Founding Family Research Articles

Unrelated but together: Trust and intergroup relations in multi-family businesses

While family businesses are the dominant form of enterprise in most economies, multi-family businesses with two or more unrelated founding families are not common in the family business environment. The involvement of family in a firm makes these entities and their operations more complex; managing a family firm with multiple unrelated families is even more challenging due to their higher susceptibility to inter- and intra-family conflicts. In this study, we examine why some multi-family businesses are able to avoid or manage intergroup conflicts, and how multi-family businesses can work harmoniously. We utilize a qualitative and grounded theory approach to explore five multi-family businesses using in-depth interviews with nineteen organizational members. Our analysis indicates that trust within and between families emerges as a core construct for these entities. We present a theoretical framework that explains the antecedents and outcomes of this trust and a moderating effect on the antecedent-trust relationship.

Large Blockholders and Stock Price Crash Risk

This paper examines the relationship between large blockholders and stock price crash risk for the entire population of non-financial companies listed on the Swiss Exchange for the period 2003-2016. The results show that firms held by a large blockholder have a lower firm-specific crash risk than widely held firms, and the higher the proportion of voting rights, the lower the crash risk. These findings hold after taking into consideration several firm characteristics and potential endogeneity concerns. Further analysis reveals that the mitigating effect of large blockholders on crash risk is stronger in firms held by the founding family, the state or another financial company. Overall, the evidence suggests that large shareholders serve as monitors in the company and help reducing bad news concealment, leading to lower stock price crash risk.

Rooster Town: The History of an Urban Métis Community, 1901–1961 by Evelyn Peters, Matthew Stock, Adrian Werner

Reviewed by: Rooster Town: The History of an Urban Métis Community, 1901–1961 by Evelyn Peters, Matthew Stock, Adrian Werner Timothy Foran Peters, Evelyn, Matthew Stock, and Adrian Werner – Rooster Town: The History of an Urban Métis Community, 1901–1961. Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 2018. Pp. 248. Given the steady growth of scholarly interest in Métis history over the past four decades, it is surprising that urban Métis communities have all but eluded sustained investigation. For the most part, scholarship on Indigenous experiences of cities has focused on First Nations people registered under the Indian Act and on the colonial mechanisms that contained, expelled, and erased them from urban spaces. Rooster Town expands and complicates this scholarship by training a critical lens on one of the many Métis communities that emerged on the edges of settler cities on the prairies and in British Columbia in the first half of the [End Page 410] twentieth century. Its eponymous community developed on the southwest fringe of Winnipeg from around 1900 until its dissolution by the municipal government in the 1950s and early 1960s. According to authors Evelyn Peters, Matthew Stock, and Adrian Werner, Rooster Town was an innovative Métis response to settler colonialism and dispossession: flouting settler stereotypes about the inability or unwillingness of Indigenous people to adapt to urban life, Métis households moved to the community from rural parishes in order to access the urban labour market and gain economic and housing security. In examining the socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of these households, Peters, Stock, and Werner make an important and overdue contribution to Métis historiography and, more broadly, to Canadian urban historiography and geography. The book is structured chronologically in five chapters, each of which is complemented by maps, tables, family trees, and (in the final three chapters) building plans and photographs. Chapter 1 sets out the social and economic context in which Rooster Town came into being. It surveys the processes through which the Métis were dispossessed of lands reserved for them under the 1870 Manitoba Act and through which Métis farming, fishing, and small business-owning families were supplanted by large, well-financed operations in the 1870s and 1880s. Chapter 2 examines the formation of Rooster Town from 1901 to 1911, when many Métis households left the poverty of rural parishes to find wage work in Winnipeg. These households coordinated their movement and resettlement through kinship and social connections: the majority (81.3%) of Rooster Town’s founding families hailed from St. Norbert parish, and subsequent arrivals tended to come and settle in family units. Clustering outside the serviced area of the city, though for the most part squatting on city-owned land, these families established a place of cultural safety and mutual support. Chapter 3 highlights the variety of housing and tenure strategies employed by Rooster Town families between 1916 and 1926. These included squatting, self-building, renting, and purchasing land (a risky investment when low incomes and unstable employment could spell foreclosure on unpaid taxes). Chapter 4 details the persistence of these strategies during and beyond the Depression years when Rooster Town experienced rapid population growth (mainly through internal increase) and new households were formed. The final chapter examines the decade between 1951 and 1961 when Winnipeg newspapers and city authorities set their crosshairs on Rooster Town, deploying racist tropes to frame the community as a den of squalor and disorder and ultimately rationalizing its destruction and dispersal. Undergirding this narrative is an impressive, if somewhat partial, selection and analysis of primary source material. Peters, Stock, and Werner make brilliant use of civil administrative records—including manuscript censuses, voter lists, assessment rolls, and building permits—to delineate patterns of movement, employment, housing, and land tenure among Rooster Town households. The authors are less successful, however, in obtaining and analyzing data on connections between these households, particularly extended kin connections. This problem arises from a restrictive, genealogically based understanding of kinship—an understanding that has lately been challenged and revised by Métis scholars [End Page 411] Brenda Macdougall, Chris Andersen, and Adam Gaudry. The authors might have better elucidated networks of...

