Wachovia Chair of Family Business and Director of Cox Family Enterprise Center
Michael J. Coles College of Business Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, Box 0401
Kennesaw, GA 30144
Phone: (770) 432-6045
[email protected]

Joe Astrachan, Ph.D., is an internationally-known family business expert. He is Wachovia Chair of Family Business, director of the Cox Family Enterprise Center at KSU's Coles College of Business, editor of Family Business Review, and was lead researcher on the American Family Business Survey.

Joe Astrachan is Wachovia Chair of Family Business, Professor of Learning and Professional Development, and director of the Cox Family Enterprise Center at the Coles College of Business, Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb. In addition he is Distinguished Research Chair of Family Business at Loyola University Chicago's Business School. He is also a principal of The Family Business Consulting Group, Inc.

Astrachan is editor of Family Business Review, a scholarly publication of the Family Firm Institute (FFI) of which he is a former board member. He has been involved with such lobbying groups as The Committee to Preserve American Family Businesses, Family Businesses of America, and the Center for the Study of Taxation; is a member of the Academy of Management and Southern Management Association; a founding member of the Yale Program for the Study of Family Firms; and a member of the team that designed and conducted several national research projects including a 2002 project sponsored by the Raymond Institute of which he is a fellow; and director of Kennesaw State University's Estate Tax Research Program.

Astrachan received the Richard Beckhard award, which is the Family Firm Institute's highest honor for contributions to the field of family business. He received the Family Business Network's award for best-unpublished research paper of 2001 (along with co-authors Smyrnios from Australia and Klein from Germany). He received the International Family Business Program Association's Lifetime Achievement in Research Award. He has also received the McGregor Award from the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science (a scholarly publication of the NTL Institute) for one of the most outstanding papers of the last decade (1990-1999). In addition, he is a founding board member and fellow of the International Family Business Research Academy.

Astrachan's presentations, consultations, and publications concentrate on family businesses, succession, and the management of professional partnerships. He is author and co-author of several books, including: Mergers, Acquisitions, and Employee Anxiety (Praeger, 1991); Family Business Sourcebook II; Making Sibling Teams Work; and Building Family Business Policies. Astrachan has also been editor of the Family Business Bibliography, on the editorial review board of The Journal of Small Business Management and The Journal of Executive Education, and a consulting editor for the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science.

His extended family has owned businesses ranging from container and tanker shipping to pharmaceuticals. Astrachan earned his B.A., M.A., M. Phil., and Ph.D. degrees at Yale University, where he studied in the School of Organization and Management.

Read Joseph H. Astrachan, PhD.'s Expert Spotlight story, If you think family businesses are all mom-and-pop-shops, you're wrong.