Family Business Management Research Articles

Succession and Governance Across Generations: A Comparative Study of the United States and Italy

This comparative study of American and Italian family-owned firms focuses on two key aspects of family business management: succession and governance. This study also explored the impact of generation on these variables.

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Abstract — The “growth” of Asian enterprises has been a prominent feature of the small business population in Britain. Asian entrepreneurs have been eulogised by the popular press keen to laud free enterprise heroes, while more detached academic commentary has sought to identify the key success factors for this entrepreneurial minority. Much less conspicuous has been the role of female Asian entrepreneurs and Asian women working in “family” businesses. This article focuses upon the often neglected issue of the contribution of Asian women to both entrepreneurship and the management of family businesses. In order to illuminate the position of Asian women in business, a series of qualitative interviews were undertaken with two particular groups: Asian women entrepreneurs in their own right; and Asian women working in family enterprises. Five representatives from each group were interviewed on at least two occasions. Issues explored with Asian women entrepreneurs include their background, their influences, the factors that facilitated or inhibited their decision to become self-employed, their experiences of entrepreneurship and the particular issues that confront them as Asian women in business. Interviews with Asian women working in family enterprises explored their role and contribution to the management of the business. Amongst the issues covered are their “official” and “unofficial” positions within the business; the balance between domestic and business responsibilities and the influence, if any, of cultural factors in the nature of their presence within the enterprise. This article sheds light on a number of neglected issues within the increasingly important area of Asian entrepreneurship in Britain. First, a clearer picture will emerge of the roles, responsibilities and relationships of the relatively few Asian women who are entrepreneurs in their own right; and the many more who help sustain many Asian enterprises. Second, methodologically the paper will be novel in so far as the researcher (an Asian woman from a “typical” family business background) has taken care to observe the cultural proprieties within this particular group. Hence, the data are arguably more authentic than previous studies undertaken by “distant” researchers. Finally, policy makers are increasingly being reminded to appreciate the needs and the diversity of ethnic minorities in business. The findings reinforce this message by highlighting the distinctive experiences of Asian women in business.

Family Businesses and the Business of Families: A Consideration of the Role of the Lawyer

The principal theme of this article explores the impact to the family and the business when the family structure is shattered, and devises an analytical process for lawyers to work with family business owners and/or managers to minimize the impact on the business. The article draws on family systems theory as used in family therapy and as relied upon by many family business consultants. Part One considers the economic and social significance of small and family-owned businesses to our society. Part Two borrows from the theoretical literature of family therapy to describe a framework and context for working with clients who own family businesses. This literature provides insight on how families function and suggests a frame of reference for assessing problems presented by a family owning a business. Part Three furthers the inquiry by focusing on how issues facing a family business are often interrelated with issues facing the family itself. Part Four proposes an analytical model based on a family systems perspective which could aid lawyers in solving legal problems of the client involved in a family business. The process considers how to gather social, emotional, legal, and financial information useful for structuring a solution to the problem. Part Five presents a hypothetical problem to which the family systems approach is applied.

Success Themes in Scottish Family Enterprises: Philosophies and Practices Through the Generations

A series of workshops were held in Scotland to help family business managers identify and overcome obstacles to success. Core themes that emerged were family values, responsiveness to change, and family dynamics. The findings suggest that family enterprises have unique developmental characteristics with implications for economic and business development frameworks such as those in Scotland, which do not differentiate family businesses. A model is presented to analyze and categorize family enterprises in order to illustrate the issues facing family enterprises. The model provides insights into the source and effect of family values and family dynamics on the business and fosters business growth and development.

A Classroom Discussion with James R. Cargill

This interview with James R. Cargill was compiled from question-and-answer sessions during undergraduate and MBA-level family business management courses taught at the University of St. Thomas, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He offers a down-to-earth perspective on family enterprise that resonates with family business students and parents. Mr. Cargill is a director, major shareholder, and retired senior vice president of Cargill, Inc., America's largest family enterprise.

Succession in Family Business: A Review of the Research

This paper reviews the research to date on succession in the field of family business management. Five streams of research are highlighted: (1) succession as a process, (2) the role of the founder, (3) the perspective of the next generation, (4) multiple levels of analysis, and (5) characteristics of effective successions. Gaps in the literature and future research directions are also presented.

Integrating the Daughter into Family Business Management

This paper presents guidelines for integrating daughters into family business management. Based upon the results of an empirical study of daughters working with their founder/fathers in 18 family-owned firms, this paper indicates that the daughter represents an often untapped resource within the family firm and may be particularly suited for working in collaboration with the father/founder to manage the family firm. Key aspects of the daughter's particular strengths in working with the father to manage the family firm are stressed, and steps for integrating the daughter into family firm management are proposed.

Family Business Management

Many college students are eventually involved in family-owned businesses. Their roles include: owners, family-member and non-family-member employees or managers, and professionals who provide services to such businesses. This article describes a course the authors developed that explores the unique properties of family-owned businesses and the authors' experience in teaching it.

