Family Firms and Family Constitution – A Management Perspective

Abstract

This chapter presents the current research status of family constitutions from an economics perspective. It locates the family constitution as part of the family and business governance structure of a family firm and the owner family. The typical structure and content of a family constitution are introduced. The chapter focuses on the status of research about family constitutions and provides a structured map for future research. With regard to extant research, it must be stated that the stock of literature is small. The contributions to literature are categorized in surveys; conceptual contributions; survey data; small sample, qualitative, empirical studies; and big sample, quantitative, empirical studies. The latter group includes three studies with a separate family constitution variable. This small number symbolizes that the family constitution still is an under-researched area. Therefore, family constitution research is far away from being able to answer central questions of advice-seeking owner families like, for example, whether a family constitution affects family performance, firm performance, or both; or whether the development process of a family constitutions disposes of an effect on family or firm performance separately from the hypothesized effect of the family constitution document.