of Family Business Strategy and serves on several editorial boards. He has also co-edited several books, including the Sage Handbook of Family Business. Mattias has received several awards for his research, and multiple grants and donations for his research and teaching projects.

Mattias regularly serves as an advisor to companies and other organizations, and he often appears in media in relation to his core topics. A Swedish citizen, he has a strong international profile and holds guest lectures and gives keynote to both academic and practice audiences around the globe. In particular, he has lived and worked extensively in Southern Europe, North America, Latin America and Africa. In 2010, for instance, he initiated and launched, in collaboration with Sida, a major capacity building program in higher education in Ethiopia and Rwanda. A program that is still operative.

Selected Publications

Muñoz-Bullón, F., Sanchez-Bueno, M. & Nordqvist, M. (2020), “Growth Intentions in Family-Based New Venture Teams”, Management Decision, 58 (6): 1190-1209

Boers, B., & M. Nordqvist, (2020). “Family businesses as hybrid organizations”. In: D. Billis and C. Rochester (Ed.). Handbook on Hybrid Organisations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Limited

Van Helvert-Beugles, J., Nordqvist, M. & Melin, L (2020). ”Engaging Practitioners in Qualitative Family Business Research: An Engaged Scholarship Approach”. In: DeMassis, A. & Kammerlander, N. Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods for Family Business, Cheltenham, UK. Edward Elgar.

Nordqvist, M. & Gartner, W. B (2020). Literature, Fiction, and the Family Business. Family Business Review, 33 (2): 122-129.

van Helvert-Beugels, J., Nordqvist, M., & Flören, R. (2020). Managing tensions as paradox in CEO succession: The case of nonfamily CEO in a family firm. International Small Business Journal, 38(3), 211–242. Link

Ramírez‐Pasillas, M., Lundberg, H. and Nordqvist, M. (2020). Next generation external venturing practices in family owned businesses. Journal of Management Studies. Link.

Highlighted Research

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Family business reveals disclosure strategies during financial crisis

A new study published in The British Accounting Review has uncovered how family businesses strategically shape disclosure practices during times of financial distress. The research provides a rare...

Discovering organizational fortitude in the face of adversity - a study of a family firm

A new study, recently published in the Journal of Management, reveals the remarkable ability of family firms to not just survive but thrive through multiple adversities. By focusing on a century-old...

Sons are favored in family firms – but daughters do better

Sons are much likelier than daughters to take over the family firm – despite the fact that businesses run by daughters outperform those run by sons. This according to new research from the Stockholm...

Mattias Nordqvist Ranked Leading in Europe

House of Innovation Professor Mattias Nordqvist ranked second of researchers currently working in Europe in terms of total impact, and first in Europe in terms of most published articles in the area...