Review of Weber, Urias. 2018. <em>New Beginnings: A History of the Old Order Mennonites of Ontario</em>. Wallenstein, ON: Vineyard Publications.

Old Order Mennonites do not write many books so when they do it is worth paying attention. Urias Weber’s first book makes a significant contribution by providing details of the growth and expansion of new Old Order Mennonite communities in Ontario. Urias grew up in the established Waterloo district, where pioneering Mennonites have lived since the early 1800s and Old Orders were founded in the division of 1889. However, in 1968, the young Weber family was one of several founding families to begin a new Old Order community in Mount Forest. At the time, this was a contentious and risky venture, far from the mother community (about 65kms/40 miles). The concern about new communities was probably due in part to the history of the past seven decades, when virtually all Old Order communities in Ontario had become extinct except for the flourishing Waterloo district. [First paragraph]

Management Succession and Breach of Directors' Duties: Focusing on the analysis of the Supreme Court Case 2015Da70044

(주)한화의 소수주주들은 (주)한화가 보유하고 있던 한화S&C의 주식을 한화그룹의 경영권 승계를 위하여 저가로 매각한 것과 관련하여 2010년에 (주)한화 이사들에 대한 상법상 책임을 추궁하기 위한 소를 제기하였다. 원고 주주들은 (주)한화의 이사들이 주식매각 과정에서 상법상 경업금지의무, 자기거래금지 및 회사의 사업기회 유용금지 등의 법령을 위반하였다고 주장 하였으나, 대법원은 이러한 주식매각은 이사회 승인을 거친 (주)한화의 경영상 판단으로 존중 되어야 한다고 최종 판단하였다. 국내 재벌의 경영권 승계과정에서 이사의 상법상 의무 위반 가능성은 이미 기존의 판례들을 통해 수차례 논란이 된 바 있으나, 법원은 여전히 경영권 승계를 둘러싼 이사의 상법상 책임을 인정하는 데 있어서는 소극적인 태도로 일관하고 있다. 본 논문에서는 한화그룹의 경영권 승계 문제가 다루어진 대법원 2017. 9. 12. 선고 2015다70044 판결을 중심으로 관련 상법 규정이 갖는 적용상의 한계를 살펴본 후 유사한 기존 판례를 비교·분석하여 동 판결에 대한 문제점을 비판적으로 검토하고자 한다.South Korea s “chaebol” have always been owned, controlled, and managed by the same family group. Today, chaebol operations form one of the most important issues with respect to how the succession of management rights works since these corporations are very powerful in making decisions and have the ability to control all aspects of management. The stockholders of each company owned and controlled by a chaebol s founding families have recently filed a suit in order to raise questions about the illegal processes whenever a chaebol s founding families try to grant management rights in terms of succession. The relevant regulations are Article 397(Prohibition of Competition), Article 398(Transactions between Directors, etc. and Company), and Article 397-2(Prohibition of Appropriation of Company s Opportunities and Assets) under the Korean Commercial Code. They are supposed to be based on the duty of loyalty, meaning that a director must act in good faith and with conscientiousness, fairness, morality, and honesty. However, a breach of the duty of loyalty can arise in various ways, and any breach will occur when a director acts in a manner that benefits himself/herself or certain others at the expense of the company. This article argues that one such breach case has occurred in the process of management succession within a chaebol. Furthermore, it is argued that the courts should more actively review this case by analyzing the Supreme Court Case 2015Da70044 along with several others.

