Sociology of the Business Family: Foundations, Recent Developments, and Future Perspectives [1st ed. 2023] 9783658422158, 9783658422165, 3658422157

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Heiko Kleve · Tobias Koellner Editors

Sociology of the Business Family Foundations, Recent Developments, and Future Perspectives

Sociology of the Business Family

Heiko Kleve • Tobias Koellner Editors

Sociology of the Business Family Foundations, Recent Developments, and Future Perspectives

Editors Heiko Kleve Witten Institute for Family Business Witten-Herdecke University Witten, Germany

Tobias Koellner Witten Institute for Family Business Witten-Herdecke University Witten, Germany

ISBN 978-3-658-42215-8 ISBN 978-3-658-42216-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5

(eBook)

# The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 This book is a translation of the original German edition “Soziologie der Unternehmerfamilie” by Kleve, Heiko, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, in 2019. The translation was done with the help of artificial intelligence (machine translation by the service DeepL.com). A subsequent human revision was done primarily in terms of content, so that the book will read stylistically differently from a conventional translation. Springer Nature works continuously to further the development of tools for the production of books and on the related technologies to support the authors. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature. The registered company address is: Abraham-Lincoln-Str. 46, 65189 Wiesbaden, Germany

Contents

Foundations, Recent Developments and Future Perspectives of a Sociology of the Business Family: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tobias Koellner and Heiko Kleve Preliminary Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Recent Developments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Future Perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Brief Overview of the Contributions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1

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1 3 5 7 10 14

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21

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21 23 25 26 29 33

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35 41 46

Part I Foundations The Hunger for Human Capital: Industrial Society and Family Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hans Bertram Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Household as a Place of Production . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Family as a Factory of the Child’s Personality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Order of the Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human Capital and the Catholic Worker Girl . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Question of the Future of the Post-industrial Society . . . . . . . . . . . . Free Time, Outsourcing of Intimacy and the Institutionalization of Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Human Capital, Family Development and a New Life Course . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

v

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Contents

Western (Business) Family Models in Historical Change: A Process– Sociological Sketch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Désirée Waterstradt Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Theoretical Foundations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Household and Production Communities Through the Course of Time . . . Business Family: A Process–Sociological Reflection of the Term . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Families and Organizations: Similarities, Differences and Linkages . . Stefan Kühl Introduction: Beyond the Schema of Interaction, Organization and Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Different Concepts of Membership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Differentiation of Groups, Organizations, Movements and Families . . Perspectives: Entanglements, Combinations and Transitions of Families and Organizations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Empirical Findings on Business Families in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . Isabell Stamm, Fabian Bernhard, and Nicole Hameister Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual Considerations on Business Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Identification of Business Families in Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conceptual Considerations for the Construction of a Comparison Group . Propensity Score Matching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Final Considerations and Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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51 52 67 89 92 93

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. 103 . 104 . 108 . 112 . 114 . 117 . . . . . . .

117 119 122 128 131 136 137

Part II Recent Developments From the Family Business to the Business Family: On the Extension of a Social Science and Systems Theory Perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Rudolf Wimmer and Fritz B. Simon What Makes a Business a Family Business and a Family a Business Family? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Structural Change of the Family on the Way to Modernity . . . . . . . . The Business Family as a Family of its Own Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Special Role of the “Third Party” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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145 149 154 155

Contents

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The Internal Differentiation of Business Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Wordless Understanding: A Necessary Fiction? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164 Social Plurality and Family Identity: On the Evolution of the Business Family Using the Example of Succession in Family Businesses . . . . . . . Gabriela Leiß Business Families in Transition: An Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Succession in Business Families: A Theoretical Framework . . . . . . . . . . . Succession Negotiation in Business Families: A Theoretical Construct with Cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Business Families in Reflexive Modernity: Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Business Family as a Family of Its Own Kind in the Process of Social Change: Challenges and Opportunities Using the Example of Female Succession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Daniela Jäkel-Wurzer Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Concept of Family in a Changing Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Family as a System of Social Interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Family of Its Own Kind: Structural Features of a System . . . . . . . . . The Female Role and Its Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Succession in the Context of Current Social Developments . . . . . . . . . . . Opportunities and Challenges of the Change Process Using the Example of Female Succession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socialization and Parenting Processes in Business Families . . . . . . . . Elke Schröder Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Socialization Requirements in Business Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Transmission of Values Between Parents and Children in Business Families (Study 1) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Career Orientation and Succession Planning in Business Families (Study 2) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion and Outlook . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

169 169 172 174 182 183

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187 188 189 191 193 195

. 197 . 199 . 200 . 203 . 203 . 203 . 206 . 210 . 214 . 216

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Part III

Contents

Future Perspectives

The Dynastic Extended Family: A Sketch of a Specific Type of Business Family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tom A. Rüsen, Arist von Schlippe, and Heiko Kleve Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Dynastic Extended Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Specific Challenges in Dynastic Extended Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Communication within the Circle of Shareholders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The “Tripled” Family: Dynastic Business Families as Families, Organizations, and Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heiko Kleve, Arist von Schlippe, and Tom A. Rüsen Starting Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Formally Organized Business Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Large Business Families as Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Networking in Large Business Families: Five Observations . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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221 223 224 225 238 239

. . 243 . . . . . . .

Company, Family, Business Family: Systems-Theoretical Perspectives on the Extension of Three-Circle Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arist von Schlippe and Torsten Groth Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Too Much Ontology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Business Family as a Social System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The “Duplicated” Family: Problems of Simultaneity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Business Family as a Model Case for Polycontexturality . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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The Business Family of Society: Function, Code and Medium of an Unusual Social System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heiko Kleve Starting Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simultaneity of Anachronism and Hypermodernism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Hybrid Interactions in Business Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Business Families Between Family and Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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243 245 247 249 253 256 256

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259 260 262 265 267 268

. . 271 . . . .

271 274 276 278

Contents

Systemic Social Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Business Family as a Subsystem of Society . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Doing Family Concept: A New Perspective on Understanding the Production and Cohesion of Business Families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Tobias Koellner and Heiko Kleve Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Social Change and Modernization Processes: Individualization, Changed Inheritance Patterns and New Gender Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Doing Family: The Creation of Cohesion in Business Families . . . . . . . . The Doing Family Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Doing Family in the Business Family 1.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Doing Family in the Business Family 2.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Doing Family in the Business Family 3.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusion and Practical Relevance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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281 284 287 288

. 291 . 291 . . . . . . . .

293 295 295 297 299 299 300 301

About the Editors

Heiko Kleve Prof. Dr., is sociologist and social pedagogue, holder of the Chair for Organization and Development of Business Families at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke. Tobias Koellner Dr. Habil., is anthropologist and sociologist, Senior Reserch Fellow at the WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business. Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke.

xi

List of Figures

The Hunger for Human Capital: Industrial Society and Family Development Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4

Female employment rates 1973–2011 Federal Republic of Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Development of labour force participation of women aged 25–49 in a European comparison in the years 1983–2015 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time use over time: American mothers and fathers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Time used for child rearing, household management and shopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37 38 39 43

Western (Business) Family Models in Historical Change: A Process–Sociological Sketch Fig. 1

(Business) Family models in historical change . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

66

Social Plurality and Family Identity: On the Evolution of the Business Family Using the Example of Succession in Family Businesses Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Analysis dimensions for business succession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Construct of intergenerational succession negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175

Socialization and Parenting Processes in Business Families Fig. 1

Antecedents and consequences of intrinsic motivation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213

xiii

xiv

List of Figures

The Dynastic Extended Family: A Sketch of a Specific Type of Business Family Fig. 1 Fig. 2

Specific challenges of dynastic extended families . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 Contents of a family strategy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234

The Business Family of Society: Function, Code and Medium of an Unusual Social System Fig. 1

Three-circle model according to Tagiuri and Davis (1996) in a variant by Groth (n.d.) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 272

The Doing Family Concept: A New Perspective on Understanding the Production and Cohesion of Business Families Fig. 1

The model of the business family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

List of Tables

Empirical Findings on Business Families in Germany Table 1 Table 2 Table 3 Table 4

Descriptive findings on members from business families . . . . . . . . . Comparison of the models for propensity score matching . . . . . . . . Probability of working in the company of one’s own family . . . . . Descriptive comparison of REC and FBC after matching . . . . . . . . .

