Leading up to the time just before the economic and global meltdown of 2008, economist and theorist forecasted as early as 2005 about and impending financial crisis that would affect every sector of the business and financial community. As we discover in more dramatic detail that family firms are occupying a big percentage in small to medium size enterprises, we wondered how they would be affected by such a high degree of uncertainty and volatility in the financial markets during the economic crisis. With these factors in mind, we would like to see it in a more day–to–day, practical application within family firms. In the supply chain or procurement life-cycle, firms need to receive products and services from the supplier and the supplier will in turn offer those same services to the customer. The firm will tend to structure this tradeoff with a contractual structure to guarantee achievement of mutual benefit and economic objectives of the firm. On the other hand, family firms are famous for being distinguish from non-family firms in their non-economic objective they persuade along their businesses. Considering these two different logics that affects the decision of the firm in structuring contractual governance with the exchanging party. We ask the following questions in our purpose.

Rebirthing – is form of american pranayoga. Also breathing is one of most principal yoga aspects, which removes physical and emotional blocks in the cellular level of all human body. Rebirthing is called also, conscious connected breathing, live or intuitive breathwork. The main object of rebirthing is to disperse daily stress. It’s also used as a therapeutic healing method, which person can practice and this way to learn sense of fresh energy. Urgency of reserach was stipulate by reason, that rebirthing was not investigate in Lithuania until now, although came here in revival period, on 1991. consequently this scientific work is the first rebirthing research in Lithuania. The object of research is to investigate subjectival estimated emotional wealth changes of people, which are practicing rebirthing. It was promoted hypothesis of research, that person regulary practicing conscious connected breathing, can achieve reduce of chained feelings, express emotions. This practice attaches rest and relaxation. The tasks of research: 1. To analyse, rebirthing conception by theoretical aspect. 2. To establish subjectical estimated feelings and emotions from outset of rebirthing practice. 3. To reveal subjectical estimated emotional wealth changes. The realized researches established, that majority of engaged into research get over suppressed anxiety, fear and weeping. ... [to full text]

Family businesses and financial decision making is a growing topic of research. It is of value given the impact family businesses have on many economies. Family businesses are regarded to have it more difficult to attain feasible financing and also being led by another logic compared to non-family businesses. Characteristics attributed to family businesses are that they take non-financial values in to consideration, and aims to preserve the so called Social Emotional Wealth. Therefore this thesis aims to explore financial decision making in the context of family businesses and extend current research by looking at a new financing alternative, crowd equity. The purpose aims to be met by a qualitative study, with the FIBER model as base. Interviewing family business owners and management, and explore their reasoning linking it to crowd equity as a financing form. The findings in this study is in line with much of existing literature, concluding that the reasoning behind financial decisions are to a large extent motivated by non-financial factors, such as ownership and control of the businesses. The risk of losing control over the business by raising capital via equity financing is one argument against that form of financing. If equity financing is an alternative, then crowd equity seems to have characteristics that could be of interest for family businesses.

Socio-Emotional Wealth in family firms and its influence on green product innovations is an important theme in general management research. The purpose of the study was to understand the link between the socio-emotional wealth of family firms and green innovation to understand how family firms in their quest to preserve their socio-emotional wealth will influence green innovation motives. The study was based on a single case study, a packaging company chosen with an innovation center for green solutions. A total of 11 interviews were conducted. The study is based on constructionism and relativism research philosophy. The findings show that there is an influence of the dimensions of the FIBER model of socio-emotional wealth on green innovation while preserving their socio-emotional wealth. Organizations can use these findings to get an understanding of green innovation, as well as that family firms, need to embrace more their uniqueness as it’s the result of their reliance on socio-emotional wealth.