Structural and Semantic Analysis of Kivertsy District of Volyn Region Residents’ Surnames

The article analyzes surnames recorded in 12 villages of the Kivertsi district, Volyn region.The name-creating word (stem) prearranges the division of surnames into lexical-semantic groups, including the main source of their creation. Accordingly, the study has revealed proper personal names, names of persons by the origin and place of residence, names of persons by the social status or occupation, names of persons by their individual features.
 Nominal surnames predominantly reflect lexical-semantic and morphological ways of creation. This group considers surnames that correspond to full personal names (Sydor, Yakym, Zhdan), coincide with the stems of the abridged/shortened forms of names (Kost', Krat, Fen’), coincide with the stems of abridged-suffixated names (Gryn', Antos', Dorosh), and correspond to diminutive/affectionate or rude forms of names (Yevtushko, Motrunchyk, Petryna).
 In the group of morphological formations, surnames with patronymic (Khomych, Kharkevych, Maryniak) and possessive suffixes (Hnativ, Hrytsyshyn) prevail. Among the surnames that indicate the origin or place of residence of the family founder, there are anthroponyms that name the nationality of the ancestor (Voloshyn, Voloshchuk, Lytvyn), indicate belonging to ancient nationalities and dialect groups (Hotsuliak, Mazur), generally indicate the place of residence (Zavgorodny, Nagorny), name a particular location (Baletskyi, Kozynets, Ostrovchuk).
 The article analyzes the surnames that indicate the social affiliation or occupation of the bearers. Such surnames indicate the class stratification of society (Bohatko, Holets); administrative positions (Voitovych, Yemets); woodworking crafts (Bondar, Kolodiy Mazhar); cooking and food pocessing (Molochnyk, Oliinyk, Pekar); weaving, tailoring, shoemaking (Shapoval, Shvets), making household items (Lynnyk, Kotliar); agriculture (Budnyk, Kozyarchuk, Ogorodnik); building (Hontar, Muliar); trade (Kachmar, Kramar, Chumak), indicate other professions and trades (Voskoboynik, Dekhtiaruk, Zvarych).
 Surnames formed on the basis of the bearers' individual characteristics indicate their physical, mental traits, intellectual level, and behavior features (Hlushko, Kryvyi, Dziuba; Svystun, Struts, Tsymbaliukta, and others).
 The revealed and analyzed surnames preserve information about various historical and socio-economic processes in the life of the Ukrainian people for the descendants.

Con ellos solos no, pero sin ellos tampoco: los poderosos en el origen y formación de las instituciones cenobíticas según el monasterio jerónimo cordobés de Valparaíso

Partiendo del consenso historiográfico sobre el indudable peso e influjo de las élites laicas y eclesiásticas en la fundación de monasterios en la España Moderna, este trabajo, a través del específico pero muy significativo caso de los jerónimos cordobeses de Valparaíso, desvela cómo se produce concretamente aquel proceso, aportando un modelo al efecto desde la historia local —que no localista—, con el análisis de la familia impulsora y su acción a tal fin, e indicando los distintos factores que lo propiciaron.

PENGARUH KEPEMILIKAN DAN KEPEMIMPINAN KELUARGA SERTA EFEKTIFITAS PENGAWASAN DEKOM TERHADAP KUALITAS AUDIT

This study aims to investigate the effect of family ownership, family leadership, and the monitoring role of the Board of Commissioners on the audit quality. This study uses a sample of non-financial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) from 2010 to 2013. Family ownership is measured through the ultimate ownership of the company. To determine whether the company's CEO is the founder of the company, family relationship data is used on all of the company's ultimate owners. The monitoring role of the Board of Commissioners is calculated through the Asean Corporate Governance Scorecard index. Data of auditor is obtained from Center for Supervision of Financial Service (P2PK). The results showed that family ownership either through direct or indirect mechanisms tend to choose Big 4 KAP than non Big 4. While Chief Financial Officer (CFOs) from family and corporate founders tend to choose Big 4 in auditing the company. This is done to maintain the company's reputation. The results also show that the effective monitoring of the Board of Commisionners (BOC) tends to choose Big 4 auditors compared to non Big 4.