127 132 133 135

Socialization and Parenting Processes in Business Families Table 1 Table 2 Table 3

Developmental tasks of adolescents in the context of the business family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 205 Value types according to Schwartz (1992, 1994) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208 Different motives for succession in family businesses. “I could imagine succeeding in the family business, . . .” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212

Company, Family, Business Family: Systems-Theoretical Perspectives on the Extension of Three-Circle Thinking Table 1

The two sides of the paradox of the business family . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

xv

Foundations, Recent Developments and Future Perspectives of a Sociology of the Business Family: An Introduction Tobias Koellner and Heiko Kleve

Preliminary Remarks Family sociologists have initiated empirical research and developed theories on numerous family topics and different family forms. In this context, it seems surprising that one family form has so far received little attention from family sociology: the business family. The topic has been similarly neglected in classical economic research, where it is primarily the family business and not the business family that is considered. This seems particularly unsatisfactory when we consider that the family business is the main type of business that shapes the economic system in Germany and in many other countries.1 And it is the business family that differentiates this type of business from others. In attempting to define ‘family business’, three different prominent approaches have been discussed. Particularly important became the involvement approach, the essence approach and the family firm identity approach (Zellweger et al. 2010). The involvement approach, for example, emphasizes that family businesses are businesses that were founded by families or by members of one or more families and are managed by them in at least the second generation. The family members own the company, are involved in its operations and/or act as shareholders, so that See for figures on Germany von Schlippe et al. (2017, p. 23) or Stiftung Familienunternehmen (2019). For other countries, see Andersson et al. (2018), Arrègle et al. (2007), Chirico and Nordqvist (2010), Chirico and Salvato (2016), Fueglistaller and Zellweger (2007) or Miller and Le Breton-Miller (2005). 1

T. Koellner (✉) · H. Kleve Witten Institute for Family Business, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_1

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T. Koellner and H. Kleve

they have a decisive influence on the company. Drawing on such understandings, the essence approach highlights the crucial differences between family and non-family businesses. In this understanding, the ownership and involvement of a family group result in a special way of operating the family firm, which also results in a specific family firm identity, as has been highlighted in the third approach. Moreover, the topic of the business family is also gaining importance in both sociology and economics, resulting in a number of papers on it within these disciplines (for example, Caspary 2018; Groth and Vater 2009; Schröder 2011; Simon 2005; and Stamm 2013 from the sociological perspective, and Kormann 2011; Leiß 2014; Lueger et al. 2018; and Wiechers and Klett 2005 from the economic perspective). However, the task of bringing these contributions together and integrating them into a broader analysis of the business family is still pending despite some promising first steps in this direction in anthropology (Koellner 2023). Consequently, the present volume aims to bring such approaches together and unite different perspectives of a sociology on the business family. A first issue we would like to take up, discuss and substantiate in detail is Bruno Hildenbrand’s (2011) thesis that business families can be assessed as ‘families of their own kind’. Through operational involvement or as an active owner or shareholder family, business families are kinship groups that have full or partial ownership of a company and thereby exert a decisive influence on the company, but are in turn also influenced by the company. Recently, the mutual influence between family business and business family has been discussed with concepts such as familiness, enterpriseness or co-evolution, whereby the size and legal form of the company are irrelevant (Habbershon et al. 2003; Frank et al. 2010; Hasenzagl 2018; Wimmer 2009). Usually, but not always, the family has an interest in passing on its ownership of the company to the next generation, showing a transgenerational intention. Family businesses and business families are characterized by a close connection between family and business, so that both sides have a mutual and lasting influence on each other. Rudolf Wimmer (2009, p. 8) speaks here of a structure-shaping effect. This means that management style, communication patterns or the culture of conflict are transferred from the family to the company. At the same time, it can be observed that the company massively influences the way children grow up during their socialization within the family (Stamm 2013; Caspary 2018). Thus, the family is never exclusively a family, and is always to some extent a business family, as ‘the company [. . .] always [sits] at the table’ (Groth and Vater 2009, p. 80). This close relationship is developed when familiness, enterpriseness or co-evolution of family and business are discussed (Habbershon and Williams 1999; Frank et al. 2017; Hasenzagl 2018; Wimmer 2009, pp. 8–9).

Foundations, Recent Developments and Future Perspectives of a Sociology of. . .

3

Moreover, the business is a resource for the family. It creates employment opportunities, serves to secure income and is often an important component of the identity of family members as well as the family as a whole (Keßler et al. 2018). It provides social as well as individual meaning, for instance, when narratives are told, rituals are practised and collective memories are created (Kleve et al. 2022; Koellner et al. 2022, 2023). In addition, the family business has an impact on the orientation of the family and its entrepreneurial intention, which is referred to as ‘enterpriseness’ (Hasenzagl 2018). In parallel, the family is a resource for the business that can have a positive impact on its success (Dyer 2003). Members of the business family can provide important financial, emotional and knowledgebased contributions to the company, especially when they take up important positions in the company. These resources and the family’s influence on the business in general are called the ‘familiness’ of the family business (Habbershon et al. 2003; Frank et al. 2010). In recent years, attempts have been made to measure the influence of the family within family businesses with the F-PEC scale (Astrachan et al. 2004) or the FIBER scale from the SEW approach (Berrone et al. 2012). In addition to the resources exchanged between family and company, it must be taken into account that tensions do exist between the family and the company. This is the case because the family business connects kinship and economic activity, two social spheres that have been pulled apart, differentiated and demarcated from one another over several decades in the so-called modernization process in Western Europe and North America (Kocka 1979; Tyrell 1976). However, this separation, differentiation and demarcation is not a necessary societal development, as assumed by some authors (Chandler 1990). Instead, it is a more historically contingent phenomenon which is subject to various transformations. For example, the close association of families and businesses in the form of family firms and business families has been a persistent feature shaping the economic system in Western modernity for centuries (Goody 1996). Therefore, a central contribution of this book is to examine the persistence of family firms and business families sociologically without neglecting processes of change.

Foundations Let us begin our discussion of the business family with a theory which has been developed in the last few years at the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU). A core element of the theory describes the business family as a ‘doubled family’

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(von Schlippe et al. 2017, p. 98, 2021): ‘It is as if the presence of the business forces the family to double itself, to be both a private, emotionally connected family as well as a business family, both times family and yet quite different.’ This analytically separates two different forms of communication and decision-making within both family forms: on the one hand, the business family has to be a family that provides orientation, gives emotionality and is interested in all aspects of the personalities of its members. On the other hand, it is important for these families to establish professional rules and to monitor and sanction members (Ahrne and Brunsson 2016, p. 86, 2019; Kleve et al. 2020). This is necessary because it helps to improve decision-making for the company (Simon 2005, 2012) as well as to allow for continuation in the future (Kleve 2017a). This means that the business family must remain both a family and a formally organized business family simultaneously. Nevertheless, there are key differences between families and organizations that persist and become apparent, and which, when combined, can lead to specific constellations (see also Kühl in this volume). Three of these differences will be briefly explained. A first difference relates to the importance of people in the family and in the organization. Whereas organizations such as a family firm ideally tend to fill positions independently of the person, in families the specific person cannot be ignored: is it the mother, the father, the uncle, the sister or the son? From this a second difference becomes comprehensible: in companies, the acting persons must be interchangeable; only this ensures organizational stability. In families, where the development of an individual personality is part of a long process of socialization and upbringing, this is precisely not the case: here people are integrated in their individual uniqueness and with their kinship network. A third difference arises with regard to access and membership: we are born into families. This affiliation results due to kinship. In companies, on the other hand, it is mainly reasons such as the level of pay or the work that lead to a conscious decision to join or leave. Therefore, the attachment to organizations is less strong and more temporary than the attachment to the family. In business families, however, characteristics of both families and organizations are at play. In contrast to nuclear families, access and membership, for example, are not given in business families. Instead, a decision-making process must decide if and how unmarried spouses are incorporated, how children from certain relationships should be treated and at which age the next generation is integrated. Thus business families are distinguished by the fact that characteristics of families and organizations coexist, although this goes hand in hand with particular areas of tension. Both the family and the company have to integrate contradictory aspects

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and develop or use theories, methods and attitudes in order to successfully achieve this balancing act (for further details, see Kleve 2017b, c; Kleve et al. 2020). Particularly in the course of succession, the question arises as to whether the aspect of equality, as is common in families, should be the key selection criterion. Or should the aspects of personal suitability and competence be treated preferentially, as is required in companies? In such cases it is necessary to clarify and decide whether, for example, all members of the next generation should be integrated into the company or whether only the most qualified ones should be selected for this. This decision can lead to conflicts due to the unclear association and incorporation in both areas. This is accompanied by challenges with communication, as the demands of the company often dominate negotiations in business families (von Schlippe and Frank 2013). Finally, it should also be mentioned that the historical and cultural context is crucially important (Koellner 2022, 2023; Krueger et al. 2021). When addressing such questions we need to discuss what families are, how businesses and families fit together and how joint ownership is understood and handled as all this is subject to historical change (see Bertram as well as Waterstradt in this volume). Moreover, these ideas vary in different cultures; for instance, the model of the nuclear family as it developed in the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, especially in Central and Western Europe as well as in North America, is not observable everywhere (Martin 2023; Koellner et al. 2023; Yanagisako 2002). In many regions around the world, it is taken for granted that economic activities are regarded as a matter for the whole family. No separation occurs there, either in structural terms or in semantics, as it becomes visible in the concept of the kinship enterprise (Yanagisako 2019). Access to the company’s resources by the family is just as common as access by the company to family resources (cf. Koellner 2012, pp. 59–60).

