Family business models: Practical solutions for the family business

What does this book offer those interested in the family business? This is a book about how to manage the family business, and our intention is to help the reader build better managed and more stable family firms. For this reason, we consider that it is recommended reading for all those with an interest in the family business: members of business families, members of senior management in family firms, consultants, scholars of the phenomenon, and indeed anyone simply interested in the subject. This book is the fruit of twenty years' work in this field. We have studied the literature on the subject, and we have been in contact with specialists and business families all over the world. Our aim has always been the same: to gain a better understanding of the workings of the family business and to generate approaches allowing the best possible management of the family/business relationship. We have pursued a twofold goal: the business family should be satisfied with the relationship, and company results should likewise be satisfactory. As we have justified in our previous works, these two goals reinforce each other. When business families understand the nature of the tasks they need to undertake, they act accordingly and in most cases effectively. The important thing for the family is to be aware, and to make the right diagnosis of their situation as a family business. This book is based on the enormous amount of data we have gathered using the FBK-Diagnostic expert system. This has given us the opportunity to work with detailed information on more than 1,200 Spanish family firms, thus allowing us to contrast our points of view and forcing us to rethink our approach in order to make it consistent. The reader will see that this book is organised differently from any other book on the family business he or she may have read before. It seeks to create a map enabling the reader to know when and why it is important to apply each of the aspects of family business management that have been developed over the last thirty years. Our interest is focused on offering a road map for senior managers and business-owning families in order to help them define where they stand, where they want to go and how. In Chapter 1 we present the history of family business management since it was first identified as a specific aspect of management. We briefly present the contribution made, in our opinion, by each different tendency, together with its possible limitations. In Chapter 2 we introduce the family business management formula. The purpose of this formula is to show that family businesses differ. We hold that the complexity profile of the family business is a useful and practical way of grasping these differences and defining what kind of management to practise. In this chapter we propose a way to define the structure of the family/business relationship, which comprises a variety of interrelated aspects, both hard and soft. In Chapter 3 we introduce the idea of family business models, that is, the idea that family businesses can be grouped according to type. We describe the set of characteristics of each of these models. In Chapter 4 we address the consequences for management that derive from the various models. The reader will see how each model has its own challenges, and why so many well-intentioned undertakings end in failure. In the annex at the end of the book we present a detailed account of those aspects that we consider should be managed in the family firm. We recommend those families wishing to further develop their family/business relationship structures to use it as a reference document and guide. We hope that this book will be useful to the reader, and that it will help to strengthen the fabric of family businesses, which are the foundations of the world's economies. The family business is the best form of business organisation when it is capable of bringing together aspirations and combining efforts, when it is capable of en