Top Management Team Characteristics and Accrual-Based Earnings Management

This study examines how top management team (TMT) knowledge and average tenure affect accrual-based earnings management by investigating 4791 Taiwanese listed companies from 2006 to 2010. TMT members with more knowledge (higher education level, more accounting expertise, and greater prior top management experience) and longer average tenure have better performances and higher reputations, and are more aware of the litigation costs of earnings manipulations; therefore, they reduce managers' incentives to manage earnings (incentive-reduction effect). On the other hand, these TMT members are also likely to become entrenched and engage in more earnings manipulations (entrenchment-enhancing effect). The empirical results show that firms' TMT knowledge and average tenure are negatively associated with discretionary accruals, suggesting that the incentive-reduction effect is stronger than the entrenchment-enhancing effect, which makes TMT members less likely to engage in earnings management. Moreover, the above results are robust when employing different earnings management measures and suspect firm analyses, as well as considering endogeneity issues. Finally, the study suggests that the presence of a founding family may reduce the influences of TMT knowledge and average tenure on earnings management.

Expression of novel proteins by polyomaviruses and recent advances in the structural and functional features of agnoprotein of JC virus, BK virus, and simian virus 40.

Polyomavirus family consists of a highly diverse group of small DNA viruses. The founding family member (MPyV) was first discovered in the newborn mouse in the late 1950s, which induces solid tumors in a wide variety of tissue types that are the epithelial and mesenchymal origin. Later, other family members were also isolated from a number of mammalian, avian and fish species. Some of these viruses significantly contributed to our current understanding of the fundamentals of modern biology such as transcription, replication, splicing, RNA editing, and cell transformation. After the discovery of first two human polyomaviruses (JC virus [JCV] and BK virus [BKV]) in the early 1970s, there has been a rapid expansion in the number of human polyomaviruses in recent years due to the availability of the new technologies and brought the present number to 14. Some of the human polyomaviruses cause considerably serious human diseases, including progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, polyomavirus-associated nephropathy, Merkel cell carcinoma, and trichodysplasia spinulosa. Emerging evidence suggests that the expression of the polyomavirus genome is more complex than previously thought. In addition to encoding universally expressed regulatory and structural proteins (LT-Ag, Sm t-Ag, VP1, VP2, and VP3), some polyomaviruses express additional virus-specific regulatory proteins and microRNAs. This review summarizes the recent advances in polyomavirus genome expression with respect to the new viral proteins and microRNAs other than the universally expressed ones. In addition, a special emphasis is devoted to the recent structural and functional discoveries in the field of polyomavirus agnoprotein which is expressed only by JCV, BKV, and simian virus 40 genomes.

Family as an institution

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze entrepreneurship in the context of the second, third and fourth generations of family businesses, considering the family as an institution and mapping the reasons and influences to institutional forces across generations.Design/methodology/approachThree focus groups conducted for the study revealed that each generation has dealt differently with issues related to institutional forces, such as legitimacy, business professionalization and succession.FindingsThe perpetuation and transmission of entrepreneurial behavior has been greatly influenced by the family and this is especially clear when it is seen as an institution that unites and binds its members, while guiding or restricting the choices available to these agents through limits imposed on them. The family exerts a strong institutional influence across generations, both defining boundaries and creating opportunities for its members. Regardless of the generation of family business, the family founders and their successors’ responses are modeled by institutional forces.Research limitations/implicationsThe main limitation is concentration of focus on a specific context, Brazilian family businesses. Therefore, the results are limited to this case. With regard to the methodological approach, the authors employed cross-sectional data collection, making it difficult or even impossible to make a historical analysis of the facts that are limited to the present perceptions of the interviewees. It should also be considered, from the institutional perspective, that the authors only analyze the family as an institution, leaving out of the context other institutions and institutional dimensions such as the political and industrial, for example.Practical implicationsThis study helps to explain entrepreneurship in the context of the second, thirrd, and fourth generation of family businesses, considering family as an institution, mapping the motivations and influences of institutional forces across generations. The relevance of family as an institution as drivers of family businesses, as demonstrated in this study, can contribute to decision making and succession of family businesses. Equally, the results can contribute to avoidance of the possible pitfalls of transgenerational changes and facilitate better management of problems such as legitimacy caused by a lack of norms and procedures or transfer of tacit knowledge.Social implicationsThere have been few attempts to understand the dynamics of the family business as an institution that also consider transgenerational changes. Rather, family business has been analyzed separately from institutions. Institutions are rarely taken into account in studies of family businesses. Consequently, a perspective that aims to understand the relationship between family businesses and institutions, taking account of transgenerational influences should further theory. Transgenerational family businesses are an appropriate object of study in this context, because of the institutional changes they undergo due to the influence of institutional forces over time.Originality/valueThis study shows the relevance of understanding how these issues are dealt with in different generations of a family institution. Aspects related to entrepreneurship in the context of family businesses have been attracting attention from researchers interested in family businesses and scholars of institutional entrepreneurship.