Recent Developments For the analysis of business families, recent developments in society have to be taken into account, too. One important aspect is the functional differentiation of society, which goes back above all to classic works such as Emile Durkheim 1999 (and 1893), and was later developed by Niklas Luhmann (1998). According to this theory, social perspectives are multiplied by the specific semantics of numerous social functional systems, such as economy, politics, law, religion, science, art, mass media or families. In particular, the theory of systems of family businesses and

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business families takes up this sociological perspective (see in this volume, for example, Wimmer and Simon; von Schlippe and Groth; Kleve). Thus, the question arises as to which dynamics are revealed when the functionally different spheres of family and economic organization meet systemically in family businesses and business families. Another aspect concerns the social change in lifestyles and life courses, which is associated with individuality, pluralization of life and its increasing independence from others (Beck 2015). Of course, members of business families are also affected by this. This becomes most obvious during operational succession in a company, where the handover of the company to the eldest male descendant, due to the longestablished common practice based on primogeniture, can no longer be found to be as common anymore today. Although male succession remains dominant to the present day, a greater independence from family tradition is obvious (Bertram 2013). For this reason, the issue of female succession is steadily gaining in importance for business families (see Jäkel-Wurzer in this volume). Such new developments can be related to changes in the familial hierarchy between generations. Whereas until the Second World War, especially in rural regions, there were often only limited employment prospects outside the family business, today a wide range of opportunities for alternative career paths are available (see Leiß in this volume). In addition, the ideal of individual selfdevelopment and self-realization has gained a lot of popularity and is thus also formative for the striving for economic as well as social independence of the next generation in business families (see also Stamm 2013, p. 203 ff.). Consequently, intra-family expectations of operational continuation in the management of the family business have to be seen in this context, and can have a crucial impact on power differentials between the generations. Furthermore, the structure and image of the family itself are subject to processes of transformation (cf. Nave-Herz 2004, p. 37 ff.). There is an increasing plurality of different family forms, which can be seen in the growing acceptance of same-sex partnerships, non-marital forms of relationships and more open forms of association. These processes of individualization and pluralization create complex challenges for business families: Do non-married partners belong to the family or even to the business family? If and how are the offspring from such relationships integrated? How does the family deal with same-sex partnerships? What are the rules for adoption? All these questions now play an increasingly important role in business families, leading to development processes and adjustments or to disputes when different views come into conflict and need to be mediated. Especially with regard to growing up and socialization in this type of family, important processes of change are finally becoming apparent. For example, the

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values, attitudes and convictions conveyed in the family have changed profoundly, as described by Elke Schröder (in this volume), for the motivation of children and young people to succeed. Just as the family affects the company, the company also affects the family. Particularly in young family or owner-managed businesses seeking succession, the influence of the founding generation on the other family members is considerable (Kleve et al. 2018b). This highlights that the transmission of ideas does not only work from the ‘old’ to the ‘young’, but is a two-way process. While this is especially true in the start-up phase, it retains considerable importance thereafter. This is how different forms of the business family have been identified, with their different functions, forms of organization and structure (Gersick et al. 1997; Kleve et al. 2020; Koellner et al. 2022). After all, the founding generation is crucial for establishing a business family identity and is often subject to idealization to the point of ‘mystification’ (Kleve et al. 2018b). This means that the founders of the company serve as concrete exemplars for future generations and their behaviour.

Future Perspectives Future perspectives of business families have to take into consideration the growing number of family shareholders as a general dynamic of the last few decades. This needs to be taken into account because until recently, family business research has focused its analysis on individual members from business families (Jaskiewicz et al. 2017) or nuclear families only (Kushins and Behounek 2020). In the everyday life of a business family, however, we can see that a business family with five family shareholders has to deal with completely different challenges than a business family with 200 individual shareholders. This topic is highly relevant because it can be observed that family ownership groups are becoming larger and larger, so that such multiple shareholder groups will become more important in the future (Rüsen et al. in this volume; Rüsen et al. 2021). According to estimates by the Witten Institute for Family Business, there are currently between 30 and 50 family businesses in German-speaking countries that are owned by more than 80 individual family owners (Rüsen et al. 2019). This can be explained by changed inheritance practices, which increasingly provide for the equal distribution of family business shares among all heirs. This goes hand in hand with completely new tasks for the business family, for example when it comes to organizing and formulating a joint decision or maintaining family cohesion and identity. For this reason, we need to distinguish in our analysis between the business family, nuclear families and the family firm (Kleve in this volume; Koellner 2022).

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In addition, it has been suggested that it may be useful to differentiate between small, medium-sized and large, dynastic business families (business families 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0) because the relevant issues change over time (Kleve et al. 2020). Whereas close-knit and highly emotional relations characterize small business families (1.0), securing the ability for decision-making is characteristic for medium-sized business families (2.0) of 15 to 80 individual shareholders, while family cohesion and an intergenerational shared identity are centre stage in large and dynastic business families (3.0). Let us now address some specific aspects of this growth. A first aspect is the organization’s joint decision-making and common will, which is dealt with by Rüsen, von Schlippe and Kleve in this volume. It becomes clear that decisionmaking based on a simple majority rule often leads to problematic consequences because people in the business family have to interact regularly with each other (also Koellner 2018). This means that viable decisions must be found with all family members in order to prevent retribution from the offended party in the future. For this, however, it is important that no side ‘loses face’ because the decision-making process will be emotionally burdened and made more difficult otherwise. A suitable decision-making and committee structure which takes into account the specifics of each business family and its members must therefore be created and implemented. The prudent handling of conflicts is particularly crucial here to prevent a blockade of the family business (von Schlippe 2014). Joint decision-making is closely linked to a shared basis of values, regular interaction and a common identity. In smaller business families from a relatively small geographical area, this is relatively unproblematic: the family members know each other, meet regularly within the family and in the local community and interact in the wider social environment. From 50 to 80 individual shareholders onwards, this is usually no longer the case and the members lose close contact and regular interaction with each other. The ‘nesting of life courses’, as Isabell Stamm (2013, p. 47) states, is thus not given. If the business family is then spread across several countries or even continents with different languages, it becomes even more challenging (Felden et al. 2019). This is why the organization of cohesion, meaning and identity is becoming increasingly important (Kleve 2020; Koellner et al. 2022, 2023; also Pieper and Astrachan 2008). Therefore, it is considered helpful to understand larger and successfully operating business families with 80 or more individual members as being a family in the classical meaning, as having organizational characteristics and also as a social network (Kleve et al. in this volume; Kleve 2018; Kleve et al. 2018a, 2020). Herewith attention is drawn to the fact that cohesion in the business family and the family firm are not given per se, but has to be actively established and

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re-produced within and over generations by practices of relatedness, kinning or ‘doing family’ (Carsten 2000; Howell 2006; Jurczyk et al. 2014; Koellner 2023). For this, blood relations and a common family descent serve as starting points, but are no longer sufficient on their own. Rather, and in addition to kinship, other aspects such as common interests, mutual trust with binding social ties, emotional attachment or the relationship to the founding generation become important. Only on this basis is it possible to maintain the interest of the individual family members in each other and in the company; this interest also contributes to a better understanding of how socioemotional wealth (Gómez-Mejía et al. 2007), familiness (Habbershon et al. 2003; Frank et al. 2010) or an entrepreneurial legacy (Jaskiewicz et al. 2015) are established and maintained. Short-term benefits become less important than long-term gains due to common identity, intra-family continuation or the upholding of tradition. In the best case, this leads to the formation of structures that establish mutual norms and create a common identity (cf. Keßler et al. 2018). This takes place informally and thus complements kinship ties in the family and formal membership in the organized bodies of the business family. If this sense-making and cohesion are not successfully implemented, the sale and thus exit option from family ownership of the business becomes feasible and more lucrative. This may lead to the end of the business as a family business because the transgenerational continuation has lost its meaning and importance. However, this should neither be in the interest of business families nor the wider community or society at large. This is due to the fact that business families have a high relevance for our society because more than 90% of all companies in Germany are family businesses, almost 60% of all employees work for family firms and more than 50% of turnover is generated in family firms (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2019). In addition, family businesses may contribute to the long-term sustainability of economic success due to their aspiration of transgenerational continuation of business ownership within the family (Kleve in this volume). In contrast to public companies, which have to satisfy the needs of their shareholders with substantial financial profit in a competitive environment, family businesses are more flexible and may serve different aims, as the company’s success is also measured by contributions to future generations such as grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, and so on. This usually leads to a more modest distribution policy towards family shareholders as well as to a more long-term orientation of the management of family businesses. This has been coined ‘patient capital’ (Wimmer 2009).

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Finally, we would like to emphasize that with this volume we cannot claim to discuss exhaustively and completely all aspects of the sociology of the business family. Little attention has been paid, for example, to the different cultural contexts in which business families operate. In the future, more efforts that address crosscultural similarities and differences are necessary (Koellner 2023). For those who will make those efforts, however, it has to be clear that there is no single and coherent path to modernity but that we face multiple modernities (Eisenstadt 2000, 2002). Here more in-depth empirical research has to be carried out that analyzes the values and ideas associated with different social forms of the family, the company, the family business and the business family in different cultures and how these affect the future development of business families and family businesses in a global society that is growing together. Herewith we follow the path described by Sylvia Yanagisako, who conceptualized her approach to family business and the business family to ‘entail [. . .] heterogeneous capitalist practices shaped by diverse meanings, sentiments, and representations [. . .] all of which are culturally mediated’ (Yanagisako 2002: p. 7; emphasis added).

