Family owned businesses: An examination of structure, family dynamics and values

This study surveyed 11 Family Owned Businesses (FOB) for the purpose of exploring and expanding the structural assumptions of the FOB field. This study sampled the family members, owners and nonfamily employees from within each of the 11 businesses. The researchers made sure to sample at least 70% of the individuals in each business.;This study used a mixed method approach beginning with a qualitative exploration which utilized case studies and social network analyses of 11 FOBs. This qualitative phase along with an extensive literature review provided a set of hypotheses which were tested quantitatively in the second phase of this study. The quantitative phase fit two separate Hierarchical Linear Models (FILM) which provided added support to the findings in the qualitative phase.;Significant findings from this study support and expand many of the structural assumptions within the FOB literature. Through social network analysis and quantitative exploration it was found that FOBs vary in their preference for the family or business systems with FOBs that tended to favor the family system having lower levels of satisfaction through the entire FOB system. Also the family, owners and nonfamily employees had varying perceptions of their FOB's tendency to favor the family or business system. Employees tended to believe that their FOB favored the family system while family members tended to believe that the FOB favored the business system. FOBs were able to unify this perception across the owners, family members and nonfamily employees when they allowed information to flow through a permeable boundary between the family and business systems. FOBs that did not allow information to flow from the family to the business had dissenting opinions between family members and employees and significantly lower levels of satisfaction through the FOB system. Conclusions from this study point to the need to use in depth sampling procedures and include family dynamics, value orientations, and family to business boundary measurements when study FOBs.