Indians arrived in South Africa since 1860 predominantly as indentured labourers. Despite over a century of pointed hostility towards Indian entrepreneurs, they managed to endure hardship and thrive. Today they run some of the most successful family businesses in South Africa. Family businesses internationally have had a reputation of struggling to survive beyond the first generation. This study attempted to identify factors that contributed to family business survival. Of the factors identified, which of these factors were adopted to a significantly greater extent by highly profitable family businesses as compared to family businesses exhibiting average profitability. Two family business groups were studied. A control group and a success group. Both groups were profitable companies; however the success group had a higher profitability for the past five years as compared to the control group. Thirteen factors were identified as key contributors to family business longevity. All thirteen factors were adopted by 45% of the Indian businesses. Of these eight factors: strategic planning, governance structures, succession planning , open family communication, family networks, trust, cultural values alignment and harmonious family relations were proved to be adopted to a significantly higher extent by the highly profitable companies. / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

The importance of SME family businesses is evident in society. Coming out of a recession, the innovation, labour absorption and employment creation capabilities of SMEs and family businesses globally, and in emerging economies with high levels of unemployment and poverty, is incredibly important for environmental sustainability and societal harmony. Good governance is empirically proven to improve long-term sustainability of organisations, and poor governance is linked to the demise of many businesses – large and small, family and non-family businesses alike. This research, by means of a thorough literature review of family business and governance, and a single in-depth case study, identifies the components of SME family business governance in a contextual setting in South Africa. The literature review defines SMEs, family businesses and corporate governance. It reviews the nuances of family businesses that make them distinctive from non-family businesses, the models of family businesses that have been developed over time, the approaches to corporate governance, corporate governance codes of conduct, and family business governance models, as well as the components and dynamics of family business governance. The qualitative case study approach adopted enables the in depth contextual identification and exploration of the dynamics of family business governance. Empirical data collected from interviews, observations and reports are analysed using triangulation and pattern matching logic to ensure validity and reliability. Empirical findings are discussed with reference to the literary research findings, integrating literary and empirical findings, and resulting in the development of a conceptual model of family business governance, an SME family business governance structures model, and an SME family business authority delegation model. Governance is defined as the manifestation of the intent of the founder/owners of the business. Governance is manifest in structures, strategies, policies, procedures, relationships and performance. The reciprocity of transfers and outputs between the family business systems, the family business and its contextual environment is reflected in the performance of the business; which in turn is a reflection of the governance of the family and the family business. The study concludes with the importance of the family and its cohesion and harmony, and the impact it has on synergy, unity and harmony in the business. The study also finds that governance is strategic leadership, and that efficient and effective governance leads to synergies between the family, the family business and its contextual environment that when harnessed and directed towards a vision, can produce unimitable competitive advantages for the family firm.

This study is about the history of a family-owned business. In Taiwan, there are not many researches talking about the company history which are very useful and important to discover what makes a business thriving or failure."Taisun¡¨ is a family-owned business which is famous on producing ¡§Salad Oil¡¨ controlled by Zhan family and is observed to discover how this family keeps their business thriving as the industry structure changes. The research method is to gather information about Taisun from the historical data¡Bnews reports¡Bmagazines and interviews, and then to analyze the development stages of Taisun. This study covers the business performance review ¡Bthe business developing processes¡Bbusiness diversification and the leadership of the business controller. ¡§Business Transition¡¨ and ¡§Transfer Issue¡¨ were found two challenges to Taisun in the future. The food industry is in the mature period so that Taisun tries hard to lead business transition into the correct direction and keep the business alive. In the other hand, the organization becomes aged and there are difficulties to appeal to high-educated candidates, generation transfers would be an important issue for Taisun in the future.

Dissertation Technische Universität München, 2009.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 223-234).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 448-460).

This thesis consists of one literature review and three self-contained essays that discuss management transfers, work incentives and age structures in family firms. In the literature review, I summarize and structure recent studies on management transfer in family firms. The first essay focuses on the incentive effects of age structure in a single firm, and argues that compressed age structures are negatively related to firm performance, which provides a mechanism that causes the underperformance of dynastic management. In the second essay, I extend the single-firm analysis to a multi-firm scenario and find children prefer to work for their own family if the age gap between levels is large. Otherwise, they leave and work for other families. As a result, increased life expectancy leads to the separation between ownership and management, and family-managed firms have more compressed age structures than their professionally managed counterparts. In the third and final essay, I study the issue of self-enforcement in promotion tournaments and find organizations using rank-order contracts may still act opportunistically even when there exists no agency problem between owners and managers. Furthermore, both the wage-seniority profile and governance structure determine the credibility of rank-order contracts, which provides an alternative rationale for returns to seniority and underperformance of dynastic management.

Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2002.

Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 1999

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chuo Daigaku (Japan), 2007. / Adviser: Tanzawa Yasuharu. Original dissertation published by Yushodo Co. Ltd., Tokoyo. Includes bibliographical references.