Founder-Controlled Firms and R&D Investments: New Evidence From Canada

Our study investigates the R&D investment behavior of founder-controlled Canadian listed firms. We use De Massis et al.’s model of the sufficiency conditions of ability and willingness and adapt it to predict investments in R&D. As founder-controlled firms are heterogeneous in nature, we distinguish four categories: lone founder firms and family founder firms with and without excess voting rights. In line with our predictions, we find that only lone founder firms without excess voting rights have both the ability and the willingness to invest in R&D and so they invest more in R&D than their counterparts.

How family firm characteristics affect internationalization of Chinese family SMEs

This study investigates the effect of family characteristics on the internationalization activities of Chinese family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) using a socioemotional wealth perspective. We suggest that family ownership negatively affects international expansion. Results using a sample of 1542 Chinese family SMEs support our hypothesis that there is a negative relationship between family ownership and international activities. Due to mixed findings in previous studies, we not only focus on both export intensity and export propensity, but also introduce family firm characteristics (i.e., presence of founder CEOs and family succession intention) as moderators. We argue that these moderators capture a temporal aspect of socioemotional wealth (SEW) and find that they strengthen the negative relationship between family ownership and internationalization. Our study contributes to family firm internationalization research by disentangling the relationship between family firm characteristics and internationalization, as well as SEW research.

Does family involvement matter post IPO? Adding value through advertising in family firms

PurposeThis paper brings together research on advertising, family business, and the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm to examine performance differences between publicly traded US family vs non-family firms. The purpose of this paper is to understand the heterogeneity of family vs non-family firm advertising after such firms become publicly traded.Design/methodology/approachThe authors draw on the RBV of the firm, as well as on extensive empirical literature in family business and advertising research to empirically examine the differences between family and non-family firms in terms of performance.FindingsUsing panel data from over 2,000 companies across ten years, this research demonstrates that family businesses have higher advertising intensity than competitors, and achieve higher performance returns on their advertising investments, relative to non-family competitors. The results suggest that the “familiness” of public family firms is an intangible resource that, when combined with their advertising investments, affords family businesses a relative advantage compared to non-family businesses.Research limitations/implicationsFamily involvement in publicly traded firms may contribute toward a richer resource endowment and result in creating synergistic effects between firm “familiness” and the public status of the firm. The paper contributes toward the RBV of the firm and the advertising literature. Limitations include the lack of qualitative data to ground the findings and potential moderating effects.Practical implicationsUnderstanding how family firms’ advertising spending influences their consequent performance provides new information to family firms’ owners and management, as well as investors. The authors suggest that the “familiness” of public family firms may provide a significant advantage over their non-family-owned competitors.Social implicationsThe implications for society include that the family firm as an organizational form does not need to be relegated to a second-class citizen status in the business world: indeed, combining family firms’ characteristics within a publicly traded platform may provide firm performance benefits which benefit the founding family and other stakeholders.Originality/valueThis study contributes by highlighting the important influence of family involvement on advertising investment in the public family firm, a topic which has received limited attention. Second, it also integrates public ownership in family firms with the family involvement–advertising–firm performance relationship. As such, it uncovers a new pathway through which the family effect is leveraged to increase firm performance. Third, this study also contributes to the advertising and resource building literatures by identifying advertising as an additional resource which magnifies the impact of the bundle of resources available to the public family firm. Fourth, the use of an extensive panel data set allows for a more complex empirical investigation of the inherently dynamic relationships in the data and thus provides a contribution to the empirical stream of research in family business.

Exit Intentions of Lone and Family Founders. The Role of Cultural-Cognitive Institutions.

At the very end of the entrepreneurial process, all founders of firms – family founders and lone founders – will eventually have to face a decision concerning their own exit. The entrepreneurial ex...

