Organizational change in family firms

Abstract

Many organizational change efforts don’t live up to their expectations, with inefficiencies in the interaction process between organizational actors as one of the main potential reasons for this failure. Therefore, this paper will focus on the impact of interaction processes on change within the specific organizational context of family firms. Family firms are particularly interesting for organizational change research since they have several unique characteristics that may facilitate or hinder the interaction process during an organizational change. The uniqueness of the family firm stems from the integration of two subsystems that are not necessarily compatible, namely the family system and the business system. The term ‘familiness’ embodies these unique characteristics that result from the family's involvement in the firm. This paper draws on Systems Theory and the Resource-Based View of the firm in formulating relations that link the unique characteristics of family firms with the organizational change process.