Family Business

FAMILY firms have been crucial features of the business landscape for centuries and remain important today. They can be smalI, medium, or large and have appeared in all sectors and in all three industrial revolutions. Throughout they have _ an important role in employment, income generation, and wealth accumulation. This makes them remarkably hard to describe as they are multidimensional, and no single definition fully captures their intrinsic diversity. However, a broad general definition of the family firm is one where a family owns enough of the equity to be able to exert control over strategy and is involved in top management positions.