What happens when Uncle Harold decides to step down as head of your thriving, family-run retail chain? Can he just pass the reins to his knucklehead son or will you, more deserving, take your rightful place as the next chief executive? Would the results of his decision positively or negatively make an impact on your commitment to the business’s strategy, tradition, and values—and how would they affect your relationship with your relatives the next time you all sit down to dinner?
These and many other questions always confront professionals who make their living in a family enterprise. As with any job, there are challenges and rewards along the way, but within a family business it’s crucial to grapple honestly with the additional issues of blending generations and managing expectations among financial officers, marketing specialists, and managers who also happen to be your parents, aunts, cousins, and step-daughters.
Family Business is not a how-to guidebook. Rather, it offers thoughtful and well-written articles for seeing the big picture. These pieces are by the two editors as well as other experts and academics in the study of family business. It’s short (160 pages), yet hits the most important topics: “healthy business,” family relationships, business models, strategy, governance, and succession.
Kenyon-Rouvinez is a family business consultant and researcher from IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland. Co-editor Ward is a professor of family business at IMD and the Kellogg School Center of Family Enterprises at Northwestern University.
- S. J. Johnston