Research on family businesses, but the family is neglected

The doctoral candidate has the floor

Joyce Kox

Research on family businesses, but the family is neglected

As an academic field, family businesses, is relatively young. In order to provide legitimacy to the field, many researchers have focused on how family businesses differ from non-family businesses and how these differences impact the choices and performance of the business. However, many of these studies have led to contradictory results.

Take, for example, studies on the performance of the family business. Some of these studies have found a positive impact of the family's involvement on the financial performance of the business[1], others a negative effect[2] or even no difference[3].

Although there are several factors that can contribute to this debate, the results suggest that the relationship between family business, strategy and performance is more nuanced. Comparing family and non-family businesses, implies that all family businesses are the same, which is of course not true. In order to obtain better knowledge about family businesses, research should look more at how family businesses differ from one another. An important aspect in which these businesses can differ from each other is the family itself. For example, each family has different values, norms and ways of communicating. Family involvement makes the family business unique. As the family and business system overlap, performance and behavior of the firm also become a function of the family that is running the business. However, little is known about how aspects of the owning family affect the business. Consequently, in my research I emphasize this human aspect of the family business. The aim of the PhD is to get a better grip on the heterogeneity of family businesses caused by the family system and the impact of these characteristics on the business system. In doing so, I try to provide more insight into how family businesses can benefit from their family background or deal with possible challenges.

With my background in strategic management, I was obviously interested in the management of the family business. The key difference, which particularly intrigues me, is that the business affairs of a family business are closely and intricately intertwined with the personal and emotional affairs of the family. This makes it different from what we are used to or expect, but also a lot more complex. Personally, I also experienced how your family background influenced my own behavior, values and norms, and therefore also how you act and perform at work. Each family has its own way of interacting, which you can't just detach from when you work together. Therefore, I started wondering what the impact is on a firm’s behavior, when a specific family with its own characteristics has a relatively large influence on the business. In my research, this interest comes together with the current questions and challenges of the family business field.

One of studies focuses on the succession process after the death of the director. No company or family, besides the family business, can be confronted with such an event, where the death of a loved one comes together with important changes in the company. But then what? The family and the business face loss and sorrow, while the business needs to be kept running. This raises important questions like: How should you deal with this? What impact does this have on new or changing leadership of the company? Given the family's influence on the business, this is an event that can occur in any family business. From this research, I hope to draw important lessons that can support family businesses, whilst experiencing such an difficult situation, in such a way that effective leadership and business continuity can be enhanced.

[1] Anderson & Reeb, 2003, Chrisman, Chua, & Steier, 2002, Lee, 2004

[2] Lauterbach & Vaninsky, 1999

[3] Chrisman, Chua & Litz, 2004