Family Business

A family business is a commercial organization in which decision-making is influenced by multiple generations of a family—related by blood or marriage. They are closely identified with the firm through leadership or ownership. Owner-manager entrepreneurial firms are not considered to be family businesses because they lack the multi-generational dimension and family influence that create the unique dynamics and relationships of family businesses.

Family business is the oldest and most common model of economic organization. The vast majority of businesses throughout the world—from corner shops to multinational publicly listed organizations with hundreds of thousands of employees—can be considered family businesses. Based on research of the Forbes 400 richest Americans, 44% of the Forbes 400 member fortunes were derived by being a member of or in association with a family business.

The economic prevalence and importance of this kind of business are often underestimated. Throughout most of the 20th century, academics and economists were intrigued by a newer, “improved” model: large publicly traded companies run in an apparently rational, bureaucratic manner by well trained “organization men.” Entrepreneurial and family firms, with their specific management models and complicated psychological processes, often fell short by comparison.

Privately owned or family controlled enterprises are not always easy to study. In many cases, they are not subject to financial reporting requirements, and little information is made public about financial performance. Ownership may be distributed through trusts or holding companies, and family members themselves may not be fully informed about the ownership structure of their enterprise. However, as the 21st-century global economic model replaces the old industrial model, government policy makers, economists, and academics turn to entrepreneurial and family enterprises as a prime source of wealth creation and employment.

In some countries, many of the largest publicly listed firms are family-owned. A firm is said to be family-owned if a person is the controlling shareholder; that is, a person (rather than a state, corporation, management trust, or mutual fund) can garner enough shares to assure at least 20% of the voting rights and the highest percentage of voting rights in comparison to other shareholders.
Some of the world's largest family-run businesses are Walmart (United States), Samsung Group (Korea) and Tata Group (India).

The "Global Family Business Index" comprises the largest 500 family firms around the globe. In this index—published for a first time in 2015 by Center for Family Business University of St. Gallen and EY—for a privately held firm, a firm is classified as a family firm in case a family controls more than 50% of the voting rights. For a publicly listed firm, a firm is classified as a family firm in case the family holds at least 32% of the voting rights.

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