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MN SAPIENS

Research Agenda

Open Questions for the Architecture of Family Capital.

Research Agenda records questions that MN SAPIENS considers material to the development of practice, but for which the current basis is insufficient — a stronger basis, field observation or empirical evidence is required.

Open Questions agendas Research and results

To the foundations of the agenda

MN SAPIENS · RESEARCH AGENDA · BACKGROUND

For some questions, a compelling idea is not enough. A stronger foundation, observation, data, or professional review is needed.

Family Capital Architecture works with a system in which people, relationships, roles, decisions, assets, liabilities, and time exist simultaneously.

Many elements of this system are well described by existing professional fields. Others require their coherent application. And some questions still remain open.

This page captures exactly them.

A guide in the section

How to read this page

Methodological regulations

The research agenda captures the issues that MN SAPIENS considers essential for the development of the Architecture of Family Capital.

The presence of an issue on the agenda does not mean that formal research has already been started on it or received result.

The current status of formal research lines is published separately in the “Research and Results” section.

View current research and results

The final document preserves the decision made.

But for the next person this may not be enough.

He may need to understand what circumstances were considered relevant, what positions existed among the participants, what assumptions were used and why one alternative was chosen over another.

Exploratory question

What minimum set of reasons must be preserved so that years later it is possible to restore not only the decision made, but also its logic?

Additional questions

When does a decision need to be reopened?
What is considered a significant change in circumstances?
How to maintain context without creating excessive bureaucracy around every decision?

Age, education, relationship and future hereditary status do not in themselves indicate the ability to make real decisions.

Participation in a meeting does not equal responsibility either.

Exploratory question

Is it possible to describe the development of a future owner through the history of real participation, limited powers, decisions made and their consequences, without creating a rating of the person?

A family may see the business, real estate, investment portfolio, future income, and liabilities as separate parts of their situation.

But economically, they are able to depend on the same event.

Exploratory question

How to identify situations in which one source of risk simultaneously affects asset values, household income, liquidity, and liabilities?

A common consequence of a decision does not mean a common opinion.

Two people may view the same situation differently, and that difference should not be eliminated simply for the convenience of a common document.

Exploratory question

How to keep the personal positions of the participants separate until such time as the agreement is actually confirmed by themselves?

MN SAPIENS Rule

This corresponds to the broader MN SAPIENS rule: one cannot attribute motives, consent, or willingness to a second participant without direct evidence.

MN SAPIENS works with the five forms of family capital described in the tradition of James E. Hughes Jr.: human, intellectual, social, spiritual and financial.

In the Family Capital Cascade these are correlated with MN SAPIENS's own testing sequence:

Meaning → Energy → Thinking → Trust → Money

respectively: spiritual → human → intellectual → social → financial capital.

This sequence is a methodological synthesis of MN SAPIENS, and not an established universal law. The cascade does not assign a cause. It specifies the order of testing.

Exploratory question

Does sequential testing of the five levels help reduce the likelihood of missing a significant layer of a family situation?

Methodological boundary

This is not a statement of a proven causal chain.

Not every decision needs to be reviewed every year.

Some findings change after a specific event.

Others become obsolete gradually.

Still others may remain in effect for decades.

Exploratory question

Is it possible to distinguish between decisions that require a calendar review and decisions that should only be opened upon the occurrence of a specific event?

The more professionals involved in working with family capital, the higher the risk that everyone will qualitatively solve their part of the problem, and the connection between these solutions will disappear.

Exploratory question

What minimum set of context must be transferred from one specialist to another in order to preserve the original goal, limitations, assumptions and responsibility for the next step?

Documents are capable of transferring the right.

Instructions are capable of transferring part of the system structure.

But this may not be enough for the next person who has to face a new situation that was not in the original plan.

Exploratory question

What exactly needs to be passed on to the next generation so that it receives not only the asset and instructions, but also the ability to independently judge the new situation?

Family Capital Architecture practice should not automatically turn the client into a research participant.

Particularly sensitive data are family, minor, financial information, relationships between participants, and professional judgments.

Exploratory question

What minimal anonymized data set in the future can provide an empirical basis for the study of family capital, while maintaining privacy and the person’s right not to participate in the study?

Limits and Method

What can change our position

The research agenda is not created in order to confirm an already chosen concept.

Our current understanding may change if:

Criteria for scientific falsification

01

stronger data;

02

a previously overlooked professional model;

03

a new legal or other significant boundary;

04

the results of long-term observation of practice;

05

cases that contradict our hypothesis;

06

evidence that the existing approach solves the problem better.

If a stronger basis refutes our working model, the task of research is not to defend the model, but to change models.

How MN SAPIENS works with evidence

Research Agenda

How to read this page

Open questions in the Architecture of Family Capital

1. The decision and its basis

2. Next Generation Responsibility

3. Total Risk

4. Multiple Members

5. Family Capital Cascade

6. Lifespan of a Decision

7. Transfer between specialists

8. What must survive the founder

9. Data and Boundaries of Research

What can change our position