The article reports on the development of the Family Climate Scales (FCS) questionnaire. The FCS is a multilevel, self‐report, whole‐family index of aspects of family culture and process for use in nonclinical settings with families where the children may be adults. It was designed to be particularly but not exclusively applicable in the context of family business. The FCS measures on six scales: Open Communication, Adaptability, Intergenerational Authority, Intergenerational Attention to Needs, Emotional Cohesion, and Cognitive Cohesion. Results indicate very high levels of internal consistency. Subscale intercorrelations are also high, with the exception of the Intergenerational Authority subscale. Analyses using structural equation modeling confirmed the hypothesized six‐factor structure of family climate. No significant differences in family climate were found between business/nonbusiness families in the sample. Other relationships in the data set lend support to the validity and usefulness of the measure. Implications for family business theory/research and practitioners are discussed.
“The Next Generations” in family firms are the key to the survival of the sector, yet gaps remain in the knowledge about their relationship with the firm. This research focuses on the determinants of this relationship. The concept of emotional ownership emerged as an explanatory variable in a qualitative study, followed by a quantitative study, where the authors report the development of a robust measure and identify its key predictors using a large sample. Results include confirmation that emotional ownership is orthogonal to actual ownership, yet an outcome of behaviors, structures, and strategies within the control of families and their firms.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.