A collection of essays offering an overview of the importance and resilience of family-controlled large businesses.

The Endurance of Family Businesses is a collection of essays offering an overview of the importance and resilience of family-controlled large businesses. Much of economic and business history research neglects family businesses, considering them an inefficient form of business organization. These essays discuss the strengths of family businesses: the ways family firms have managed, financed and governed their corporations, as well as the way in which they structure their relationship with the external environment, from the government to the company's stakeholders. Family businesses have learned new ways of organizing their resources and using their accumulated know-how for new markets and institutional environments. This volume combines the expertise of well-known scholars who specialize in business history, economic history, management and consulting, to provide an interdisciplinary perspective on family businesses. Contributors provide a global view by taking into account Asian, American and European experiences.

In this new textbook, Andrea Colli gives a historical and comparative perspective on family business, examining through time the different relationships within family businesses and among family enterprises, inside different political and institutional contexts. He compares the performance of family businesses with that of other economic organizations, and looks at how these enterprises have contributed to the evolution of contemporary industrial capitalism. Central to his discussion are the reasons for both the decline and persistence of family business, how it evolved historically, the different forms it has taken over time, and how it has contributed to the growth of single economies. The book summarises previous research into family business, and situates many aspects of family business - such as their strategies, contribution, failure and decline - in an economic, social, political and institutional context. It will be of key interest to students of economic history and business studies.

Family firms are to be found in every sector of commercial activity, and their special strengths mean that they flourish best where their advantages can be fully exploited. Family Businesses: The Essentials is a comprehensive guide to every aspect of managing a family-owned firm, from day-to-day issues to long-term planning for future generations. This new and completely revised version of the author's previous Guide to the Family Business (Kogan Page; last edition 1999) provides an accessible introduction to newcomers, and also offers knowledgeable business people fresh insight and solutions to the special problems they face. All family businesses are different, but it is critical for each to define its shared family values, vision and purpose. Family Businesses: The Essentials shows how to achieve this, and how to allow each generation to reinterpret and revitalise that vision. Fresh, updated and more sharply focused, packed with real-life case studies, and drawing on the author's extensive research into thousands of family businesses, this is essential guidance for every stage of a family business's development.

Family firms are to be found in every sector of commercial activity. Commitment, family values and pride in the business are typically their special strengths, yet they also face major challenges in reconciling the needs of the business with those of the family. Drawing on the author's extensive experience of working with and advising some of the world's most successful business families, this new and updated edition of Family Enterprises: The Essentials explains the pitfalls, tensions and competing demands that destroy too many family businesses. These problems can be avoided, and Peter Leach reveals the techniques and strategies needed to do so. Running a successful family business is always a huge challenge, but this book offers real insight and guidance on how to keep both business and family united and buoyant.

This timely Handbook provides a comprehensive guide to the methodological challenges of qualitative research in family business. Written by an international, multidisciplinary team of experts in the field, the Handbook provides practical guidance based on the experiences of senior researchers, and features reflective discussion on how to craft insightful, rigorous studies.

Family businesses are everywhere, but there is little information regarding their growth and development. This book is one of the few to analyse the identity and evolution of the largest family businesses in Latin America and Spain. With contributions from 20 scholars from 12 different countries, the book compares the relationship of families in business within their national economies, foreign capital, migration, and politics. The authors deny the existence of a ‘Latin type’ of family capitalism in their countries, and highlight diversity, and national and regional differences. This interdisciplinary book will be useful for students and scholars of economics, management, history, sociology, and anthropology. Politicians, family business consultants, family businesses, and international institutions will also benefit from insights within this book.

This handbook is the definitive source of research on the differences among family firms. It provides a timely and thorough investigation of the variant strategies and behaviors undertaken by family firms today, taking a closer look at different configurations of family involvement and how they influence outcomes and success. While studies on differences between family and non-family firms are deeply rooted in the literature, this handbook uniquely examines the family firm heterogeneity research to date and the inner firm governance, financial and non-financial objectives, and strategies such as innovation, competitive dynamics, internationalization, and human resources management. The handbook pulls together the work of the most prominent names in family business from around the world, separating itself from the competition both in content and geographical scope. Future research directions provided in each chapter will spark further interdisciplinary scholarly work, and will be enlightening for researchers, educators, and practitioners who are currently limited to the narrow and exclusive literature and advance the burgeoning research on this important topic.

Businesses owned and operated by families constitute the vast majority of firms around the world. These firms are found in all industrial segments, from retail and service establishments to heavy manufacturers. Their sizes and revenues range from the smallest venture of a husband and wife roadside food stall in rural India to the largest multinational, highly diversified corporations in the United States and Europe. Many challenges, such as competition, regulation, environmental concerns, access to capital, and macroeconomic factors confront family and nonfamily firms alike. In addition, family and closely-held firms grapple with such issues of succession, continuity, conflict resolution, identity and organizational roles, estate and financial planning that are idiosyncratic to them; when psychological, social, and emotional factors are in play, constantly changing familial relationships influence the strategic and financial choices they make. Yet, there has been comparatively little theoretical or empirical research undertaken on family firms, relative to entrepreneurship and strategic management. This book addresses gaps in the literature by presenting a holistic, multi-disciplinary approach to the study and practice of family business that draws from such fields as psychology, anthropology, sociology, strategy, family therapy, family studies, wealth management, and international business. An international array of experts addresses both macro issues (including the role of family businesses in new business creation and economic development, influences of culture on family business, public policies that can encourage or threaten family business) and firm management (strategic and financial decision making, governance, entering and exiting). Featuring case studies from firms in a variety of industries, Understanding Family Businesses not only offers provocative new insights on family business dynamics, but outlines an agenda for future research.

This insightful and innovative book proposes a new theory of socio-material weaving for studying and understanding family business. It dissolves the family business into activities, constituted of the sociality of human interactions and relations and interwoven with materials that extend in both a bodily-lived and spatial existential sense.