Managing Firms And Families

Family businesses—the predominant form of business organization around the world—can make numerous, critical contributions to the economy and family well-being in both financial and qualitative terms. But dysfunctional family businesses can be difficult to manage, painful experiences at best, and they can destroy family wealth and personal relationships. This book explores the dynamics of family business management, in the context of constantly changing market conditions and the role that knowledge management plays in strategic planning and adaptation. Integrating the literature from family business, entrepreneurship, industrial psychology, and knowledge management, and with illustrative examples from a variety of enterprises, the authors address such topics as: •How family businesses can compete in the new knowledge economy •How to manage a family business when knowledge is its main asset •How to transfer knowledge (and how to keep it alive) through family generations Within this framework, the authors argue that effective resource management—especially intangible resources—is central to enabling a family-run organization to maintain a sustainable competitive advantage over time. They note that families often develop systemic, intuitive, or tacit knowledge that transcends rational decision making and needs to be recognized and nurtured as a distinctive asset. The authors demonstrate that trans-generational value is achieved when the family firm innovates and adapts itself to changing external and internal conditions. This kind of entrepreneurial performance requires dynamic capabilities and processes designed to acquire, exchange, combine and even shed knowledge and practices; and, in turn, dynamic capabilities result from mechanisms of knowledge sharing, collective learning, experience accumulation, and transfer.

This innovative textbook covers the most important managerial challenges facing family businesses. It is research-based and includes theory and practice along with concepts, cases and reflection questions to illustrate the key topics.

The purpose of this book is to provide readers with an introductory overview of family business, the most prevalent form of business in the world. The differences between family and nonfamily businesses are emphasized in this book. There are several key audiences: As a supplemental text for university undergraduate or graduate level courses such as small business management, introduction to business, entrepreneurship, or family studies. Members of family businesses will benefit from the book as an introduction to the unique nature of family businesses. Professional advisors to family firms such as accountants, attorneys, bankers, insurance providers, and financial services professionals may develop a better understanding of their clients. Suppliers to family businesses will gain insight to this important business customer. Much of the literature on family business is from the United States; an attempt has been made to present relevant international information, as well. Chapter one defines a family business and provides an overview of family business. Chapter two explores the many differences between a family owned business and a nonfamily owned business. Chapter three explores the major family business theories. Chapter four discusses how family firms make business decisions. Chapter five explores the significant issues prevalent in a family firm. Chapter six explores the most problematic issue in family firms: succession or the transfer of ownership to the next generation. Chapter seven explores the many differences among the generations of a family firm. Chapter eight presents information on family business strategic planning. Chapter nine focuses on effective family business governance and use of advisors and boards. Chapter ten explores key success tips for long lasting family firms. Chapter eleven discusses trends in family business. Chapter twelve contains key points for family business professionals and suppliers who target or service family firms. Chapter thirteen presents areas for future research to advance the study of family business.

This book presents research-based information to provide the reader a deeper understanding of the complex nature of family owned businesses, their problems and challenges, and the unique governance structures and mechanisms that have been developed to properly guide a family business to greater effectiveness. Family business is the most prevalent form of business organization in the world. Much of the existing literature on family and corporate governance focuses on the larger and often publicly owned corporations instead of the unique and special issues of the much more prevalent privately held (usually smaller) family businesses. This book presents research-based information to provide the reader a deeper understanding of the complex nature of family owned businesses, their problems and challenges, and the unique governance structures and mechanisms that have been developed to properly guide a family business to greater effectiveness. For the family, such structures include having family meetings, a family council, and a family constitution. For the business, the board of directors provides experienced and knowledgeable advice and recommendations, as well as oversight and monitoring activities. For the owners, a shareholder’s council and an annual shareholder meeting allows increased communication and voting on decisions. These family governance mechanisms have been shown to increase communication, reduce conflict, and improve decision making and professionalism. Each governance tool will be explored in depth. The audience for this book is family business owners, consultants, practitioners, and family business scholars. Cases will provide readers an opportunity to apply their learning to real business problems.

This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue "Performance and Behavior of Family Firms" that was published in IJFS

​This is the third in a series of casebooks on issues faced by families owning and managing a business. This volume focuses on the management of growth, decline, and transition in such firms. These cases are clustered together because family firms grow, decline, and grow again, often transforming themselves several times in the course of their existence, as they face succession issues, financial constraints, and changes in market demand. Managing change also has significant impact on the firm-owning families and their individual members, especially when making decisions under conditions of uncertainty. The eight cases presented in this volume, as those in the previous two casebooks, were developed as a response to the lack of a diversity and selection of cases on family business. The cases emerged by engaging students to help develop them as a part of the curriculum for teaching family business to both graduate and undergraduate business school students in the United States, Canada, Australia, and Finland. However, their utility goes beyond the classroom and should be informative to consultants to family firms and family business owners and members as well. ​

The literature on family business has developed significantly over the last years. However, efforts remain to summarize and systematize the main aspects that affect the behavior of this type of company. In this regard, the topic of strategic management has been developed. In this sense, it is especially important to recognize how the family decisively influences the behavior of the company and also to identify how the existence of the company affects family dynamics. Those who manage family businesses, whether family or not, must reconcile both perspectives (business and family) in the definition of strategic objectives, allowing sustainability and continuity in this type of organization. The Handbook of Research on the Strategic Management of Family Businesses provides emerging research that covers how strategic management in the family business has been developed and identifies the objectives that sustain this strategic behavior, the main areas of analysis (family and business), the definition of strategies, and their implementation. Also, the authors of this book review the different scenarios for family firms and propose strategies to tackle the challenges and seize the possibilities to grow in a competitive and dynamic environment. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as human capital, organizational leadership, and knowledge creation, this book is ideally designed for family firms, managers, advisors, consultants, policymakers, business professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, researchers, academicians, and students.

Family Business Conflict Archetypes, Frames, Roles, and Tactics are discussed in this book with a view toward educating readers to the common conflict cycles that family businesses encounter. More specifically the book will address twelve conflicts that are common in family owned businesses, how to spot them and how to resolve them.