Family-run Enterprises Research Articles

The Well-Being of Managers in the Context of the Identity Brand of the Family Company

Theoretical background: The article delves into the domain of qualitative research applied to investigating the well-being of managers within family businesses. It situates its discussion within the broader context of brand identity in such enterprises. Theoretical underpinnings include insights into the formation of well-being in family-run companies, highlighting the interconnectedness between managerial well-being and the identity of the family business. Purpose of the article: Primarily methodological in nature, the article aims to delineate a systematic approach to conducting qualitative research specifically tailored to exploring the well-being of managers within the context of family business brand identity. It seeks to elucidate the process of uncovering the intricate links between managerial well-being and the identity of family-owned businesses, thus contributing to the understanding of how well-being manifests in such organisational settings. Research methods: The article outlines an algorithmic framework designed to guide qualitative research endeavours focused on manager well-being within family businesses. It underscores the importance of employing both inductive and deductive approaches in qualitative research, as evidenced by a pretest conducted to discern their differential applications in this context. Main findings: The key findings of the article revolve around the proposed algorithm for conducting qualitative research on the well-being of managers with respect to the brand identity of the family business brand. The study underscores the importance of qualitative methods in unraveling the complexities of well-being in the unique context of family-run enterprises. By elucidating the interrelationships between managerial well-being and brand identity, the research contributes to a deeper understanding of the dynamics at play within family businesses and offers valuable insights for both scholars and practitioners in this field.

Examining the Corporate Governance Strategies of Indian Family-Run Companies: Insights from Selected Enterprises

ABSTRACT Purpose: In light of this, the current study aims to evaluate the management practices of major family business operations in India. Theoretical references: Cadbury (1992) defines business governance as the operational and managerial framework of an organization guided by its purpose and principles. Methods: The research scrutinizes governance practices of major family firms on the Bombay Stock Exchange, concentrating on the top 30 contributing to the SENSEX. Governance factors include board structure, meeting frequency, market capitalization, and social responsibility initiatives. Results: The findings provide insights into the corporate governance strategies of Indian family-run enterprises, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of their governance practices. The study underscores the need for enhanced gender diversity and sustained adherence to governance norms. Limitations of Research: The limitations of this study include a potential lack of generalizability due to the focus on specific family-run companies in the Indian context. Originality: This study unveils the corporate governance dynamics within Indian family businesses, showcasing their adherence to ethical practices, compliance with regulatory frameworks, and distinctive governance patterns.

Diagnóstico produtivo da ranicultura no estado do Rio de Janeiro

ABSTRACT Brazilian frog farming has a history of production that began in the state of Rio de Janeiro in 1935. Over the years, this activity has spread throughout Brazil, with technological advances that have improved the productivity and health of enterprises. However, structuring the production chain has presented moments of growth and decline, culminating in low production compared with other aquaculture activities. Despite efforts focused on restructuring the chain, data on enterprises and their actors remain scarce. To obtain information on the current scenario of frog farming in the state of Rio de Janeiro, in this study, an online survey of data on frog producers in Rio de Janeiro was conducted. In general, frog farming in Rio de Janeiro has not shown substantial improvements in terms of structuring. Its dynamics are still linked to lowproduction, family run enterprises, little insertion into the market, and not being formalized, encompassing aspects related to fiscal, environmental, and health issues. Therefore, the restructuring process of the frog chain in the state depends on overcoming the bottlenecks mentioned in this study. These predominantly refer to the availability of information on the relevant aspects of management and regularization of production.

Intergenerational Transfer of Family-Run Enterprises in Slovenia in Comparison with German Law

After the Republic of Slovenia declared its independence in 1991 and adopted a new constitution, business in the country began to increasingly develop. Now, 30 years since declaring independence and the start of business development, we are witnessing the retirement of the first generation of business owners, and it is reasonable to expect the rise of such examples in the following years. With the change in generation and retirement of the first generation of business owners, the question arises as to how to legally regulate the transition of family companies to younger generations, with the objective of keeping the company within the family circle and avoiding fragmentation of the company because of a higher number of potential heirs. This article presents information on the transfer of a family company to the next generation with sole traders, personal companies, and companies with share capital in comparison to German law.

