Start-Up Family Businesses: Lesson From Large Successful Family Businesses

Abstract

Family businesses are the backbone of the world economic where they are associated with economic and social transformation. While majority of large family businesses perform better than corporate or public organisations, there are millions of such businesses that do not survive beyond their first generation of operation. The inability to succeed is associated to several challenges among them trying to accommodate all family members in the businesses, over-specialising and under-specialising in certain functional areas and creating expertise gaps, diverting funds away from businesses and inability to manage family conflict especially relating to generation succession. However, with good strategies to manage family members’ role in businesses, acquiring appropriate expertise, effective management of success across generations, promoting cohesions and talent management, such family businesses can survive across generations and decades. This paper is based on empirical evidences from existing researches and studies aimed at generating lessons that upcoming or start-up family businesses can learn from experienced and well established successful family businesses. The paper is based on over 6000 family businesses studied by leading world scholarly and research bodies. This makes the lessons therein not only credible but very valuable for upcoming family businesses, policy makers and government bodies, all interested in family businesses.