Family-Owned Businesses: An Emerging Field of Inquiry

Abstract

This paper reviews the development of thinking about the family firm in four major areas of focus, and discusses the contributions and limitations of each approach.

Strategic Management of the Family Business: Past Research and Future Challenges

“…Most of the studies on the family firm's organizational structure, evolution, and change, however, are concerned with the transition to professional management. Hollander and Elman (1988) identify three different approaches adopted by researchers to formulate evolutionary models. The first approach relates the firm's developmental stages to the family's generational progression (e.g., Barnes and Hershon, 1976).…”

“…In the first stage, the needs of the business and the family are consistent; the owner-manager makes all decisions. Although families are not necessarily monolithic units, at this stage of a family business's development, research on the motivations and characteristics of the founder can be particularly useful in providing some indication of the goals of family enterprises (Hollander and Elman, 1988). The current stream of research in this area (e.g., Dyer, 1986;Malone and Jenster, 1992) runs parallel to studies of the entrepreneur's characteristics, except that the entrepreneurship literature concentrates on the early life of the firm and the family-business literature deals with a firm in its later stages, especially when succession is imminent.…”

A Neglected Factor Explaining Family Business Success: Human Resource Practices

“…With over 90 percent of all American corporations being family owned or family controlled and accounting for about 40 percent of the gross national product, surprisingly little attention has been paid by researchers, scholars, and consultants to this unique organizational configuration (Wortman, 1992;Hollander and Elman, 1988;Beckhard and Dyer, 1983). The available empirical evidence on family firms is dominated by "armchair articles, experiences, folklore, and stories," according to Wortman (1992), who.…”

The role of management accounting in family business succession

“…The succession process involves intergenerational teams based on family ties, which requires systematic attention to socialization, formal ownership and knowledge (Sharma et al, 2003). Brockhaus (2004) has also emphasised the importance of the relationship between the founder and the successor(s) in determining the process, timing and effectiveness of the succession itself (Handler, 1990(Handler, , 1992Hollander and Elman, 1988;Davis and Haverston, 1998). The succession transition imposes significant changes on family businesses in terms of their ownership structure, routines and rules, and family relations.…”