Intergenerational Transfer of Family-run Enterprises by Means of Civil Law in Serbia

Family-run enterprises are business organisations in which the reins of control are concentrated in the hands of a single family or an individual who for the enterprise aims to continue operation through successive generations of the family. In Serbia, family-run companies usually begin as an individual entrepreneurship, a form of closed company (general and limited partnership) or relatively closed company (limited liability company). The legal difficulties that arise following the death of an individual entrepreneur (natural person) differ from those following the death of a member in a company (legal entity). Companies are imbued with rights and responsibilities separate from the personal rights and responsibilities of their members. Members of a company, including the head, are not considered owners of the company’s property in legal terms. Instead, they have shares in the company, and those shares entitle them to membership (management and proprietary) rights. Thus, when a member dies, the company’s property, in whole or in part, is not subject to inheritance (although that deceased member’s share is). This differs from the situation following an individual entrepreneur’s death. The law does not recognise a natural person conducting business as an individual entrepreneur as having two legal personalities (personal and business); everything is treated as personal. Therefore, all the assets and debts of a deceased individual entrepreneur are subject to inheritance, regardless of whether or not they were accrued in the course of business. The succession of a share following a member’s death is regulated separately for each company form, and all issues not governed by the Companies Act or a company’s incorporation document are subject to the rules of Serbia’s Law of Inheritance. Inheritance rules differ greatly for a share in a personal company (general or limited partnership) and a share in a capital company (limited liability or joint-stock company). In principle, whether or not a deceased member’s rights and responsibilities can be passed through inheritance depends on the company’s form, its incorporation document, and the relevance of the heirs’ connection to the deceased and the company. The less complicated these are, the fewer the legal obstacles to inheritance.

Building Multinationals in the Mediterranean: balearic island hotels in the 1990s

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the international expansion of five hotel companies based in the Balearic Islands that expanded their operations to the Caribbean and other tourist destinations throughout the last fifteen years of the twentieth century and successfully became multinational firms. The five companies, which were strictly family-run enterprises, went through an initial phase of rapid growth in the Balearic Islands market and the broader Spanish market. In this initial phase, they accumulated assets, skills and competences that laid the groundwork for their subsequent international expansion. This accumulation took place within a very specific environment: the tourism market of the Balearic Islands, which was governed by an institutional framework for business development and internationalization that was much more favorable than in the rest of Spain.

Family Entrepreneurship in India’s ‘Diamond City’: A Phenomenological Research

Abstract The history of family run business in Surat, India is more than 350 years now. However, over the last several decades, it has been observed that family run enterprises in Surat have not been able to scale up the business by untapping opportunities in international markets. The paper aims to explore the experiences of family-run enterprise owners in their attempt to grow their businesses in Surat. Given the stagnant growth trajectory, less expansion, and minimal diversification over the last several decades, the researcher is intrigued to study the experiences of these family-run enterprise owners. As a phenomenological research study, there is only one question: What experiences have these enterprise owners faced in a family-run enterprise as they attempt to grow their businesses? Non-leading prompts were asked to encourage participants to expand their responses to lead to a deeper understanding of those experiences. As respondents, seventeen family-run enterprise owners have been contacted for In-Depth Interview (IDI). The respondents were from diamond, textile and restaurant business in Surat. The study aided in identifying existing challenges and strengths making the whole experience of family-run enterprise owners unique, diverse and different from the conventional businesses operating in different industry. The findings indicate that the potential of family-run enterprises have not been harnessed to its fullest due to prevailing mediocrities, sub-standard practice, sophisticated and disoriented business procedures and system. Organization Development (OD) interventions would be effective in unearthing deeper issues and problems amongst these family-run enterprises in Surat.

City profile: Wenzhou - A model city of transitional China

As the birthplace of China's private economy, Wenzhou is known as one of the three model cities of post-reform China, along with Suzhou and Dongguan. Wenzhou has experienced rapid development and is often taken as a paradigmatic case for the privatization and entrepreneurialization of urban China against the context of market-oriented reform and open-door experiments. Wenzhou has undergone a major social, economic, and spatial restructuring over the past four decades. In the last several years, however, Wenzhou has faced a number of challenges associated with slowing economic growth, difficulty in industrial upgrading, and decreasing attractiveness to highly-qualified employees and high-tech enterprises. This paper profiles the historical development of Wenzhou, particularly with regard to the aspects of economic and spatial restructuring, to interrogate the modality of its recent development and to seek answers to current dilemma. From a historical and cultural perspective, we argue that the key drivers underlying Wenzhou's development have been the bottom-up local initiatives and family-run enterprises, rather than top-down state promotion. In this vein, this study offers further understandings of urbanization against various contexts, in particular the state-oriented urbanization in China.

Conceptual framework for system analysis of family-run agricultural enterprises

The article discusses the relevance of system analysis approaches for family-run agricultural enterprises with their complex structures, and challenges. A conceptual framework for system analysis of family-run agricultural enterprises, considering the interdisciplinary and integrating principles of system theory and management cybernetics, is developed. A comparison of system-oriented modeling of such enterprises with exclusively analytical and single-discipline methods of business analysis demonstrates the benefits of system approaches. Situational knowledge of specific internal structures and the business environment of family-run agricultural enterprises can be used to enrich the framework. Managers and business consultants of these enterprises benefit from a better understanding of interrelations within the enterprises to cope with complexity. The concept further allows a differentiated analysis of management and owner-manager behavior, and of conflicting needs of enterprise and family. The adapted framework helps practitioners to use the basic system structure to execute a goal-oriented system analysis of agricultural enterprises.

