Die beiden Seiten der Unternehmerfamilie

The business family 3.0: Dynastic business families as families, organizations and networks—Outline of a theory extension

“…This declaration refers to the other person in their entirety, not just, for example, in their capacity as an employee, as would be in the case in organizational communications (one of the key differences between emotionally attached and decision‐making communication that business families have to cope with; cf. von Schlippe et al, 2017). Luhmann describes this as ‘full inclusion', meaning the tendency of a family to exaggerate communication and expand it to include everything: ‘Walking, for example … when it happens in the home, is almost inevitably observed as communication; within the network of the observation of observations, it also becomes communication' (Luhmann, 1990, p. 205).…”

“…In fact, the business family continually oscillates between being a ‘family' and a ‘business family'. This oscillation between two identities—for which von Schlippe, Groth, and Rüsen (2017) coined the term ‘dual family'—creates numerous challenges and a number of conflicts due to different forms of communication. These authors conclude that any theory of the family business must primarily be a theory of the business family and address the changes and the challenges this specific type of family faces.…”

“…The reason for this decision is based on the fact that in family firms and business families, two different societal subsystems intermingle, which would have to be different in Luhmann's (2012) understanding. In many countries of the world, the family firm and the owning family are so deeply entangled with each other (Köllner, 2012) that the decisions taken by the business family tend to oscillate between notions in the family and the economic logic (von Schlippe et al, 2017) or tend to form a symbiotic relationship (Sasaki, Ravasi, & Micelotta, 2019, p. 802). Nevertheless, the business family as such is a decision‐based structure because it is constantly facing decisions that have to be made: Who belongs to the business family?…”

“…The first line of argumentation takes family firms as exceptional cases that do exist but are unimportant when explaining broader societal issues. However, this argumentation is highly fragile when taking into account that in many countries of the world, family firms constitute up to 90% of all business companies (von Schlippe et al, 2017, p. 23; Andersson et al, 2017; Fueglistaller & Zellweger, 2007; Miller & Le Breton‐Miller, 2005). Second, it is attempted to depict the entanglement of business and the family as a remnant of the past that will fade out soon (Chandler, 1990).…”

“…Initially, ad hoc solutions are found as problems arise. By the third or fourth generation, the family business is often owned by several nuclear families, who realize they must put in place formal governance structures to conduct and manage business‐related communications and thus the family organization (Koeberle‐Schmid, Fahrion, & Witt, 2012; Kormann, 2011; von Schlippe et al, 2017).…”