Toward a Theory of the Collaborative Family Firm: An Exploratory Study on Family Ownership and Collaborative and Competitive Dynamics in Privately Held SME’s

Family businesses are a dominant contributor to the US economy, yet little is known about factors that may contribute to business continuity and longevity. Despite the long-standing statistic that only 30% of family-owned firms will succeed to the next generation, few empirical studies have examined why some family- owners choose to continue, while other choose to exit or close mature family businesses. This study explores survival outcomes in 147 family firms, longitudinally, over a twenty-year span of time to better understand latent factors that may contribute to these outcomes. Key findings in this study include several factors that appear to typify collaborative relational dynamics linked to firm longevity and performance advantages in family SMEs.