Women's Mobility in the Corporation: A Critique of the Politics of Optimism

1Pamela Stone Cain, "Prospects for Pay Equity in a Changing Economy,' in Comparable Worth: New Directionsfor Research, ed. Heidi Hartmann (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1985), 137-65, esp. 154-55. William Greer, "Women Gain a Majority in Jobs," New York Times (March 19, 1986), sec. C, 17, 20; and "Employed Persons, by Sex, Race, and Occupation: 1985," in Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1987 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1986), 385, table no. 657. According to researchers such as Andrea Beller, most of the increases in occupational sex integration have occurred within white-collar employment. In Beller's "Trends in Occupational Segregation by Sex and Race, 19601981," in Sex Segregation in the Workplace: Trends, Explanations, Remedies, ed. Barbara Reskin (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1984), 11-26, Beller disaggregates white-collar occupations to disclose those that have contributed most to declining sex segregation. She reports that rapidly growing occupations, including accountant, bank officer, and financial manager, which women entered in disproportionate numbers from men, contributed greatly to the measured reduction in

Tests of Alternative Theories of Firm Growth

This study examines the relationships among firm growth, firm size, and firm age for a sample of manufacturing firms between 1976 and 1982. Firm growth is found to decrease with firm age and firm size. These findings are robust to alternative assumptions concerning the effects of sample censoring and the functional form of the growth relationship. The inverse growth-age relationship is consistent with a theory of firm learning proposed by Boyan Jovanovic while the inverse growth-size relationship is inconsistent with a number of theories that assume or imply Gibrat's law. Copyright 1987 by University of Chicago Press.

Comment on Marnie W. Mueller's "The Economic Determinants of Volunteer Work by Women" (Vol. 1, No. 2)

Previous articleNext article No AccessLetters/CommentsComment on Marnie W. Mueller's "The Economic Determinants of Volunteer Work by Women" (Vol. 1, No. 2)Heidi I. HartmannHeidi I. Hartmann Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Signs Volume 1, Number 3, Part 1Spring, 1976 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/493264 Views: 1Total views on this site Citations: 13Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1976 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Charlotte Overgaard, Janelle Kerlin A legally‐informed definition of volunteering in nonprofits and social enterprises: Unpaid work meets profit motives, Nonprofit Management and Leadership 32, no.33 (Oct 2021): 429–447.https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21489Charlotte Overgaard Rethinking Volunteering as a Form of Unpaid Work, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 48, no.11 (Nov 2018): 128–145.https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764018809419Charlotte Overgaard, Erik Petrovski, Jonathan Hermansen Volunteer care workers: A case for challenging resource theories on volunteering, Journal of Civil Society 14, no.22 (Jun 2018): 153–172.https://doi.org/10.1080/17448689.2018.1464708Charlotte Overgaard When to Work for Pay, When Not to: A Comparative Study of Australian and Danish Volunteer Care Workers, VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 27, no.22 (Jul 2015): 810–830.https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-015-9620-0Heidi Hartmann The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism: Towards a More Progressive Union, (Jan 2010): 201–228.https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230117457_14Marie Eileen Francois The Products of Consumption: Housework in Latin American Political Economies and Cultures, History Compass 6, no.11 (Jan 2008): 207–242.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1478-0542.2007.00502.xFlorence Curimbaba The Dynamics of Women's Roles as Family Business Managers, Family Business Review 15, no.33 (Sep 2002): 239–252.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-6248.2002.00239.xKaye Broadbent Power in the union?, International Journal of Manpower 22, no.44 (Jun 2001): 318–332.https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000005570Cora Baldock Feminist discourses of unwaged work: The case of volunteerism, Australian Feminist Studies 13, no.2727 (Apr 1998): 19–34.https://doi.org/10.1080/08164649.1998.9994884Alexander M. Thompson Are All Women Service Volunteers Super-Exploited? The Case of Rural Emergency Medical Service Volunteers, Review of Radical Political Economics 26, no.33 (Aug 2016): 11–19.https://doi.org/10.1177/048661349402600302Denise Bradley "NOT A DEPARTMENTAL STATEMENT": A CASE STUDY OF EQUAL OPPORTUNITY IN THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN DEPARTMENT OF TAFE 1978–84, Australian Journal of Public Administration 51, no.33 (Sep 1992): 321–332.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8500.1992.tb02618.xM. Maconachie Dual-earner couples: Factors influencing whether and when white married women join the labour force in South Africa, South African Journal of Sociology 20, no.33 (Aug 1989): 143–151.https://doi.org/10.1080/02580144.1989.10432145Mary Freifeld Technological change and the ‘self‐acting’ mule : A study of skill and the sexual division of labour, Social History 11, no.33 (May 2008): 319–343.https://doi.org/10.1080/03071028608567661

Interdisciplinary Analysis of Farm‐Home Interrelationships in Decision‐Making and Action on the Family Farm*

IN THE LAST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS economists and sociologists have shown growing interest in the interrelationships within the family business management situation by pertinent research and extension activities, especially those dealing with family farms. Awareness of the significance of the farm family to the farm business has also been developing in the agricultural sector of the business community. This article takes stock of progress made in understanding farm-home interrelationships in decision-making and proposes an interdisciplinary approach for basic research on both the events of decision-making and acting upon the decisions. This investigation also has significance for decision-making and action in non-farm family business situations. To be specific, our principal objectives here are (a) to review and evaluate extension and research activities in farm and home interrelation-