Family business and business dynasties: A case study of Russia

Abstract

Family business and family business dynasties are notorious all around the world. The Waltons, the Fords, the Hiltons, the Bushes, the Kardashians, or the Murdochs – all of them shape up the world’s globalized economy. However, in Russia business dynasties are just passing through the stage of their initial development and setting. As a result, very little empirical research has been carried out so far to determine socio-physiological traits of its incumbents. This paper describes the peculiarities of the ‘founders of business dynasties’ (i.e., a group of business owners who have already worked with their relatives and wanted to transfer their firm to the next generation) in Russian and worldwide. The paper has been built under an ex-post-facto pilot scheme. Our data collection was carried out through polling of 90 persons, all subjects being owners, proprietors, or performing the duties of the director of a business company. Our results reveal some differences between the founders of business dynasties and other three groups of business owners (called ‘Singles in business’, ‘Dreamers’, or ‘The last link in business’). However, a highly significant correlation was found only in strong belief of the ‘Founders of business dynasties’ in usefulness of family relationships for business. This finding suggests a significant role of family relationships in business. Our results provide thus evidence on the continuing search for a secret of harmony in business-family relationships among ‘the Founders of business dynasties’ and its further spread within business community.