Use Of External Advisers In Family Business
64.4% of family business owners report the use of outside advisors on a regular basis.
Retirement In Family Business'
Over 56% of family business owners see themselves working in the business beyond 65 years of age.
Family Business Succession Planning
Lansberg (1988) describes succession planning as the process of making the preparations necessary to ensure family harmony and continuity of the business through to subsequent generations, emphasising that these preparations relate to the future needs of both the business and the family.
Sale Of The Family Business
It is noteworthy that 75% of family business owners indicate that they would seriously consider selling their business, if approached; with 46.2% reporting having been approached within the last five years.
Family Business Management Planning
The descriptive breakdowns in Table 12.1 below suggest that management planning is not a priority for a significant percentage of Australian businesses.
Managing The Family/Business Interface
The organisational structure of family business is different to that of non-family businesses. The owner is part of a family and has a duty towards the welfare of the business and the family. This dual role can lead to conflict.
Family Business Governance: Management
Management by generation of ownership.
Family Business Governance: Board Of Directors
Board composition in family businesses.
Family Business Sources Of Capital
Sources of funding are governed by pecking order principles as indicated in Table 9.1 below.
Family Business Growth
Close to one third of owners state that they are NOT satisfied either with the rates of growth, or the current size, of their businesses.
Employees In Family Business
The median number of equivalent full-time employees in family businesses is 15 (17 for non-family businesses) employees.
Profile Of Family Business
A profile of Australian family businesses.
Profile Of Family Business Owners
In Australia, the family business has existed for an average of 28 years (34 years in 2003). Information on the background of family business owners reveals that the average age is 55 years (53 years in 2003), ranging from 33 years to 80 years.
Definition Of Family Business
For most people, family business tends to be regarded as small business. In fact, examination of some of Australia's ASX listed companies indicates high levels of family control.
Transgenerational Entrepreneurship
The key to long-term family business success lies in the ability to build and sustain an entrepreneurial family.
Why Family Business Succession Plans Fail And What To Do About It
Many researchers have concluded that a staggering 90% percent of family businesses fail by the third generation. However, my own research reveals a glaring omission in almost every family business succession plan: Matters of the heart.
Family Succession Begins On The First Day Of Work
Too often, a business owner comes to me with a problem of succession when it is too late. I am always aware of a refrain going through my mind - why did they wait so long? Why didn't they talk about these things before? Why did they let things go so far with such different sets of expectations in each of the major parties?
Clear Boundaries Make All The Difference For Family Business
Since the same family members may be involved in both ownership and management of the family business, while others may only have one of these roles, in order to navigate effectively between family membership, ownership and management roles, it is necessary for a family enterprise to create clear differentiation and boundaries between them.
How To Succeed As Heir To A Great Entrepreneur
What an act to follow! Your father is Tom Watson, Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller or George Bush. You may even share his name, but the life ahead of you seems fraught with peril. How can you possibly succeed?
Dynamics, Emotions And Conflict In Family Business
Many business difficulties stem from issues within the family. Since conflict is common, families in business should learn the best methods for resolving differences before they boil over.
Family Business Mentoring And All That 'Jazz'
A family business founder is a tough act to follow. Mentors must prepare successors to bear the burdens associated with the role.
Why A Family Controlled Enterprise Should Have Effective Corporate Governance
The primary usefulness of governance to a family controlled enterprise, is as an enduring place and process for owner managers (insiders) to meet and work with non-management owners (outsiders), non-owner managers (professional management) and voices of loyalty, reason and commitment to the enterprise's long term success (directors independent of management).
How To Create Effective Governance In A Family Controlled Enterprise - Advisory Council Meetings
Now that you have chosen your advisory council members, this article details how to prepare and run the meetings.
How To Create Effective Governance In A Family Controlled Enterprise - Council Of Advisors
This article suggests that one fundamental tool available to family firms is effective corporate governance and, in particular, offers specific advice about how to create a non-fiduciary council of advisors for a family controlled enterprise (FCE).
Nurture The Talent
Family businesses extending to the third and fourth generation have always been rare but with high proportions of potential family business successors undertaking higher education, there is a crisis developing in the family business sector with regard to succession.
Succession Planning In Family Businesses - Managing The Tax Implications
Succession planning initiatives for family businesses can be significantly impeded if the tax implications of the preferred courses of action are not taken into account by the owner.
Tax Traps For Family Business
A number of tax traps arise in family businesses. They are not only the concerns of the owners, to ensure their remuneration is tax effective. Tax traps also arise when there there is pressure to restructure to meet changing expectations of family members, or demands for greater distribution of the business’s wealth.
Managing The Family Business
Owning and managing your own family business can be a lonely job. So many things to do, so many great opportunities, so little time, such limited resources, so many people, so many problems. Where is it all leading? How can I get perspective? How long do I keep going? How do I get out of here? Can I afford to retire? These 12 factors are tools to manage some or all of the problems regularly encountered in family business.