Brief Overview of the Contributions The volume starts with four foundational contributions that mark, first historically, then conceptually and finally empirically, the social context in which business families are embedded. Hans Bertram addresses basic sociological considerations on the emergence of the modern family in The Hunger for Human Capital: Industrial Society and Family Development. In doing so, he offers a perspective of family sociology that shows how family development is linked to the economic and cultural contexts of society. Among other developments, he describes the challenges we are facing today. Central for him is that families have special socialization and educational functions for children that cannot simply be outsourced to other areas of society. Particularly in view of social change, it is questionable how these family functions can still be fulfilled today if, on the one hand, the needs of children are to be met and, on the other hand, the developmental wishes of their parents are to be taken into account. After all, the family is and remains the social space in which the human capital for the economy and society grows up, and this is particularly true for business families who want to realize transgenerational continuation. With the contribution by Désirée Waterstradt we switch from a family sociology perspective to a historical overview that looks at the connections between family

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and corporate development over longer time periods. In her contribution Western (Business) Family Models in Historical Change: A Process–Sociological Sketch, she criticizes nostalgic ideas about pre-modern family forms. The common starting point of such ideas are images of the predominance of one family type, related to the notion of extended families as a widespread pattern in the pre-industrial era. She examines this with a main argument which shows that families were also more flexible, dynamic and open in the past. Particularly interesting in this regard is the change from antiquity through the Middle Ages to modern times. It becomes apparent that families are caught in a state of social ambivalence between the desire to persist and the need for change, which can be observed in particular in family constellations in the context of family businesses. In his text, Families and Organizations: Similarities, Differences and Linkages, Stefan Kühl offers a perspective of organizational sociology that is crucial for business families where family and organizational system references exist and coincide. Here it is important to keep in mind that the separation of both family and business is generally considered to be normal in modern society. The roles of individuals tend to be distinct from one another in families and in organizations. In family businesses and business families, however, these familial and organizational roles and actions intermingle. It is therefore useful and revealing to analyze such nestings, entanglements and combinations of the two system types, familial and organizational, in more detail. In the next chapter, Isabell Stamm, Fabian Bernhard and Nicole Hameister look at Empirical Findings on Business Families in Germany. Starting from conceptual considerations on business families, an overview of the current data about business families and family firms is provided. The advantage of this analysis is that for the first time the fragmented knowledge about business families and their members can be provided and summarized. Further multivariate analyses on different areas within business families also become possible. This makes it possible to illustrate the special features of this type of family or of its family members, such as the more flexible arrangements of work and private life in terms of content and time. The next four contributions allow for conceptual, theoretical and empirical takes on recent developments in the study of business families. Two pioneers from the German-speaking world, Rudolf Wimmer and Fritz B. Simon, introduce this part with their contribution From the Family Business to the Business Family: On the Extension of a Social Science and Systems Theory Perspective. Starting from the thesis that family businesses have been extensively researched and theoretically reflected upon in recent decades, the paper focuses on the hitherto less elaborated study of business families. In doing so, the question of how we can conceptualize business families as a singular, different ‘type’ of

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families, which is characterized by the coupling of family and business systems, is discussed. Through this, the system-theoretical perspective, which the two authors have developed since the end of the 1990s at the WIFU, is extended and applied to business families. In her chapter Social Plurality and Family Identity: On the Evolution of the Business Family Using the Example of Succession in Family Businesses, Gabriela Leiß has developed a sociological view of modernization. She analyzes the effects of the social transformation processes of the twenty-first century on business families. In particular, she focuses on one of the most important issues that bring together family businesses and business families, the question of succession. Based on a qualitative study in which transferring and succeeding family entrepreneurs were interviewed, the challenges experienced by the members of business families in the context of social individualization and pluralization processes were shown. Succession, especially of daughters, is also the topic of the chapter The Business Family as a Family of its own Kind in the Process of Social Change: Challenges and Opportunities Using the Example of Female Succession by Daniela JäkelWurzer. In family businesses, which often have historically developed traditions, especially in succession, the succession of daughters in the business is still uncommon. Traditionally, expectations around succession are directed towards the eldest son (primogeniture). But of course business families also have to adapt to social change and so the female and male roles are in a constant state of flux. In this way, the flexibility, openness and future viability of business families and family businesses are illustrated in this chapter. In her chapter Socialization and Parenting Processes in Business Families, Elke Schröder addresses the question of how the relationship between parents and their children is shaped by education, socialization and expectations in business families. Based on her own empirical studies on the topic, she examines the question of how parents, alongside grandparents and siblings, contribute to the formation and transmission of social norms, roles and values in children and adolescents. Relationships within business families thus have a particular influence on the motivation for succession of adolescent family members and contribute to transgenerational continuation. Thus, the results presented here show how parents in business families influence the social environment for their children in which their needs for selfdetermination, experience of competence and social belonging can be fulfilled, for example, through association with the family business. In the third section of the volume, we have included five texts that illustrate future research perspectives that have been developed at the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU).

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First, Tom A. Rüsen, Arist von Schlippe and Heiko Kleve present their article The Dynastic Extended Family: A Sketch of a Specific Type of Business Family, where they focus on family business groups that comprise more than 50 individual family members. These multigenerational family groups appear because inheritance patterns in business families are increasingly egalitarian. Such large business families are confronted with special challenges, including, for example, the organization of business-related decision-making among distantly related family shareholders. Therefore, the elaboration and manifestation of a cross-generational interest in the continuation and preservation of the family firm as such necessitate the organization of a strategy and a decision-making process which is not (anymore) self-evident in these families. The article provides insights into a corresponding research project and outlines the first identified issues and theoretical contributions. The article The ‘Tripled’ Family: Dynastic Business Families as Families, Organizations, and Networks by Heiko Kleve, Arist von Schlippe and Tom A. Rüsen again focuses on large business families with more than 50 members. The study is based on the assumption that business families are permanently confronted with a double task: on the one hand, they are a ‘classical’ family with strong emotional attachments and, on the other, they have to formally organize decision-making processes for the company and the family. Large business families, however, which may consist of some 700 related shareholders of one or more family businesses, are confronted with an additional dynamic: as business families, they must not only ‘double up’, i.e. not only be family and organization at the same time, but in a sense ‘triple up’. This is because, over and above their family- and organization-related tasks, these families have to ensure that networks of informal ‘give and take’ are established between the distantly related family members in order to foster cohesion among them and a connection to the business. In their chapter Company, Family, Business Family: Systems-Theoretical Perspectives on the Extension of Three-Circle Thinking, Arist von Schlippe and Torsten Groth offer a critical examination of the classic model of the three overlapping circles of family, business and ownership. Based on sociological systems theory, the overlapping of the systems is fundamentally questioned. Based on the concept of polycontexturality, an alternative model of description and explanation is offered for business families. According to this model, we can imagine social systems as structures of expectations that operate next to each other and include people, such as members of business families, simultaneously but in very different ways. In this way, the three circles are replaced by a mixture of expectations that are bundled together with regard to family, entrepreneurial and ownership aspects, but which do not overlap systemically and remain clearly differentiated from one another.

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In yet another chapter Heiko Kleve presents his text The Business Family of Society: Function, Code and Medium of an Unusual Social System, a rather experimental contribution to systems theory. In so doing, he poses the question of how and what we can describe and explain when we evaluate business families as social functional systems. Until recently, family businesses and business families have been viewed primarily in terms of interactional and organizational analysis. Extending this approach, he asks what knowledge can be gained if we understand the unit of the business family as a social structure that stabilizes itself because it fulfils a specific function in society that is not realized by any other system. The article outlines some arguments for the question of what this function might be. Finally, Tobias Koellner and Heiko Kleve close the volume with a new perspective that emphasizes the making, re-making and unmaking of the business family. In their chapter The Doing Family Concept: A New Perspective on Understanding the Production and Cohesion of Business Families, they introduce the notion of ‘doing family’ (Jurczyk et al. 2014; Jurczyk 2020), which has been elaborated in family sociology based on processual understandings of kinship and relatedness (Carsten 2000, 2004). Through this, the two authors are able to emphasize the making of the business family and its relation to the nuclear family and the family business.

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Bertram, H. (2013). Das Individuum und seine Familie: Lebensformen, Familienbeziehungen und Lebensereignisse im Erwachsenenalter. Wiesbaden: Springer. Carsten, J. (Ed.). (2000). Cultures of Relatedness: New Approaches to the Study of Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carsten, J. (Ed.). (2004). After Kinship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Caspary, S. (2018). Das Familienunternehmen als Sozialisationskontext für Unternehmerkinder. Wiesbaden: Springer. Chandler, A. D. (1990). Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Chirico, F. & Nordqvist, M. (2010). Dynamic Capabilities and Trans-Generational Value Creation in Family Firms: The Role of Organizational Culture. International Small Business Journal 28, (pp. 487–504). Chirico, F. & Salvato, C. (2016). Knowledge Internalization and Product Development in Family Firms: When Relational and Affective Factors Matter. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 40 (1), (pp. 201–229). Durkheim, E. (1999 [1893]). Über soziale Arbeitsteilung: Studie über die Organisation höherer Gesellschaften. Berlin: Suhrkamp. Dyer, W. G. (2003). Examining the “Family Effect” on Firm Performance. Family Business Review 19 (4), (pp. 253–273). Eisenstadt, S. N. (2000). “Multiple Modernities” Daedalus 129 (1), (pp. 1–29). Eisenstadt, S. N. (Ed.) (2002). Multiple Modernities. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers. Felden, B., Hack, A. & Hoon, C. (2019). Management von Familienunternehmen. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Frank, H., Lueger, M., Nosé, L. & Suchy, D. (2010). “The Concept of “Familiness”: Literature Review and Systems Theory-Based Reflections”. Journal of Family Business Strategy 1 (3), (pp. 119–130). Frank, H., Kessler, A., Rusch, T., Suess–Reyes, J. & Weismeier–Sammer, D. (2017). Capturing the Familiness of Family Businesses: Development of the Family Influence Familiness Scale (FIFS). Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 41 (5): 709–742. Fueglistaller, U. & Zellweger, T. (2007). Die volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung der Familienunternehmen in der Schweiz. Schweizer Arbeitgeber (15), (pp. 30–34). Gersick, K., Davis, J., McCollom Hampton, M., & Lansberg, I. (1997). Generation to Generation: Life Cycles of the Family Business. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Gómez-Mejía, L. et al. 2007. Socioemotional wealth and business risks in family-controlled firms: Evidence from Spanish olive oil mills. Administrative Science Quarterly 52 (1) (pp. 106–137). Goody, J. (1996). The East in the West. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Groth, T. & Vater, G. (2009). “Die Familie im Familienunternehmen”. In T. A. Rüsen et al. (Hrsg.), Familienunternehmen: Exploration einer Unternehmensform, (pp. 73–91). Lohmar: Eul Verlag. Habbershon, T. G., & Williams, M. L. (1999). A Resource-Based Framework for Assessing the Strategic Advantages of Family Firms. Family Business Review 12 (1): 1–25. Habbershon, T. G., Wiliams, M. & MacMillan, I. C. (2003). A unified Systems Perspective of Family Firm Performance. Journal of Business Venturing 18, (pp. 451–465).

