Long-term perspectives on family business

Abstract

A good business history, old or new, is increasingly the one able to speak, or to be understood, by other social scientists, unfamiliar with the historians’ research methodology but, nevertheless interested in the evidence, and also spillovers, provided by historical research. This has recently brought business historians to examine the possibility of a closer dialogue between business history and areas of management research which are more oriented towards the time dimension as a component of their conceptual framework, such as international business studies, management and strategy, and in particular family business studies. Generally speaking, these reflections have had ambiguous outcomes so far: they recognize the necessity of a closer dialogue, they emphasize the 'history-friendly' nature of some sub-fields of management studies (as well as the isolation of others), and try to identify how business history can fruitfully interact with disciplines oriented towards speculation, synthesis and normative purposes.