Abstract
One of the first tasks to confront the serious student of family business, or as some prefer it, ‘family enterprise’, as a field of scholarly inquiry, is to determine what is meant by the term. Researchers from academia and consulting organisations are not the only ones grappling with the definition. Based on the authors’ numerous conversations with journalists pursuing some hot story involving conflict between members of a family who are in business together, the question is often posed: ‘Tell me, what is a family business really?’ Turning to owning families for help, unfortunately, is not particularly fruitful. The authors have served for several years on the faculty of the International Institute for Management Development’s Leading the Family Business (LFB) programme. The marketing of LFB makes it quite clear that the workshop is only intended (with very few exceptions) for those who presently lead (or own) or who will lead (or own) their own family’s enterprise. The opening question at LFB has traditionally been: ‘What does the term ‘family business or enterprise’ mean to you?’ The range of responses is large and idiosyncratic to the point that some participants wonder whether or not their newly met colleagues are unwelcome interlopers!
You are a King by your own Fireside, as much as any Monarch on his Throne.
(Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1547–1616)
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Notes
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Happily there is also evidence that a restricted number of mostly medium-size companies have been able to dominate particular market niches on a world-wide basis. See H. Simon, Hidden Champions: Lessons from 500 of the World’s Best Unknown Companies, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996, for a fascinating series of success stories.
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Cited in M.H. Morris, R.W. Williams and D. Nel, ‘Factors Influencing Family Business Succession’, International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour & Research, vol. 2, no. 3 (1996), p. 68. Using ‘emotional kinship group’ as the key descriptor points out the pitfalls of trying to be too exhaustive. Such a designation would include elite military units such as the US Marine Corps, which most students of the field find a bit removed from the concept of a family enterprise.
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Cited in W. C. Handler, ‘Methodological Issues and Considerations in Studying Family Businesses’, Family Business Review, vol. II, no. 3 (Fall 1989), p. 257.
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© 1998 Fred Neubauer and Alden G. Lank
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Neubauer, F., Lank, A.G. (1998). Nature and Significance of Family Business. In: The Family Business. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-14465-5_1
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