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Hasenzagl, R. (2018). “Enterpriseness – Was machen Organisationen aus Familien?” In M. Lueger et al. (Eds.), Die Unternehmerfamilie im Kontext ihres Familienunternehmens, (pp. 29–63). Wien: Facultas. Hildenbrand, B. (2011 [2002]). Familienbetriebe als „Familien eigener Art“. In F. B. Simon (Ed.), Die Familie des Familienunternehmens. Ein System zwischen Gefühl und Geschäft, (pp. 116–144). Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag. Howell, S. (2006). The Kinning of Foreigners. Transnational Adoption in a Global Perspective. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Jaskiewicz, P., Combs, J. G., & Rau, S. B. (2015). “Entrepreneurial Legacy: Toward a Theory of How some Family Firms Nurture Transgenerational Entrepreneurship”. Journal of Business Venturing 30 (1), (pp. 29–49). Jaskiewicz, P., Combs, J. G., Shanine, K. K. & Kacmar, K. M. (2017). “Introducing the Family: A Review of Family Science with Implications for Management Research”. . Academy of Management Annals 11 (1), (pp. 309–341). Jurczyk, K., Lange, A. & Thiessen, B. (Eds.). (2014). Doing Family: Warum Familienleben heute nicht mehr selbstverständlich ist. München: Juventa Verlag. Jurczyk, K. (Ed.). (2020). Doing und Undoing Family. Weinheim: Beltz Juventa Keßler, A., Frank, H. & von Schlippe, A. (2018). “Bestimmungsfaktoren der Identität von Unternehmerfamilien” In M. Lueger et al. (Eds.), Die Unternehmerfamilie im Kontext ihres Familienunternehmens, (pp. 175–205). Wien: Facultas. Kleve, H. (2017a). “Verlust und Wiedergewinn des Möglichkeitssinns. Familienstrategische Pfadabhängigkeit aus systemtheoretischer Perspektive.” FuS – Zeitschrift für Familienunternehmen und Strategie, (5/2017), (pp. 170–174). Kleve, H. (2017b). “Das Tetralemma der Unternehmerfamilie. Skizze eines systemischen Forschungsprogramms.” systeme, (2/2017), (pp. 224–243). Kleve, H. (2017c). “System Compliance in Unternehmerfamilien. Konfliktprävention durch Beachtung elementarer Systemregeln.” Konfliktdynamik, (4/2017), (pp. 294–300). Kleve, H. (2018). “Die Organisation des Familiennetzwerks. Management großer Unternehmerfamilien als Ermöglichung von Reziprozität – eine Theorieskizze.” FuS – Zeitschrift für Familienunternehmen und Strategie, (2/2018), (pp. 44–49). Kleve, H. (2020). Die Unternehmerfamilie. Wie Wachstum, Sozialisation und Beratung gelingen. Heidelberg. Carl-Auer. Kleve, H., von Schlippe, A. & Rüsen, T. A. (2018a). “Unternehmerfamilie 3.0. Große Unternehmerfamilien als Familien, Organisationen und Netzwerke.” OrganisationsEntwicklung, (4/2018), (pp. 52–58). Kleve, H., Koellner, T. & Schreiber, C. (2018b). “Family Business” Return 5 (5), (pp. 62–65). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s41964-018-0146-1 Kleve, H., Koellner, T., von Schlippe, A. & Rüsen, T. A. (2020). „The Business Family 3.0: Dynastic Business Families as Families, Organizations and Networks; Outline of a Theory Extension”. Systems Research and Behavioral Science. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/sres. 2684. Kleve, H., Boyd, B., Koellner, T. & Rüsen, T. (2022). „Überlebensgeschichten im transgenerationalen Unternehmertum: Narrative und Narrationen in Familienunternehmen und Unternehmerfamilien“. In Narrative Praxis: Ein Handbuch für Beratung, Therapie und Coaching. Edited by Jakob, P., Borcsa, M., Olthof, J. & von Schlippe, A., (pp. 347–359). Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

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Kocka, J. (1979). Familie, Unternehmer und Kapitalismus. Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte (24), (pp. 99–135). Koellner, T. (2012). Practising without Belonging? Entrepreneurship, Religion and Morality in Contemporary Russia. Berlin: LIT Verlag und Transaction publishers. Koellner, T. (2018). “Ethnologie und Forschung zu Familienunternehmen: Plädoyer für eine Annäherung” FuS – Familienunternehmen und Strategie (05/2018), (pp. 154–159). Koellner, T. (2022). “Family Firms and Business Families: A Field for Anthropological Research”. Anthropology Today 38 (6), (pp. 8–11). Koellner, T. (2023) (Ed.). Family Firms and Business Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Bringing Anthropology Back In. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Koellner, T., Haver-Rassfeld, H. & Kleve, H. (2022). “Das Doing-Family-Konzept: Eine neue Perspektive zum Verständnis der Herstellung und des Zusammenhalts von Unternehmerfamilien“. Familienunternehmen und Strategie 01/2022, (pp. 11–17). Koellner, T., Boyd, B., Kleve, H. & Rüsen, T. (2023). “Producing and Reproducing the Business Family across Generations: The Importance of Narratives in German Business Families.” In Family Firms and Business Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Bringing Anthropology Back In. Edited by T. Koellner. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Kormann, H. (2011). Zusammenhalt der Unternehmerfamilie: Verträge, Vermögensmanagement, Kommunikation. Heidelberg: Springer. Krueger, N., Bogers, M. L., Labaki, R. & Basco, R. (2021). “Advancing Family Business Science through Context Theorizing: The Case of the Arab World”. Journal of Family Business Strategy 12 (1), 100377. Kushins, E. R. & Behounek, E. (2020). “Using Sociological Theory to Problematize Family Business Research”. Journal of Family Business Strategy 11 (1), 100337. Leiß, G. (2014). „Ich seh das Ganze als Staffellauf.“ Intergenerative Aushandlung im Nachfolgeprozess von Unternehmerfamilien. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Systeme. Lueger, M., Frank, H. & Korunka, C. (2018). Die Unternehmerfamilie im Kontext ihres Familienunternehmens. Wien: Facultas. Luhmann, N. (1998). Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft. 2 volumes. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Martin, J. (2023). “How ‘Enduring Bonds’ are Made: Insights from Fulbe Kinship Enterprises in Northern Benin”. In Family Firms and Business Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Bringing Anthropology Back In. Edited by Koellner, T. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Miller, D. & Le Breton-Miller, I. (2005). Managing for the Long Run: Lessons in Competitive Advantage from Great Family Businesses. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Nave-Herz, R. (2004). Ehe- und Familiensoziologie: Eine Einführung in Geschichte, theoretische Ansätze und empirische Befunde. Weinheim, München: Juventa. Pieper, T. M. & Astrachan, J. H. (2008). Mechanisms to Assure Family Business Cohesion: Guidelines for Family Business Leaders and Their Families. Kennesaw: Cox Family Enterprise Center. Rüsen, T. A., Kleve, H., & von Schlippe, A. (2021). Managing Business Family Dynasties. Cham: Springer. Rüsen, T., Kleve, H. und Schlippe, A. v. (2019). Die dynastische Großfamilie. Skizze eines spezifischen Typus von Unternehmerfamilien, in: Kleve, H. und Köllner, T. (Hrsg.): Die Soziologie der Unternehmerfamilie. Grundlagen, Entwicklungslinien, Perspektiven. Wiesbaden: Springer/VS, 225–245.

