A Family Affair – Teaching Families Versus Individuals: Insights Gained from 24 Years of Family Business Education

Typically, family business owners have a serious purpose for taking family business classes: They are preparing a new generation to become owners and leaders in their family’s business. Although a growing number of universities today offer family business classes, most are still set up to teach individual learners, not families. Similar to scholars who advanced the need for family business education, this paper advances the need for transgenerational business family learning. As a next step in the evolution of family business education, family business programs at the University of St. Thomas teach families versus individuals. This paper is a longitudinal examination of the development of family business education at the University of St. Thomas, Minnesota (UST) and explores the relationship between family members transgenerational learning and outcomes in the family business

The Landscape of Family Business Outcomes: A Summary and Numerical Taxonomy of Dependent Variables

To promote theoretical development in family business research, this research identified 327 dependent/outcome variables used in 257 empirical family business studies in 1998-2009. In four studies, the authors categorized outcome variables, developed a numerical taxonomy with seven clusters (performance, strategy, social and economic impact, governance, succession, family business roles, and family dynamics) plotted along two dimensions (business–family and short-term–long-term), validated their research, and identified missing outcome variables and variables that deserve more attention. Experts agree that family business roles, succession, and family dynamics make the family business domain unique and that noneconomic performance and family-specific topics deserve more attention

Assessing the Effectiveness of Whole Person Learning Pedagogy in Skill Acquisition

We describe a whole person learning experiential/behavioral skill pedagogy developed in an executive skills course. The pedagogy was designed to address recent criticisms of MBA education relative to program relevancy and the skill sets of students entering the workforce. We present an experiential learning model based on the concept of whole person learning, discuss how the model is used in the class, and provide an empirical assessment of skill improvement over a 5-year period. Using a pre–posttest with control group design to test student skill levels by way of an assessment center, the effectiveness of the pedagogy was supported. The skills assessed included communication, teamwork, leadership/initiative, decision making, and planning/organizing. Guidance is provided for implementing the pedagogy into MBA curricula. We describe a whole person learning experiential/behavioral skill pedagogy developed in an executive skills course. The pedagogy was designed to address recent criticisms of MBA education relative to program relevancy and the skill sets of students entering the workforce. We present an experiential learning model based on the concept of whole person learning, discuss how the model is used in the class, and provide an empirical assessment of skill improvement over a 5-year period. Using a pre–posttest with control group design to test student skill levels by way of an assessment center, the effectiveness of the pedagogy was supported. The skills assessed included communication, teamwork, leadership/initiative, decision making, and planning/organizing. Guidance is provided for implementing the pedagogy into MBA curricula

Conflict management strategies used by successful family businesses

This paper reports the analyses of a survey of 59 family businesses. Findings indicate that in comparison to nonfamily businesses, family businesses have a more complex set of issues to consider when managing conflict. Collaboration, accommodation, and compromise strategies produce relatively better outcomes for both family and business. A competitive strategy results in relatively negative outcomes for both business and family. High levels of collaboration contribute to positive outcomes for both family and business, and high levels of compromise and accommodation contribute to positive family outcomes. Based on a comparison of means, this paper identifies conflict management profiles for achieving positive outcomes for both business and family

The Contribution of Leadership Style and Practices to Family and Business Success

Based on Dyer\u27s (1986) study of family business cultures, this study derives five approaches to leadership: participative, autocratic, laissez-faireqmission, expert, and referent. It argues that participative, expert, and referent leadership should produce positive outcomes for the business and the family, and high levels of employee satisfaction and commitment. It also argues that autocratic and laissez-faireqmission leadership should be associated with relatively negative outcomes for the business and the family and produce low levels of employee satisfaction and commitment. A study of 59 small family businesses produced the following significant results: participative leadership is positively related to both family and business outcomes as well as to employee satisfaction and commitment; referent leadership is positively related to family outcomes and employee satisfaction; and, unexpectedly, laissez-faireqmission leadership is positively related to employee commitment. Using correlational data as the basis, the paper discusses practices that might promote participative, referent, and laissez-faireqmission leadership

How moral and social values become embedded in family firms

Research suggests that moral values are more prevalent in family than nonfamily firms. This paper offers a model and propositions that suggest how family values are clarified, reinforced, and socialized into firms. First, social capital within the family helps clarify and reinforce values. Then, families socialize the business in their values through multiple family members working in the business, the founder promoting family values in the firm, or multiple family owners agreeing on and promoting values in the business

Family capital, family business, and free enterprise

Short 3 page articl

Updating systems concepts in family businesses: A focus on values, resource flows, and adaptability

This article extends and expands current systems views of family business and provides a framework for interpreting family business holistically. The framework extends the definition of family-first and business-first systems and adds three categories that typify the gradations of firms that represent balanced systems emphases. In addition, this article discusses the goals, resource transfers, strengths, and limitations of each type of system and describes how firm adaptability and resource flows influence and change these family business systems; it argues that to understand family business health, one must understand the values and goals that guide the family, business, and ownership systems, as well as the overall family business system; and it presents an inclusive definition of family and business based on systems membership

Collective Entrepreneurship in Family Firms: The Influence of Leader Attitudes and Behaviors

Collective entrepreneurship is the synergism that emerges from a collective and that propels it beyond the current state by seizing opportunities without regard to resources under its control (Stevenson and Jarrillo 1990). This study provides a conceptual model of collective entrepreneurship and its relationship with leadership and team dynamics in the context of a small family business. It proposes two types of prerequisites for collective entrepreneurship: attitudinal and behavioral. The attitudinal prerequisite is family business members’ commitment to the family business. The behavioral prerequisite includes collaboration and task conflict among family business members. Further, the article argues that leadership behaviors directly affect the attitudinal and behavioral prerequisites, and indirectly affect collective entrepreneurship. Specifically, relations-oriented and participative leadership have positive, indirect effects on collective entrepreneurship. Task-oriented leadership has both positive and negative, indirect effects on collective entrepreneurship. An empirical study of 271 small family businesses in the United States confirmed most of the hypotheses

Achieving sustained competitive advantage: A family capital theory

Although it has been long asserted that family businesses hold advantages over nonfamily businesses, to date, there have been very few theories developed as to exactly why family businesses hold competitive advantages over nonfamily businesses. This article introduces the concept of family capital and proposes that family capital has potential impact on business performance. Specifically, this article suggests that family businesses with high levels of family capital possibly do hold a sustained competitive advantage over family businesses with low levels of family capital and/or nonfamily businesses