The Paternalistic Culture In Family Firms
In the article, Culture and Continuity in Family Firms, culture was defined as a cumulative set of assumptions that a group holds, and the core of any culture is a pattern of interlocking assumptions that creates a unique belief system. Leaders of family firms use very different assumptions in operating their businesses.
The Laissez-Faire Culture In Family Firms
In the article, The Paternalistic Culture in Family Firms, the paternalistic pattern, which is probably the most common culture pattern in family firms, was discussed. In this pattern relationships are arranged hierarchically and leaders retain all power, authority, and make all the key decisions. This article identifies another common cultural pattern among family businesses, the laissez-faire culture.
The Participative Culture In Family Firms
The third cultural pattern that is sometimes discernible in family businesses is the participative culture. This cultural pattern is relatively rare in family firms and is based on assumptions that vary dramatically from the paternalistic and laissez-faire patterns.
The Professional Culture In Family Firms
The term professional culture is not intended to mean that this type of organization is more professional than the other three but that its cultural pattern is generally found in firms where the owning family decides to turn management of the business over to nonfamily, professional managers.
Ensuring Continuity In Family Firms
The experience of family firms suggests that cultures do indeed change as new leadership takes over.
Family Foundations
Foundations are a remarkable human invention because they provide private persons a freewheeling opportunity to be publicly influential. Without having to meet the tests either of the market or the ballot box, private persons can independently determine what the needs of society are and how best to go about meeting them.
Problems Of Professionalizing A Family Firm
It is argued that considerable problems that accompany the transition to professional management in a family firm can be traced to differences between the training and values of the family and those of the professional managers. This article discusses the problems of professionalizing the family firm.
Alternatives For Integrating Professional Management Into The Family Firm
This article turns to some alternatives available to family firms to mitigate conflicts and problems attached with the professionalization process.
Women In Family Business
It appears that few women actively choose to embark on a career in a family business.
Professional Management And Family Firms
While there is considerable debate regarding what constitutes the role of the professional manager, it is generally agreed that professional managers typically have received formal training in a business school setting in areas such as finance, production, accounting, and human resources/personnel.
Family Business And Management Failure - Part 1
One of the most pervasive assumptions permeating the body of knowledge about family business is that the decline of family owned companies is somehow inevitable. So what is the basis for this misconception about the inevitability of decline?
How To Deal With Copreneurial Conflict
Many family businesses are owned and managed by couples, and these copreneurs are possibly subject to much conflict.
Family Business And Management Failure - Part 2
This article discusses operational characteristics that indicate management failure.
Power In The Family Business
This article intends to provide a clearer understanding of power, particularly as it is exercised in connection with the three key elements of family business, that is, the wealth, the family, and the business itself.
Culture And Continuity In Family Firms
In today’s turbulent times, family firms lead a tenuous existence. Indeed, most family enterprises do not start out as family businesses. Studies conducted by the AXA Family Business Research, Monash University, have found that approximately 35 percent of family firms survive through to the second generation.
Achieving Liquidity In The Family Business
There are several reasons why family businesses are worth saving. Apart from the sociological aspects of a more intimate employee atmosphere under family ownership, as opposed to a public company with professional management, one primary reason for maintaining family firms is that they are probably the best earning asset that a family will ever have.
Achieving Fairness In The Family Business
Should the shares of the company be equally divided among the owner manager’s heirs? Do passive owners have the same rights and privileges as managing owners? Is it fair to treat siblings equally regardless of their contributions to the family business?
Dealing With Nepotism And Resolving Conflicts In Family Businesses
Conflict is a normal part of any family relationship. But when you combine standard sibling rivalries or parent-child conflicts with business disputes over money, employment, management and ownership, both family and business relationships can deteriorate rapidly.
Overlap Between Business Plans And Family Plans
Strategic planning involves putting in place a course of action to achieve future goals and objectives. Since an owner’s departure from the business is inevitable, owners that engage in strategic planning are more likely to be prepared for the future continuity of their enterprises than those who do not.
Family Business Tools & Processes: A Three-Circle Map & Developmental Models Of Family Business
The theory informs the practice; and practical experience shapes the theory.
Boards Of Privately Held Companies
Entrepreneurs and owners of family businesses traditionally resist bringing in outside directors because they do not want anyone telling them what to do or because they do not want to reveal company secrets. The owners of private companies, as stockholders, elect and fire directors. For that reason, they should not feel threatened by outside directors.
Executive Compensation Programs
How do family businesses retain key non-family executives?
Divorce And The Family Business
Divorce is a process and not an event, and a frequent one at best. It is both an emotional and a legal process, which because of the strain and pain involved for the participants, tends to be hurried through with little attention to the resolution of the significant issues.
Mediation And Family Business Consulting
Mediation can be defined as “a process in which a neutral facilitator assists two or more parties in reaching a mutually agreeable resolution to a conflict or dispute”.
