Defense Date
Summer 8-21-2017
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Management
Department
Business Administration
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Dr. Torsten Pieper
Committee Member or Co-Chair
Dr. Joseph H. Astrachan
Reader
Dr. Andrea Calabrò
Abstract
Dynasties entwine family and fortune. They are organizational longevity outliers. Society offers a conflicting view of dynasties. On one hand, dynasties are associated with conflict, divisiveness, conspicuous consumption, and entitlement. On the other hand, dynastic business families employ people, produce and innovate products and processes, and give to community. Linked to values and enacted by strategic leaders, strategy organizes and mobilizes capital toward goals attainment. The firm-centric perspectives of the strategic management and family business strategy literatures overlook the systematic investigation of family strategy as a means of perpetuation. This grounded theory influenced study explores the components of a family strategy. Interview data were collected and analyzed by theoretically sampling North American and European dynastic business family members and representatives. The family strategy construct is clarified and conceived as an emergent business family strategy process theory. Strategically fitted between family and fortune, family values, business family strategic leadership, goals setting, resources, systems of organization, and goals monitoring and attainment compose the dynastic business family strategy. A family strategy perspective provides insights about how socioemotional endowments may originate beyond the family firm, and how a family strategy is an antecedent to fortune-related strategies. This research project may open research pathways in the areas of business family strategic leadership, succession planning in the family governance system and the family office, and business family goals monitoring processes.