The Roles of Political and Business Ties in Governance Effectiveness of Founding Family Firms

The relationship between managerial ties and firm performance has gained attention in the organization and management literature. Most studies that have examined the relationship between managerial ties and firm performance have reported inconsistent results, probably due to the omission of the moderating role of family ownership. Managerial ties include both business ties and political ties. Business ties refer to ties with other business, and political ties refer to ties with the government. Based on socioemotional wealth (SEW), social capital, resource-based view (RBV) and agency theory, this study investigates how founding family ownership moderates the influence of business and political ties on the return on assets (ROA) of 175 public firms in Taiwan from 2013–2015. This study finds that business ties have a greater impact on the performance of family-owned firms than nonfamily- owned firms. However, the negative impact of political ties on firm performance is greater for family-owned firms than nonfamily firms. Overall, these results provide an interesting implication: Although developing business ties is still a useful strategy for Taiwanese family firms, political ties are less important than in other countries. Therefore, business ties ensure health and well- being of overall family that can be more probability to contribute the betterment of society.

Governance, Pride, and Multi-Generational Involvement on Innovativeness: A Family Firm Study

This study investigates how innovativeness within multi-generational family firms is affected by business family governance, and how this relationship is moderated by different generational involvement and variance in family pride. Drawing from 321 family firms, our findings contribute to agency theory, while enhancing our understanding of multi-generational entrepreneurship and family firm heterogeneity. Specifically, we find that the founding family generation involvement and family pride have a positive impact on the family governance to firm innovativeness relationship, while non-founding generation involvement with high business family governance and low family pride negatively moderates this relationship.

Kraft's acquisition of Cadbury

The case of Kraft Foods attempting to, and eventually succeeding in, acquiring Cadbury, the UK chocolate maker, is replete with the drama and complexity of corporate takeovers. Governments, politicians, unions, customers, and other interest groups all chime in with their version of what is good for their particular interest group. The clash of food giants makes for excellent reading, and trying to determine how successful the combined company will be is a natural question to consider. The strengths of the case lie in the way the context is established, with the history of Cadbury, its culture, and the “soft” power achieved by the founding family explained.

Family involvement in publicly traded firms and firm performance: a meta-analysis

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the effects of family involvement in corporations on firm performance. It remains unclear whether family-owned companies, or companies with other forms of family involvement in the corporate governance, perform better than firms with no family involvement. Furthermore, the study focuses on family involvement in publicly traded firms, which are different from private family firms. Hence, knowledge about family firms will be enriched through a closer look at the publicly traded family firms and shed further light onto the heterogeneity among family firms.Design/methodology/approachThe present study uses a meta-analysis of the extant research on family involvement and publicly traded family firm performance. The authors synthesize past research, identify and reconcile mixed findings and expand the understanding of the phenomenon.FindingsInvolvement of the founding family members in firm governance tends to improve firm performance, albeit the effect is rather weak. However, the effect varies greatly depending on the type of family involvement and the measure of performance. The authors also identify regional differences, as well as variations by the firm size and study design. Furthermore, under-researched areas are identified for future research.Practical implicationsThe results of the study would be useful in guiding organizational design and investment decisions.Originality/valueBy using the meta-analytic approach, the present study provides a comprehensive review of the empirical evidence available on the issue so far. Most importantly, the authors were able to conduct a series of tests to assess the moderating effects of a number of factors that could not be evaluated in any individual study in the meta-analytic database.

Clinical variability and onset age modifiers in an extended Belgian GRN founder family.

We previously reported a granulin (GRN) null mutation, originating from a common founder, in multiple Belgian families with frontotemporal dementia. Here, we used data of a 10-year follow-up study to describe in detail the clinical heterogeneity observed in this extended founder pedigree. We identified 85 patients and 40 unaffected mutation carriers, belonging to 29 branches of the founder pedigree. Most patients (74.4%) were diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, while others had a clinical diagnosis of unspecified dementia, Alzheimer's dementia or Parkinson's disease. The observed clinical heterogeneity can guide clinical diagnosis, genetic testing, and counseling of mutation carriers. Onset of initial symptomatology is highly variable, ranging from age 45 to 80years. Analysis of known modifiers, suggested effects of GRN rs5848, microtubule-associated protein tau H1/H2, and chromosome 9 open reading frame 72 G4C2 repeat length on onset age but explained only a minor fraction of the variability. Contrary, the extended GRN founder family is a valuable source for identifying other onset age modifiers based on exome or genome sequences. These modifiers might be interesting targets for developing disease-modifying therapies.