Product innovation and firm's growth in family firms: a quantile regression approach

This study contributes to the recent empirical literature that deals with a firm’s innovation-performance relationship by investigating the effect that a product introduction has on a firm’s growth in a sample of Italian family-run enterprises. Using a quantile regression approach, we observe that innovation is crucial for high-growth firms, but only for those with low family influence on the process of decision making concerning the introduction of a new product.

THE ECONOMICS OF SMALL-SCALE SOFT SHELL CRAYFISH PRODUCTION

A soft shell crayfish operation consists of an indoor molting system for immature crayfish. The molted crayfish could be sold as food or bait. Such systems have been operated on a small-scale in Kentucky and neighboring states, although traditionally the industry has been centered in Louisiana. This article investigated profit-maximizing management conditions and economic feasibility of a small-scale soft shell crayfish operation. Results showed that a minimum facility size of 25–30 culture trays was essential for realizing a profit by selling product to bait shops. This facility size was also amenable to be operated by two full-time workers, making family-run enterprises a strong possibility. Other results showed that larger facilities, with more than 50 culture trays, were necessary to reduce the minimum equity in fixed investment to be less than 70%. Direct marketing at retail prices is often the only profitable option for small-scale aquaculture; this article gives an example of a small-scale aquaculture operation that can simultaneously supply different markets at a profit.

Estilo feminino de gestão em empresas familiares gaúchas

O estudo investigou o estilo de gerenciamento da mulher executiva nas empresas familiares de Passo Fundo (RS). Os princípios norteadores foram o gerenciamento transparente e as organizações de aprendizagem, focalizando as mulheres executivas. Essas apresentam características peculiares às organizações de aprendizagem. O objetivo foi identificar o estilo feminino de gerenciamento empresarial em empresas familiares, correlacionando-o ao perfil das mulheres gerentes. Foram investigadas 26 executivas, por meio de questionário exploratório e de entrevista semi-estruturada. Ficou evidenciado que as executivas das empresas familiares passo-fundenses cultivam valores, como a honestidade, a estima do ser humano e o companheirismo; permanecem atuando na empresa da família por amor à empresa; seus desejos e/ou sonhos pessoais estão relacionados aos sonhos e/ou desejos empresariais. Apresentam estilo de liderança mais voltado para as pessoas do que para as tarefas, porém são muito orientadas para o poder, assumindo postura gerencial mais baseada no modelo masculino de gestão.

Family Dynamics in a Small Consultancy Firm: A Case Study

Family-run enterprises are noted contributors to the small business population, particularly in terms of job creation and wealth generation. Moreover, it is well established that the presence of the family can be an important influence upon social relations in small firms. This paper examines whether family dynamics impinge upon the management of small consultancy firms, a sector that is closely associated with a discourse of' knowledge', `expertise', and `competence'. Based on a year-long case study of Whit Co, a husband and wife-owned small consultancy business, three questions are investigated. What is the nature of the family role in the consultancy business? How do employees in such settings view the family? What tactics do these usually credentialized workers deploy to handle family relations? The findings demonstrate that household relations rather than the activity of an `entrepreneurial individual' are important in understanding the operation of the small business; moreover, there is a tendency to underplay the role of the female partner in the initiation and maintenance of the firm. Employees value aspects of the `familyness' of the enterprise; for example, paternal approaches to social relations can generate feelings of inclusiveness. However, employees can perceive family roles as lacking in legitimacy if they are not underpinned by `competence'. Finally, employees' capacity to handle family relations is contingent upon their material importance to the firm.

Making garments in Southern Europe: Entrepreneurship and labour in rural Greece

Since the mid-1970s a number of rural areas on the periphery of Southern Europe have undergone rapid economic growth and structural transformation. Unlike the pattern of mainstream industrialisation in more favoured regions which occurred in the third quarter of this century, this ‘second wave’ was led by an expansion of small, family-owned and family-run enterprises. However, almost from the outset, it aroused debates and controversies on the causes, processes and prospects of these enterprises. Our study, which is based upon primary data obtained through extensive fieldwork investigation, focuses upon an area of Macedonia which, we argue, exemplifies rural industrialisation. This was initiated by garment manufacturers in Germany, who began to diffuse parts of their production to lower wage firms outside that country. The local entrepreneurial response to the opportunities stemming from such industrial restructuring is discussed in terms of the sub-contracting arrangements and the recruitment and organisation of a labour force.

Employment of Child Labor by Family-run Enterprises Is a Problem that Demands Immediate Solution

Employment of Child Labor by Family-run Enterprises Is a Problem that Demands Immediate Solution