Family Business Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Family Business - Essay Example History has it that many of the current successful company. Many of these companies were started by a family but later were sold to the public. In a family business the level of outside employees is limited and the family members are involved in the running of the business. Even in place where the external members are involved, the top positions of running the business are allocated to the family members. Some of the most successful family business includes Cargill, Ford Motor Company, Koch Industries, Mills Fleet Farm, Tetra Park, and others. 3It has been shown that a business that is started and run by the family always succeed due to some basic elements that are attached to such business. There have been several researches that have been carried out on family businesses. This research will try to look at some of the findings of these researches in order to understand the dynamics of family businesses and why they are likely to succeed compared to other business. 4Management of a family business present one of the most complex business organization compared to others. This is because the business is driven by linkages in the family members which are often emotion. It presents a problem in managing the emotional family ownership and rational needs of the business. This creates a fertile ground that nurtures conflict at many levels in the running of the business. 5This is mostly presented in times of generational shifts where there are uncertainties on the interest an leadership competence of the inheriting generation family members makes the running and management of the business more vulnerable. Though most of these businesses succeed, they are usually faced with problems like any other business in the course of their operation. It has been shown that a family business may come with some of the worst business crisis especially in issues relating to succession. Planning a succession in a family business has been shown as a unique problem that most of these businesses face in the course of their operation. 6The interests of diverse family members always conflict one another not only on the issues of succession but also on other issues like hiring of another members. For example it has been shown that there is allows a conflicts when family members have to decide the ones who will be hired for running managerial jobs and sometime favours in the family may make the family to hire a member who is less competent than others which leads to underperforming of the business. Sometime conflicts in family business have been shown even to end up in courts. But unlike in other business wh ere the magnitude of the conflict may lead to underperformance of the businesses, the conflict in a family businesses has been shown to be successfully controlled from inside before it bursts to the lime light of the law courts. There are usually means to try and resolve the conflict in a family set up before it is taken to the courts. One of the great problems that are encountered in running of family business conflict has been the difficult that is encountered especially by parents in resolving the conflicts with their sons. The parents are sometimes torn between the love of their children and the interest of the families. One example is given of Stew Leonard's