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von Schlippe, A. (2014). Das kommt in den besten Familien vor. . . Systemische Konfliktbearbeitung in Familien und Familienunternehmen. Stuttgart: Concadora. von Schlippe, A. & Frank, H. (2013). The Theory of Social Systems as a Framework for Understanding Family Businesses. Family Relations 62 (3), (pp. 384–398). von Schlippe, A., Groth, T. & Rüsen, T. A. (2017). Die beiden Seiten der Unternehmerfamilie. Familienstrategie über Generationen. Auf dem Weg zu einer Theorie der Unternehmerfamilie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Schröder, E. (2011). Wertetransmission von Eltern und Kindern in Familienunternehmen. In EQUA Stiftung (Hrsg.), EQUA-Schriftenreihe, (12). Bonn: Unternehmer Medien. Simon, F. B. (Ed.) (2005). Die Familie des Familienunternehmens: Ein System zwischen Gefühl und Geschäft. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag. Simon, F. B. (2012). Einführung in die Theorie des Familienunternehmens. Heidelberg: CarlAuer. Stamm, I. (2013). Unternehmerfamilien. Über den Einfluss des Unternehmens auf Lebenslauf, Generationenbeziehungen und soziale Identität. Leverkusen: Budrich. Stiftung Familienunternehmen (eds) (2019). Die volkswirtschaftliche Bedeutung von Familienunternehmen. München: Stiftung Familienunternehmen. Tyrell, H. (1976). Probleme einer Theorie der gesellschaftlichen Ausdifferenzierung der privatisierten modernen Kleinfamilie. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 5 (4), (pp. 393–417). Wiechers, R. & Klett, D. (2005). Die Unternehmerfamilie: Ein Risiko des Familienunternehmens? RiskNews 2 (3), (pp. 44–50). Wimmer, R. (2009). “Familienunternehmen” In A. von Schlippe, T. A. Rüsen, T. Groth (Hrsg.), Beiträge zur Theorie des Familienunternehmens, (pp. 1–16). Lothmar-Köln, Josef Eul. Yanagisako, S.J. (2002). Producing Culture and Capital. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Yanagisako, S. (2019). “Family Firms as Kinship Enterprises”. Economics Discussion Papers, No. 2019–12, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), Kiel. Zellweger, T. M., Eddleston, K. A. & Kellermanns, F. W. (2010). Exploring the Concept of Familiness: Introducing Family Firm Identity. Journal of Family Business Strategy 1 (1), (pp. 54–63).

Tobias Koellner Dr. habil., is anthropologist and sociologist, Senior Research Fellow at the WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business. Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/ Herdecke. Heiko Kleve Prof. Dr., is sociologist and social pedagogue, holder of the Chair for Organization and Development of Business Families at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke.

Part I Foundations

The Hunger for Human Capital: Industrial Society and Family Development Hans Bertram

Introduction The development of industrial societies in the nineteenth century was only possible because the systematic and organized development of ideas by single individuals that had existed in all centuries – think of the work of Leonardo da Vinci (Isaacson 2017) – was supplemented and expanded by an equally methodical “rational organization of work” (Lehmann and Roth 1993) as well as by open markets, where all participants acted on the basis of the same rules. It was only by this rational organization of work and the open markets that it became possible to create mass-produced products that could be manufactured in the same way and with the same quality as a craftsman’s individual product. Entire libraries have been filled since the mid-nineteenth century on the emergence of modern industrial societies and their further development into knowledge-based societies. Sociological scholars such as Max Weber, to whom Roth (2001) refers here, or Emile Durkheim, with his classic study “On the Division of Labour” (Durkheim 1992), have tried to explain this, as have social historians (Braudel 1986) and social philosophers such as Marx and Engels (Marx and Engels 2014 [1845]). However, this revolutionary transformation of economic development in the nineteenth century also required many people who were prepared to subordinate their lifetime, their everyday time and their life goals to such a rational organization of work, the time cycle of which was no longer the season as in an agrarian society, but the time organization of goods production. Economic historians such as Landes (2003), similarly to Perrot and Aries (Perrot and Aries 1994), describe the protracted H. Bertram (✉) Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_2

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struggles and disputes around the need for people to adapt to this new temporal order of their lives. An essential element of this new way of life was the development of the nuclear family, organized around the division of labour, including father, mother and children, which for Talcott Parsons (Parsons and Bales 1955) was the “factory of personality” of modern industrial society. For this kind of production of goods was only possible if people were disciplined in their sense of duty and willingness to adapt to the developing world of work. In recent years we are again experiencing a profound change in the production of goods. The ideas and conceptions of ingenious inventors and engineers, which are today implemented with machines, are no longer the basis of the current production of goods. Rather, heterogeneous teams with different competences from partly contradictory fields of knowledge try to jointly develop and implement goods, or work cooperatively on projects. Meanwhile, this form of production can only be achieved if the entire human capital available in a society is used. The production process of knowledge and ideas is also increasingly subject to a similar logic as the production of material goods, which describes the central thesis of this essay: ideas and conceptions can only be implemented when individuals systematically and methodically deal with certain questions and problems. The industrial production of goods extended this process to the entire production process, whereby craftsmanship lost its importance. At present we are witnessing the same process in the scientific production of ideas and conceptions, which are now also subjected to the rationality of a work organization. The teamwork of scientists in large-scale university projects or the development work of engineers in innovative technical projects and even the production of cultural and artistic goods are increasingly being carried out in the form of this rational organization of work. It is hard for us to imagine today that projects on climate change, for example, or industrial projects to develop a new mobile phone, can be organized in any other way than in rational, time-determined work organizational structures, in which a large part of the available human capital is put into the organization of work and the production of knowledge. From an economic perspective, this means that the demand for human capital will continue to rise. What the “factory of the personality” – which can ensure a socialization process in which the personality develops precisely those attitudes and perspectives necessary to find a subjective sense of life in this work organization – will look like today and in the future, is seldom discussed. In industrial society, the socialization task was reserved for the nuclear family, and to a lesser degree for the neighbourhood and other social relationships. In contrast, school, and this applies to all European countries, was essentially reserved for the teaching of cognitive skills and abilities. So far, there is no substitute for this model of the “factory of the

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personality”, because the development of many of these qualities requires close personal ties, and this is precisely what educational institutions do not provide. This will be shown in the following section.

The Household as a Place of Production Richard Cadbury, a tea and coffee merchant in Birmingham at the beginning of the nineteenth century, lived with his wife Elisabeth and his children in the house where his shop was located (Perrot and Ariès 1994). He could not have been a successful businessman without the energetic support of his wife, who not only managed the household (including two employees) but also the business in his absence, because his trading trips also meant longer absences from home. This division of labour was not unique to the Cadbury family, but was common to the craft and smaller manufacturing businesses of the early nineteenth century. Only the wealthy upper classes could afford to maintain a large household with servants, because agricultural goods production often took place elsewhere. The Cadbury couple’s division of labour was also due to the times. Today it is easily overlooked that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, reproduction took up a considerable portion of a woman’s life: even if she only raised two to three children, the reproduction period could last 12 to 14 or even 16 years, because miscarriages, mortality of infants and raising children up to the age of ten could all increase the time required to rear a family. In his definition of family, Max Weber therefore mentions as a constitutive element first the caring relationship of the mother to her children and then the relationships between mother and child and siblings (Weber and Winckelmann 2002, p. 192). Historically, this is quite understandable, because these mother– child relationships shaped everyday family life into a “community”, in which it was never certain whether the children would survive. The role of the father in Weber’s description is very similar to Richard Cadbury’s, with the main task being to ensure the economic existence of the entire household. This includes not only the family in the strict sense, but also the household and business employees living with the family. As a consequence, boys in such households usually also had the opportunity for an apprenticeship if their parents could finance it, while girls were only introduced to housekeeping and the then rather complex household management tasks via their mothers. This was also the case with the Cadburys. In addition to this educational disadvantage for young women, there were also various legal regulations for married women that excluded them from active

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business activity. Seen from today’s perspective, at that time, in this family constellation and couple relationship, it was extraordinarily difficult to work outside the home due to the long reproductive period of the mothers and the uncertainty of the child’s life expectancy. Furthermore, there were clear legal rules of discrimination against women, which, however, did not adversely affect the climate of the family in the Cadbury case, if one follows the accounts of historians. This can also be understood well by following Weber’s definition of “household communism”. For relations outside the household in business life usually follow a rationality governed by certain purposes with the basic principles of performance and consideration. For those who live together in a household, according to Weber, mere membership in that household is the basis for the claim to be provided for according to need. It is not the principle of performance but the principle of solidarity that is the basis of household communism. Even if this sounds conceptually antiquated today, it should be made clear that the legal figure of “Zugewinngemeinschaft” (Meder 2010) as well as the act of divorce both assume that this family relationship is not based on rationality, but on solidarity. The consequence of this is that, in the event of a separation, all shares of the joint benefits are weighted equally, as is also the case for tax purposes. Richard Cadbury, as a Quaker, adhered to a variant of Protestantism that Weber placed under the broad category of Puritanism (Lehmann and Roth 1993). Quakers attributed their own actions to themselves, not to any prevailing circumstances or fate. With their faith orientation, they were required to live methodically and frugally, and successful economic activity could not be used to satisfy personal needs and live abundantly, but was reinvested in the enterprise. An important obligation found in the educational writings of the seventeenth to nineteenth centuries in the religious context of the Puritans, Calvinists, Quakers and other Protestants was the education of children not only to become God-fearing citizens, but also to become independent and self-reliant men and women who had to perform the tasks assigned to them dutifully, carefully and with respect for others. This educational goal was expected of families and parents, not only in England, but also in Germany. According to the Prussian Land Law of 1794 (Tenorth 2014), the state only required parents who were unable to teach or appropriately nurture their children themselves to send them to school. If the father of the house was not able to teach his children adequately, it was incumbent upon him to provide for their instruction. Compulsory education was not introduced in Germany until the Weimar Constitution of 1919 (Tenorth 2014). To this day, many European countries do not have compulsory schooling, but only compulsory education, which parents have to organize (Tenorth 2014).

