Family presence : implications for decision-making in family business

This paper explores the implications for decision-making processes in the small to medium sized family business of family presence, which is a key environmental factor of those businesses. One-to-one interviews with older and younger generation family and non-family managers from ten family businesses cases were undertaken in this study. Findings highlight the paradoxical nature of these implications, including: that the flexibility which results from familiarity that family managers share can have both positive and negative consequences; that the family environment that many non-family managers value can have both a liberating influence encouraging participation in and contributions to decision-making while at the same time cause some other employees to clam up for fear of saying the ‘wrong thing’. The paper concludes with some recommendations for further research and some observations that may help leaders in family businesses enhance the decision-making processes.