Non-Market-Based Transfers of Wealth and Power: A Research Framework for Family Business

Abstract

Family businesses are basically owner-managed enterprises with the family involved within the business. When, to family ties within the business, is added the biological inevitability of an eventual transfer of power, family succession becomes an alternative to selling the business—a transfer based on non-market considerations. A framework for studying family businesses is proposed which has succession as its anchor. The succession process is where changes in management, in strategy, and in control are planned for and executed. The framework is built upon stages of the family enterprise which emanate from the biological reality of parent and offspring being separated by age and business experience, but wedded together by “blood” and a shared family experience.