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The Family as a Factory of the Child’s Personality Richard Cadbury lived with his wife and children above the shop. In the next generation, however, living patterns changed drastically. In general, it can be said that the increased economic resources allowed families to live independently of their businesses and in their own houses without other relatives, employees and servants. Not only in England was this way of life attractive at the time for those who could afford it. In parallel, the same development could be observed in Germany, for example, in Hamburg, because the separation of work and family was extraordinarily attractive for the families concerned, as long as they had the right economic basis (Teuteberg 1986). For in a household with many different people, personal closeness, intimacy, personal trust and open contact with each other are difficult to have, because everyone else is not only listening in, but also interacting as a rule. Therefore, privacy and a lifestyle detached from business were highly desirable for both parents and children. The parents could develop their personal relationship communally and did not run the risk of having to justify themselves to others, and for the children, this family constellation meant that an entire person, namely the mother, was released from gainful employment for the care of the children (Hochschild 2005). This “traditional-warm” family model of industrial society (Hochschild 2005) has been described in detail by Talcott Parsons (e.g. Parsons et al. 1998). With regard to the children, the father as the provider of the family had the task of not only securing the economic existence of the family by his personal actions outside and within the family, but also of imparting to the children those values and perspectives that enabled them later, as adults, to meet the values and requirements of the industrial society based on the division of labour. Parsons called these values “universalistic”. In contrast, he believed that the task of mothers was to secure the relationships within the family and the cohesion of the family in such a way that the children and the man could develop and recover within it; this is the socialization and regeneration function of the family. For the developing industrial society, this family model had the advantage that the person, usually the father, who secured the economic existence of the family outside the family, was completely exempted from caring for the children, with the consequence of being available to the labour market 24 hours a day. For the production of industrial goods in the nineteenth, twentieth and even still in the twenty-first century is designed for the most efficient, i.e. rational, production of goods, so that the capital employed can work 24 hours a day. An observable expression of this idea is the classical three-shift day, which shaped the lives of

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many families and many cities until the 1970s, and which still affects a significant proportion of the population today. In view of the temporal conditions of work with first 12 hours and later 8 hours a day, and that 6 days a week, as well as the physical strain, the attractiveness of this rigorously work-sharing family model is easy to understand, because at least one of the partners was not subjected to these working conditions. But it is an illusion to believe that all families in the nineteenth, twentieth and also twenty-first centuries could follow this model, regardless of its attractiveness.

The Order of the Family Today, we naturally assume that parents not only love their children but also care for them, and consider this the most natural and self-evident human action. However, not only anthropological research (Hrdy 2011) but also French social history (Segalen 1990; Donzelot and Raulff 1980; Flandrin 1978) show that this intense devotion of parents to their children also pertains to a historical development of deep emotional bonds and often lifelong personal emotional relationships and support services of parents for their children and later of children for their parents. The historian Jacques Donzelot (1980) describes the various attempts of the French state at the beginning of the nineteenth century to overcome the wet nurse problem; at that time it was quite common for newborn children to be taken straight to wet nurses, as it was not customary for mothers to breastfeed their own children. Therefore it was common that these newborns often died on the journey to the wet nurse. Donzelot reports on a competition held by the French Academy of Sciences in 1835, which concluded that the cheapest thing for the state to do was to build homes for mothers so that they could care for their children there, and to make fathers provide for the upkeep of mothers and children. This type of family and family relationship is mentioned for the first time in the French Dictionary of the Academy at that time, as the fourth definition among various interpretations of family. It did not stop there, however; in fact, from 1845 onwards, such dwellings were built in the suburbs of the French capital and, at the same time, streets and roads were laid out in such a way that the police had quick access to anyone living there (Donzelot and Raulff 1980). Furthermore, early on, the state, similar to Prussian land law, made it incumbent on parents to ensure that all children who could not receive private instruction attended school; if they did not, parents were held accountable.

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The many workers’ settlements built in various European countries, whether by employers as in the Ruhr area of Germany or in England, or by municipalities and the state, also followed this logic, developed around 1830 and in practice until the 1970s, that the family was a unit consisting of father, mother and children, living together in a place independent of the parents’ parents and sharing responsibility for the children. In this context, the father bore primary economic responsibility because he was free of care obligations and could accordingly be employed around the clock by his employer. The mother was essentially responsible for care. Due to the bitter poverty in the nineteenth and also at the beginning of the twentieth century, this family image was an ideal in all European countries, but it could only be put into practice by those who had the economic resources to do so. Therefore, the labour force participation rate of mothers with children in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was sometimes higher than in the 1960s (Scott and Tilly 2009). Erich Kästner (1977) describes the everyday life of his childhood as the child of a master saddler: his father worked in a suitcase factory in Dresden because his craft qualifications were not recognized in Germany (he had received his qualifications in Israel). His mother had no professional qualifications, just like the women of the Cadbury family, who were not employed. However, in the three-room apartment of the Kästner family, the living room was rented to a teacher, who of course got breakfast from his mother; she herself used the kitchen to cut the hair of the neighbouring women, and still helped out in a laundry shop. Despite these difficult conditions and the poverty in Kästner’s home, the new message had arrived that it was the mother’s task to develop and educate the children. Kästner describes very impressively and convincingly how his mother supported and encouraged him in many ways despite his lack of schooling and without any professional qualifications. His literary descriptions correspond well with the observations of Frederic LePlay (Brooke 2017): that mothers in the mid-nineteenth century presumably worked more than men because, in addition to raising and nurturing the children, they still had to master the household and its economic existence. This observation by LePlay (Brooke 2017) from the nineteenth century was still true in the 1920s. The average combined working time in the household as a caregiver and in the factory was about 80 hours for a mother with children from the working class, while the bourgeois woman worked approximately 35 hours without an outside job, which partly explains the high attractiveness of this life model (Baum and Westerkamp 1931). This family model of industrial society not only shaped the ideas of life and the life aspirations of the people concerned, but also had a major impact on the development and design of the new metropolitan settlements and suburbs

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throughout Europe and North America. For the basic idea of separating work and family life and organizing family life in the form of the neolocal spousal family usually underlay ideas about the development of cities and urban suburbs (Scott 1998). When Talcott Parsons, with Robert Bales, developed the concept of the family as a “factory of the filial personality”, he had previously, as he also documents, looked at post-World War II building development in the United States and found that home construction in suburban settlements had increased. The famous urban sociological study “Levittown” by Gans (1982) describes the social relations of such a newly built suburban settlement. It refers to a real suburb near New York developed by the construction company Levitt and Sons, which had initially built barracks for American soldiers in Europe after the Second World War. The ideas of the French architect LeCourbusier (Scott 1998), as well as those of the Bauhaus in Weimar, corresponded to a large extent to this conception of life of the small and nuclear family organized according to the division of labour. In Europe, more than in the USA, this idea was realized in multi-storey housing, not only before but also after the Second World War, with surprisingly few differences between the various political systems. Suburban housing estates in Lyon, West and East Berlin, or even in London and Liverpool, differed perhaps in building materials and external appearance, but whatever the political system, the order of living together was, as a matter of course, the neolocal husband-and-wife family. It should also be mentioned, however, that within these housing estates the production of industrial goods generated noise and dirt, exhaust fumes were difficult to control and the transport of goods in the vicinity of industrial plants so dominated public space that it was difficult to imagine an everyday family life in it. Just as this way of life was assumed to be correct for everyone and built accordingly, a second central assumption was also accepted across the system: namely, the great importance of parents in child development. Parenting guidebooks (Bronfenbrenner 1965) registered high circulations at all times of industrial society, sometimes rivalling the Bible (Spock and Needlman 2012). The basic assumption that socialization in the parental home is crucial for child development was also widespread regardless of the political system. Thus, when children and adolescents exhibited deviant behaviour, psychological and educational works by GDR scholars argued that this deviant behaviour was due to the flawed, usually presumably bourgeois, behaviour of their parents (Korzilius 2005). Donzelot (1980) had already noted for the nineteenth century that this concept of the family saw the family as the optimal place for child socialization. For the state, this assumption had the undeniable advantage that quite obviously, in the case of children with behavioural problems, the parents had not raised them properly. If parents

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socialized their children properly for industrial society, they not only secured the human capital of industrial society, but also saved the state enormous resources.

