Mobility as Capital.
Tested, not asserted.

The research question

Does structured, real work experience across jurisdictions build mobility capital in family-business successors, and through what mechanisms does that capital generate returns for the successor, the family enterprise and the societies involved? Three subsidiary questions follow: what are the components and how can each be measured; does the effect depend on the work being real rather than nominal; and what institutional design is required to build the capital compliantly across several jurisdictions.

Design

The study combines insider action research with design science and a longitudinal quasi-experiment. Participants in Magellan Global's successor-development programme are measured at entry and at twelve, twenty-four and thirty-six months on validated instruments for cultural intelligence, integrative complexity and cognitive flexibility, on capability assessments, and on an index of institutional optionality. A matched comparison group of non-participating successors is recruited through private banks and chambers of commerce. A qualitative multiple-case study of eight to twelve families, with interviews across generations, examines mechanism. Enterprise outcomes, including AI processes deployed and overseas expansion, are tracked. The programme design itself is treated as an artefact to be evaluated and revised.

Hypotheses

• H1 Participation increases successors' technical and enterprise knowledge relative to the comparison group.
• H2 Participation increases cognitive flexibility, integrative complexity and cultural intelligence.
• H3 Participation increases the institutional optionality of the successor and the family.
• H4 The effects are stronger when the work is substantive than when placement is nominal.
• H5 Successor mobility capital is associated with enterprise outcomes: AI processes deployed, overseas revenue growth and continuity of family control.

H4 is the hypothesis that connects the research to compliance: if supported, it shows that the mechanism runs through real work rather than presence abroad, which is also what every authority tests.

Ethics and the research–services boundary

• The researcher founded and owns the organisation that operates the intervention; this conflict is disclosed and analysed in every publication.
• Measurements are administered by research staff with no client-management responsibility; interview data are held by the research team, not the operating business.
• Hypotheses are pre-registered before the first follow-up measurement.
• The study has institutional ethics review; participation is voluntary and withdrawal has no effect on employment or mobility decisions.
• Research data are never used to market to individual clients. WG Global does not administer research instruments and does not see individual research data.

Publications and the book

Findings are intended for peer-reviewed publication in international business and family-business journals, and in a general-readership book on mobility capital with English, Traditional Chinese and Japanese editions. Anonymised cases appear only with the families' written consent. WG will link publications here as they appear.