The Center for Family Business at Cal State Fullerton’s College of Business and Economics has been renowned for decades as a networking and professional development hub for the Southern California family-owned business sector. But the center is also growing as an education provider for CSUF business students tying entrepreneurship and family dynamics concepts together. In January, Kulraj Singh, who teaches MGMT 335[1] – Family Business Dynamics, led a team of three students to the Family Business Case Competition in Vermont. One of these students, Melissa Aguilar-Perez ’25 (marketing and management), was awarded best presenter in the division for her performance.

The competition, organized annually by the University of Vermont at its Burlington campus, featured teams from around the world participating at the undergraduate and graduate levels. The students were given three cases over three days, with four hours of preparation time in a closed room without internet access or notebooks. At the end of four hours, the student teams presented before a panel of academic and professional judges. Every day, the teams were given a ranking and points, which ultimately were used to decide the finalists, who then competed in a final case under the same conditions. In addition to Aguilar-Perez, the CSUF participants included Cara Nguyen ’27 and Isaac Merino ’26.

“Our team was the smallest team to participate in the entire competition, so it’s really awesome that we performed as well as we did!,” says Singh. “CSUF’s Center for Family Business is an amazing organization with exciting opportunities for students as well as family businesses in the area. Diversity, one of our major strengths, greatly contributed to the positive performance of our team that consisted of three students with differing backgrounds and experiences!”

Aguilar-Perez notes that the competition helped her prepare for her future through analyzing problems from a new standpoint – the emotional aspect of solving business issues. “My family owns a bakery in Los Angeles that I recently started working at and I identified a lot of similarities between myself and the people in the cases being presented in this competition,” she says. “This has helped me view and offer solutions to my family business’s conflicts in a way I would not have been able to prior to participating. My collaboration and time management skills have also improved since forming part of this competition where teamwork and time spent were among the most important factors.”

The Family Business Dynamics course provides an opportunity to study unique challenges and advantages that family businesses face. It is open to both undergraduate and graduate students. Contributing 64% of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), employing 62% of the workforce, and comprising 78% of new jobs, family business is an economic pillar of the U.S. and global economies, from Walmart to Ford to local firms. The Center for Family Business and Singh have designed the Family Business Dynamics course to truly reflect the real businesses out there with their unique complexities and challenges – often overlooked in other courses – resulting from the interplay between business and family.  

“Our class is conducted with a discursive style of learning with invited guest speakers who run real-world family businesses,” explains Singh. “Reflections, use of practical tools, and projects are used as assessment techniques. And select students are invited to represent CSUF at the Vermont competition, which is fully funded so the students can focus on their presentation.”

For more on the Center for Family Business as an educator of students and a networking forum for existing businesses, read more of our articles about family business. For more on the Family Business Dynamics course, reach out to Singh at [email protected].

[1] This course is offered in the fall semester and is in the process to be raised as 400-level elective with MGMT 437 to be likely course code