Managers Who Are Not Family Members
Any company with a development strategy needs qualified managers to maintain and increase its competitive edge. This is a need which gives rise to several kinds of problems: how to attract and keep these managers, how to develop their individual abilities, and how to motivate them to get the most from their commitment.
Career Planning In The Family Business
Owners of family businesses may well ask 'For whom is career planning important?' The answer is it’s important for everyone, not just the younger generation or younger employees in the firm. Career planning is even important for the senior generation.
Developing Leadership In A Family Business
Developing leadership in the successor generation is important to the survival and growth of family owned and managed businesses.
Generating Liquidity From The Family Business
Preserving hard-earned assets is an important consideration for business owners who successfully build an operating business. The decision to take assets out of the business seems risky to many business owners who are accustomed to being in direct control of their assets.
Managing Family In Family Meetings
Family meetings are an important but underused communications and planning tool for a family of trust beneficiaries or family business owners. To address the special nature of the family and make a deposit in its strength, an investment in their future success can be made every time they meet.
Benefits Of Balanced Scorecards For Family Businesses
Increasingly it is recognised that gaining competitive advantage requires a strategic approach to managing an organization.
Outsourcing Of Activities By Family Businesses
The last decade has revealed an emerging trend among medium-sized and some smaller family businesses towards outsourcing business activities, particularly functions such as information technology, human resource management, accounting, and internal audit.
Weighing Up The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Listing
The allure of going public is ever present in the minds of firm owners. However, family business owners who are seriously contemplating going public need to weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of listing on the Australian Stock Exchange.
The Advantage Of Dominance In Family Businesses
Family owned enterprises are more often subject to dominant individuals who play a significant role in the power transference process than non-family owned firms. Indeed, without the existence of dominant individuals influencing the dynamics of the family business, the chances of some family firms surviving are significantly diminished.
Good Governance And Boards Of Directors
For the family-owned enterprise, good governance makes a significant difference to the way they operate.
Family Business Is Dynamite!
Dynamite is an industrial explosive. It is made up of a mixture of two components: nitro-glycerine and a substance called kieselghur (kee - zl - goor). When mixed together these two components form a 'stable' substance until it is activated. And we all know what happens when dynamite is activated.
Questions That Clarify A Family Business's Success Rating
What are your answers to these questions?
Family Business Success Checklist
Family business critical success factors - developing a checklist for success.
How Families Affect The Business
Workplace structures affect family life in a number of ways and vice-versa.
Family Business Owners' Financing Decisions
This article explores some of the issues and explains some of the funding options taken by family business owners.
Goals And Objectives Of Australian Family Farm Owners
It is frequently assumed that business owners primarily operate on the assumption of profit maximisation. In fact, business owners as well as farm owners possess numerous goals, and some of these are non-pecuniary.
Family Business Charter or Constitution
A documented family constitution outlines strategies and solutions which can be implemented to deal with family-related matters that impact on business issues.
Family Business Tools & Processes
Using systems, genograms, eco-maps, family photographs and story telling to understand the family business.
Family Meetings
Family meetings are one of the two most important steps a business owner can take to ensure the continuity of the family business.
Family Retreats
Family retreats are ideal for exploring issues regarding family values, interests and concerns.
Family Assemblies or Forums
Families divide responsibility for, authority over, and ownership of their business. Over time, they redefine and reorganise these relationships.
Shareholders or Beneficiaries (Buy-Sell) Agreements
A buy-sell agreement is an arrangement or contract between family business shareholders or beneficiaries that specifies certain ownership rights among owners of family business shares or partnership interests.
Family Council
The Family Council which is made of key family members is a venue for discussion of important family business issues.
Family Advisory Boards and Boards of Directors
How can Advisory Boards and Boards of Directors assist family business?
A Guiding Hand For Family Businesses
There are many advantages and disadvantages of running a private family business compared with a listed company, and an adviser like your accountant may just be the person to help you avoid the pitfalls.
Structuring Your Family Business
Successful family businesses involve a delicate balance of sound business practices and family relationships.
The Human Resources Dilemma In Family Businesses
Family business owners often recount a similar tale of a sudden realisation of having to figure out which “person” their offspring was everytime they walked into their office - son/daughter, employee, or tenacious successor.
What Is A Family Business?
Defining family business is a challenging task.
Family Businesses - How Do You Avoid Those Costly Pitfalls?
Family businesses come in many sizes, and research shows that they have clearly defined business problems, which frequently are repetitive and avoidable.
Creating A Philanthropic Strategy For Your Family Business
Philanthropy can be a prickly issue for family businesses.
Improving Family Business Performance
Some family owned businesses (FOBs) have a long-term history of consistent profitability. Others, however, have a similarly long-term history of weak performance. The obvious question is why.
Capitalizing On The Strengths Of Family Owned Businesses
Family-owned businesses (FOBs) constitute the oldest and most common form of commercial activity around the world. Unlike public companies (many of which are also family dominated) where ownership, management, and control are relatively distributed between company management, the board of directors, and shareholders, the FOBs situation is reversed.