Die Krisenresilienz des Familienunternehmens

Abstract

The study examines the crisis resilience of the family business. The starting point is the Corona pandemic, whose effects are compared with the consequences of the financial and economic crisis of 2008/09. In examining crisis resilience, a distinction is made between the factors of corporate governance and family governance. Their specific importance is determined on an empirical basis. For this purpose, more than 240 questionnaires and many interviews with family businesses were analysed. Key factors of corporate governance relate to company organisation, company management, company financing, employee loyalty, location loyalty, digitalisation and sustainability. Key factors of family governance are the values and behaviour of the owning family, the organisation and rules of this area of governance, for example in a family charter, as well as the involvement of persons outside the family, e.g. within the framework of networks or by opening up the family business to third parties as shareholders. When assessing the influence of the various factors, a distinction is made between preventive crisis resilience (crisis precautions) and reactive crisis resilience (crisis combating). On this basis, guiding principles for crisis resilience are formulated which, as best practice, provide orienta-tion for coping with future crises and thus contribute to reviewing and further developing the crisis resilience of the family business.