A significant number of funeral homes in the United States are family-owned businesses. These family-owned funeral businesses contribute to society throughout generations to create wealth, provide employment opportunities, and serve the communities that surround them. The purpose of this descriptive multiple case study was to explore strategies that leaders of family-owned funeral business owners in the eastern region of the United States used for intergenerational succession planning. Game theory was the conceptual framework for the study. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with 3 family business owners and review of the family businesses' professional association websites and family historical documents. Yin's 5-step process served as a guide for analyzing data. Data analysis revealed 6 themes: family succession values, the game, the players, strategies, payoff and rewards, and the outcome. Implications of this study for social change include family business owners' enhanced awareness of successful strategies, which may improve business continuity leading to an increased rate of intergenerational transitions within the funeral industry.

This research investigated the causes of behavioural difficulties among family businessers in two studies. Study one adapted the evolutionary theory of the firm to the family business context in an empirical study that involved 370 family businessers from 46 families. The study found that: (1) stakeholder cohorts within the family (employed by the business versus not employed by the business; owners of stock versus non stock owners; related to founder versus not related; male versus female) were significantly divided on business direction and planning, the introduction of new routines to the business and various roles, habits, norms and codes that made up the collective knowledge base of the firm; (2) the founding generation reported significantly higher levels of individualism and self-belief than second and third generation family businessers; and (3) the founding generation differed significantly to the third (but not the second) generation on business direction and planning related matters.The second study was a single case design study involving two second-generation family businessers and one third-generation family businesser from three separate family businesses. Using the Skinnerian theory-based technique of functional assessment and the recently formulated Valued Outcomes Analysis (VOA) each individual’s behaviour was analyzed after an initial interview. From this analysis, causes of behaviour were derived and presented to each participant with suggestions for behaviour change. As a result of adopting the suggestions, each individual reported improved functioning at a second interview conducted after a five-week lapse. It was found that individual functioning in family business could be improved by establishing (1) the function of the behaviour, and (2) the valued outcomes that drive the behaviour. The findings of the two studies are linked, limitations of the research are addressed and future projects discussed.

Agency theory is one of the principal frameworks utilized in explaining the family business phenomena. The objectives of this dissertation are to (1) identify the unique agent-principal dynamics that differentiate family firms from non-family firms, (2) determine the effects of these unique agency dynamics on family firm performance, and (3) evaluate these unique agency dynamics within family businesses, as moderated by differing forms of governance and management practices.This dissertation proposes that family firms are defined by two unique and opposing agency dynamics. On one hand, it is posited that family firms are defined by their ability to deploy concomitant forms of relational governance that reduce information asymmetry and associated agency costs. On the other hand, it is posited that family firms are distinctly encumbered with agency costs from non-economic family oriented goals. These distinct agency cost-savings, termed as family gains, and agency costs, termed as family costs, contribute to the study on how and why family firms perform differently than non-family firms.In addition, the study proposes that the ensuing trade-off between family gains and family costs may lead to competitive advantages for family firms in highly competitive environments. This agency trade-off provides a link between agency theory and the resource-based perspective of the family firm.Finally, this dissertation seeks to investigate these agency dynamics among family firms that employ differing governance and management practices. In particular, this study looks at how the agency dynamics of family firms that employ the most concentrated forms of management and governance, manifested as owner-manager led family firms, compare against other forms of family firms. This study posits that manager led family firms, on one hand, have greater family gains and, on the other hand, have greater family costs when compared against other forms of family firms. Moreover, it is proposed that under highly competitive environments, the trade-off between family gains and family costs lead to greater competitive advantages for owner-manager led family firms over other family firms.This dissertation employs cross-sectional linear regression as the primary tool for empirical analysis on Australian business data. In addition, non-parametric testing is utilized to support the above analysis. These analyses are complemented by proper robustness checks to support the study’s validity.The results from empirical analysis corroborate this study’s propositions. First, the research suggests that family firms have family gains driven by lower information asymmetries, but have family costs driven by greater divergence in firm objectives. Second, the results indicate that family firms outperform non-family firms, which is consistent with extant family business literature. Likewise, the results suggest that family firms under managerial ownership have greater family gains and greater family costs than other

