7th Business & Management Conference, Budapest

FAMILINESS – A QUALITATIVE – EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF FAMILY BUSINESSES ON THE BASIS OF STEWARDSHIP THEORY

ÉVA MÁLOVICS

Abstract:

The paper examines the perception of the steward behavior in family firms. In stewardship theory, the manager is not self-interested, but a long-term oriented altruist. Based on strong social and emotional bonds the manager wants to follow financial and non-financial goals according to the needs of the family. We made in-depth interviews with ten entrepreneurs. We used the grounded theory method for analyzing stories about culture, innovation, communication in the firm. From the results we can see, that there are many appearances of stewardship theory in participating family members’ narrative stories about business. Also in case of family businesses the company problems are common conversational topic at home. Managers suites themselves into a parental role and this starts prosocial behavior even in non-family employees. This way stewardship gets a part of organizational culture. This can be in connection with the familiness as a resource, but it needs further study.

Keywords: family business, stewardship, familiness

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