With technological advancements rendering customer expectations ever more sophisticated, firms must compete with increasingly complex service offerings to secure their position in the market. For firms in the hospitality industry, innovating their service offerings to cater to these changing customer demands has therefore become a prerequisite to survive. This paper takes a dynamic capability perspective to examine how family firms fare in this rapidly changing environment by examining the role of family influence on their capabilities to engage in service innovation.  The purpose of the study was to describe and explain how family influence impacts dynamic capabilities for service innovation in a family firm within the hospitality industry. The aim of the study was to derive insights on how family influence impacts family firms’ innovation capacity and to stimulate future work in the field of research.  This study is based on an in-depth single case study approach. Empirical data was gathered through semi-structured interviews. Based on a qualitative explorative study using an abductive approach, we were able to develop new combinations of established theoretical models and concepts with findings from our theory and empirical data.  Five attributes of family influence were identified that impact family firms’ capabilities for service innovation - both positively and negatively. The results indicate that family influence can positively impact dynamic sensing capabilitites for service innovation, while the impact of family influence on dynamic seizing and dynamic transforming capabilities for service innovation can be ambiguous. The findings call for continued exploration of the role of family influence on dynamic capabilities for service innovation and family firms’ innovation capacity in general.

Although private family organisations are prevalent role players in both the South African and international economies, limited research has been performed with regard to them. In terms of regulatory requirements, South African private organisations are neither legally required to comply with corporate governance principles, nor are they required to make their financial data available to the general public. Lack of available data, and limited available research, have resulted in an absence of clarity with regard to whether governance structures in private family organisations add any value to these organisations. This study therefore explores, through the use of a multiple-case study, how the individual private family organisations have structured their governance mechanisms, and the reasons as to why they chose to implement these structures. Both case studies revealed that governance structures, in general, add value. The implemented governance structures may even have contributed to the increase in financial performance over time. / Management Accounting / M. Phil. (Accounting Sciences)

Il presente lavoro, riconoscendo la rilevanza che le aziende familiari detengono all’interno del contesto internazionale, con particolare riferimento a quello italiano, si propone di analizzare la loro propensione verso l’implementazione della strategia di acquisizione. In particolare lo studio, composto da tre paper tra loro connessi, è volto a delineare una “fotografia” del tessuto imprenditoriale italiano rilevando le caratteristiche delle aziende familiari e della tipologia delle operazioni di crescita per via esterna da queste conseguite. Inoltre, la ricerca fornisce delle comparazioni con le operazioni svolte dalle imprese non familiari così da comprenderne similitudini e differenze evidenziando come la partecipazione della famiglia proprietaria, sia in termini di proprietà che di gestione, incida sulla predisposizione ad acquisire. Il primo paper indaga l’attitudine delle imprese familiari e non familiari ad acquisire, mostrando tipologie e caratteristiche delle operazioni di crescita per via esterna da queste conseguite nel periodo 2000 – 2014. Il secondo lavoro, approfondito il ruolo della distanza culturale ed economica tra acquirente ed acquisita, verifica se le aziende familiari hanno economicamente beneficiato dell’implementazione della strategia di crescita per via esterna. Il terzo contributo analizza come le differenti modalità e livelli di coinvolgimento diretto della famiglia alla vita d’impresa incida sulla predisposizione ad acquisire. / The aim of this work, which recognizes the importance of family-owned firms in the international environment – focusing in particular on the Italian context – is to analyze their propensity to implement the acquisition strategy. The study, composed of three interrelated papers, is intended to “take a picture” of the Italian entrepreneurial fabric, by detecting the features of family firms and the type of growth operations through acquisitions. Furthermore, this research outlines comparisons with the operations led by non family firms, in order to understand similarities and differences by highlighting how the role of family owner, both in terms of property and management, influences the propensity to acquire.  The first paper examines the propensity of family and non family firms to acquire, showing the types and features of the growth operations through acquisitions in the timeframe 2000 - 2014. The second paper, after studying in depth the role of the cultural and economic distance between the acquirer and target, checks whether family firms benefitted from the implementation of acquisition. The third paper analyses the influence of the several implementation procedures and the level of direct involvement of the family in the life of the firms on the propensity to acquire.