Bakgrund Majoriteten av alla svenska företag är familjeföretag. Forskning inom området har inte bedrivits i någon större utsträckning förrän på senare år. Därtill kommer att forskning inom värdering av familjeföretag är närmast obefintlig. Familjeföretag skiljer sig på många sätt från icke-familjeföretag, t.ex. när det gäller kultur, ägande och ledning. Härav finns det anledning att tro att familjeföretag värderas annorlunda än icke-familjeföretag. Syfte med uppsatsen Syftet med denna uppsats är att beskriva hur värdering av familjeföretag går till från ett uppköpande företags synvinkel. Metod För att utföra denna uppsats har ett kvalitativt, hermeneutiskt tillvägagångssätt använts för att förstå helheten av fenomenet familjeföretags värdering. Vi har genomfört en fallstudie bestående av tre familjeföretags uppköp gjorda av Företag X som noggrant har studerats. Slutsats När ett familjeföretag värderas är det avgörande att ha erfarenhet, branschkännedom, intuition och framför allt kunskap och erfarenhet om familjeföretag. De immateriella tillgångarna i ett familjeföretag, som till exempel rykte, kultur och kunskap bidrar tillsammans med olika värderingsmodeller till ett rättvist värde av familjeföretaget. / Background The vast majority of all Swedish companies are family businesses. Research within the field of family businesses has not until recent years been developed. Moreover, the research regarding valuation of family businesses is close to non-existing. Family businesses differ in many ways from non-family businesses, for example when it comes to culture, ownership and management. Hence, there is a possibility that family businesses are valuated differently from non-family businesses. Purpose of this thesis The purpose with this thesis is to describe how valuation of family businesses is done from the perspective of an acquiring company. Method For this thesis a qualitative, hermeneutic approach was applied in order to understand the whole picture of the valuation of the family business phenomenon. A case study approach was carried out by carefully studying three acquisitions of small private family businesses in the service sector made by Company X. Conclusions The crucial skills to possess are experience, industry knowledge, intuition and most of all family business knowledge and experience when determining a fair value of a family business. The intangible assets of a family business, for instance reputation, culture and knowledge, together with different valuation methods contribute to the estimation of the value of a family business.

Individual level factors related to the successor have a central role to play in the succession process of the business. When these factors are viewed in relation to succession planning models, these factors have a direct relation to the succession models in terms of success or failure of the succession process. The major contributing factor to the success or failure of the succession process is that of the leadership provided to the organization by the predecessor. These leadership qualities change from one form to another during different phases of the succession planning models.

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There has been nothing written, as far as we researched, about the decision-making when a family manager decides upon the advice of an external consultant. With this research we tried to build an understanding on the topic with a special focus to the role of emotions in the process. Five family managers of five different family businesses in Sweden were interviewed. The interviews were semi-structured so that the factors that play a role in the decision-making could be explored. The factors that were identified were coded and afterwards further analyzed, together with the help of new gathered theory. In other words an abductive approach was used. We found that emotions in the decision-making mainly arise when the advice is given in the field of expertise of the family manager concerned. The emotions arise from a psychological ownership of the family manager over a pre- formed solution or approach to the issue the consultant is hired for. In order for the advice to be accepted, the advice has to be in the line of the preformed solution or approach. We believe these findings to be valuable to encourage more research on the topic, but also the findings can contribute to the everlasting field of research to find the optimal technique to consult to family businesses.

¡@¡@By utilizing longitudinal data over 10 years, this research tries to examine the relationships between distinctive political linkages by family members and the diversification implications in family business group in Taiwan. The past researches have highlighted that the political linkages established by family members have significant influence on the family business group¡¦s diversification. However, there is little researches examine who¡¦s political linkage is critical in determining the diversification decision in family business group. From social capital viewpoint, this research tries to investigate the diversification implications of political linkages established by three family roles, i.e., the founder, the sons, and the marriage roles, in family business groups. The results reveal that the founder¡¦s informal political linkages have significantly positive influence on the diversification. Furthermore, the political linkages established by marriage roles do not reveal significant influence on the group¡¦s diversification. However, the son¡¦s political linkages have distinctive influences on the diversification decision. In that, the son¡¦s formal political linkages have significantly negative influence on diversification, but the son¡¦s informal political linkages have significantly positive influence on diversification. The results indicate that the differential roles in family business groups have distinctive influence on the strategy decisions. The results provide insightful theoretical and practical implications in diversification issue and political linkages issues in largely family business groups.

Family-owned governance is a typical governance structure in Taiwan¡¦s companies, including those ones engaged in high-tech industry. For those family-owned companies in high-tech industry, they need to assign professional managers in key decision-making roles in order to compete in this industry characterize by fast-moving, rapidly changing, and highly competitive. Thus, the mechanism to solve the possible agency problem caused from separation of ownership and management is a rather tough issue for those high-tech family-owned companies. Utilizing the over-five-year data, this study examines the possible relationships between the assignment of professional managers in key decision-making roles, the family sharing, and the performance in Taiwan¡¦s family-owned companies in personal computer industry. The results indicate that assigning professional managers in key decision-making roles will negatively moderate the negative relationship between family indirect sharing and performance. However, the assignment of professional managers in key decision-making roles will not significantly influence the relationship between family direct sharing and performance in high-tech family-owned companies. The finding highlights the importance of giving professional managers decision-making positions to solve the agency problem besides the typical compensation mechanism in family-owned company context. Furthermore, it also provides referable values in agency issues in family businesses.