Corporate governance in family businesses across generations: Exploring intergenerational issues

Abstract

The presence of different generations in family businesses creates intergenerational issues that affect the dynamics of their governance structures. Bringing together literature on family business governance with studies of intergenerational relationships, we contribute to our understanding of governance structures and relationships in family businesses. We illustrate these dynamics through a qualitative approach using an in-depth, longitudinal case study of a 180-year-old family business, which we followed for 10 years. We focus on intergenerational and intertemporal dilemmas faced by the family throughout the generations, focusing on a shift away from ethical toward economic interests, as both family and business have grown in complexity.