Human Capital and the Catholic Worker Girl The widespread adoption of the neolocal spousal family even led sociologists to argue that this familial form of life, first developed in the nineteenth century, would spread worldwide. Goode (1970), for example, argued that the industrial revolution of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries would lead to the worldwide spread of this familial form of life in those countries where a methodical and purposeful organization of the world of work had led not only to the division and differentiation of the labour processes themselves, but also to a clear differentiation of production and reproduction. This optimistic thesis was already controversial at the time of its genesis. René König (1969), for example, had already pointed out in 1946 that the institution of the “family”, which was only connected to the other social institutions, above all the world of work, via one partner in the family, namely the father, could not really be stable because the internal relationships of the group were only based on emotional ties, which by their nature could not guarantee stability for an institution. According to König, the “disintegration” of the family from the social context in this variant based on the division of labour can be one of the causes of the “destabilization” of families. In an analysis of children’s living arrangements using U.S. Census data from 1794 to 1990, Hernandez (1993) shows that Parsons’ model of the neolocal spousal family, with its specific division of labour between husband and wife, became the primary living arrangement for children in the U.S. in the mid-nineteenth century and remained so until the early 1960s. However, at no time did the majority of U.S. children up to the age of 18 live in this way, for even in the heyday of this way of life in the mid-1950s, the figure was only around 48%. German official statistics also show only slightly more than 50% of all children up to the age of 18 in this familial arrangement during its heyday in the early 1970s. Thus, from a historical perspective, the neolocal spousal family based on the division of labour was a relatively short phase of about 70 to 100 years for the majority of children (Bertram and Deuflhard 2014). Here the question arises as to why of all things has this way of life, usually referred to as the “traditional family”, which in a historical perspective is by no means traditional, acquired such importance in the academic debate and in family

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policy? This is almost certainly related to the fact that many family scholars have repeated the same central error made by Parsons. Max Weber (2002) has described household cohabitation as a constitutive element of family because household goods are provided to members on the basis of affiliation rather than performance. He himself points out that this solidarity can continue even when family members no longer live together in the household. He takes the Cadbury family business in the second generation as an example of this, when the brothers, unlike their father and mother, lived in different houses, but worked together in the business, where their performance was methodically and rationally evaluated. In the case of claims to the profits of a company, on the other hand, membership of the family may well continue as a new form of solidarity outside the household. The idea that family relationships, especially intimate ones, can continue to exist without family members living together in the household, and that there is thus also continuing family solidarity and support, is practically absent from the analyses of the neolocal spousal family. Yet it was already demonstrated in the early 1970s for the middle classes (Bott 1971) and lower classes that families are integrated into a context of family relationships and neighbourhood, through which the children are socialized and solidarity services are provided between the families. In Germany, Pfeil (1961, 1973) was one of the first to provide this evidence, and at the same time was able to show that in the 1950s in the Federal Republic more than a third of women were employed, and that with the long working hours of the time, because otherwise the family economy with the children would not have sufficed. Completely forgotten by the model of neolocal spousal families were the children whose parents had died before they reached adulthood. In the Federal Republic, for example, the number of children born to single mothers was almost as high in the 1960s as it was in the late 1980s. Hernandez (1993) estimates for the United States that historically about 30% of all children did not experience cohabitation with their parents until the age of 18. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the main reason for this was the death of a parent, and since the 1960s, much more frequently, the divorce of parents. In Germany today, around 70% of all children live with both their parents until the age of 18 (Bertram and Deuflhard 2014). Criticism of this model focused essentially on the unequal definition of the roles of men and women. For unlike in the model of the whole house, in which both partners contributed to the economic basis of the household and the woman thus also had bargaining power vis-à-vis the man despite her legally unequal position, the woman’s bargaining power vis-à-vis the man is very small in a model that concentrates external relations and the economic basis of the family solely on the man. Her duties and obligations are essentially defined in terms of caring for the

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children and are not applicable in negotiation processes with the man, but are necessarily oriented towards the needs of the children; she has no other options in this type of situation. This gain of power and autonomy of the man over the woman and mother is dysfunctional in the construction of modern industrial society. In this structure of relationships, the socialization service is considered “universalistic”, and is considered necessary by the father, but can no longer be taken for granted. It is no coincidence that in the 1950s and 1960s there were also discussions about the role of the father in a “fatherless” society (Mitscherlich 2003), because even then it became clear that this model was not suitable for representing the achievements of this relationship structure. In terms such as the “socialization weakness of the lowerclass father” (Neidhardt 1965), similar hypotheses were formulated in the 1970s in order to precisely name the deficits of this model. Ralf Dahrendorf (1966) summed up the weakness of this model with the construct of the “Catholic working girl from the countryside”. As early as the 1960s, it became apparent that the changing industrial society with its increasingly differentiated production and service structure had a need for human capital that could no longer be met by traditional family role patterns. This is because the upbringing and development of boys and girls still followed the same patterns in the 1960s as they did in the days of Robert Cadbury. Friedeburg (1965) showed that the overwhelming majority of parents believed that boys needed an education in order to later secure the family household economically as fathers, while girls only needed a dowry because they would likely marry at the age of around 22 or 23. The discussion about the “education catastrophe” (Picht 1964) was fed by the fear that the Federal Republic of Germany would no longer be competitive with other countries because of the lack of human capital. Without the willingness of parents to support their children in education for longer, regardless of gender, it was feared that the new challenges of the post-industrial society (Bell 1976) would not be met for the daughters. This opinion was shared by all political parties represented in the Bundestag, and even by those who adopted the model of the neolocal spousal family as an important part of their own program. This was because the southern federal states, which were consistently governed by conservatives at the time, invested just as much, and in some cases even more, in expanding educational opportunities, including in rural areas, and in providing educational opportunities for girls like in the northern federal states or North Rhine-Westphalia. It is possible that this openness and willingness to invest here and to motivate parents to significantly change their ideas regarding their children’s education was also shaped by the realization that the industrial and service society in the south of the Federal Republic, which was changing at the time, already had labour force

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participation rates among 25- to 49-year-old women in the 1970s that hardly differed from Sweden or Finland. This is remarkable because the conservative orientation in Southern Germany would have indicated stronger differences. In the highly industrialized regions of the Federal Republic, such as North Rhine-Westphalia or Saarland with its heavy industry, women’s employment rates were very low during the phase when the raising of children took up a lot of time. This was not an expression of the policies of the respective state governments in these federal states, but rather corresponded to the lifestyles of the regions characterized by industrial work. At that time, Munich, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg all had relatively high female employment rates, which roughly corresponded to the rates in Berlin. This was an essential prerequisite for the fact that in these regions, in addition to the local industry, investments could be made in new areas, because the corresponding human capital was available as female gainful employment to a greater extent than in the industrial regions. The increase in female gainful employment in recent decades is a process of alignment of the countries north of the Main (the longest tributary of the River Rhine) with the countries south of it. Today, the southern states are still ahead, and the female employment rate in the new federal states does not exceed the rate in the southern states. The development into a knowledge-based and service-centred industrial society would not have succeeded without the integration of women into gainful employment, even in the southern federal states of Germany. Since the employment rates in the Federal Republic were always compared internationally, this development remained undiscovered for a long time. This trend is likely to continue, as in addition to the integration of young women and mothers into the workforce and the willingness of parents to invest more in their children’s education, young women have caught up incredibly quickly with young men in their participation in education, that is, in less than a generation (Wissenschaftlicher Dienst Deutscher Bundestag 2016). This investment by parents in their children and the investment by the state in a wider range of educational institutions leads to an expanded supply of human capital that does not go unused in a society that is competing internationally. This also shows that the economic forces that generated this demand for human capital destroyed the model of the neolocal spousal family, organized according to the division of labour, as it unfolded in the nineteenth century as a model of industrial society, through its contradictory nature to the requirements of economic development. In view of this development, in which economics and history have overridden a particular family model, the question arises as to how the central functions of the family, namely reproduction, the socialization of children and the demands of the parents, are guaranteed when both parents are integrated into the labour market. In

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the meantime, the term “work-life balance” has become established for this, and indicates that the individuals of a society should be given the opportunity to individually balance, according to their own situation, the demands of gainful employment, securing their economic existence and also the social relationships with partners, parents, children, neighbours and friends that need to be satisfied. In this way, they should have the opportunity to fulfil their family obligations and provide care for their children or their parents in such a way that they subjectively feel they can relate to the different areas of life and the different demands of the economic and family worlds.

The Question of the Future of the Post-industrial Society For Weber, as for Parsons, securing the family’s existence and the father’s economic provision of care for the family were not only essential elements of the paternal role, but also part of the father’s solidarity with the other family members, such as the children, who were secured existentially without question. This provision of care for the children was provided without a clear expectation of return, since in all industrial societies security in old age was provided by the state or the firm. The same applies to maternal care, because here too, old-age security was and is provided by the father or the state. However, the future viability of this model is increasingly being called into question due to demographic developments. Contemporary public debates currently only address the care provision of parents for their children when it comes to the division of labour between the sexes. Theoretically, gender-specific care provision is dysfunctional if the father’s economic provision is not complemented by a corresponding educational provision. This separation no longer corresponds to empirically lived reality, because for many families at all stages of industrial society the family economy could only function if both parents contributed to subsistence. As important as gender equity is (BMFSFJ 2017), it is often forgotten when discussing these issues that both parents, with a model of division of labour that may not be gender equitable, are still the most important producers of human capital in modern industrial society. This is because even today these children grow up in a context that, unlike other cultures (GlogerTippelt and Tippelt 1986), places great expectations on early independence and assumes that these children will meet the increasing demands of school as well as the educational opportunities that exist alongside school. In these respects, highly industrialized societies differ significantly from many other societies, also irrespective of the gender of the children.

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Thus, in most industrialized countries, it took only a few years for the education and vocational qualifications of young women to match those of young men, and in some countries even surpass them. However, countries whose natural resources were similar to those of most industrialized countries still maintain structural differentiation in the development of human capital for boys and girls (Pew Research 2016). Even though the thesis on the connection between Puritan ethics and the development of capitalism is viewed more critically today than in Weber’s time, it can be assumed that the multi-level model developed by Weber to explain moral concepts and ethical orientations in industrial society is still valid today. Weber’s model assumes that in certain socio-cultural contexts, ideas about upbringing and education are created to develop the human capital of the respective society. At times, this results in concrete educational scripts which determine the behaviour and attitudes of parents. As a consequence, children later tend to show attitudes and behavioural patterns that correspond to these general societal and cultural conceptions of life. Psychologists David McClelland (1962) and Heinz Heckhausen (1962) translated Weber’s multi-level model into empirically testable concepts of meritocracy and achievement motivation. These authors applied Weber’s postulated methodical approach to life, the demand for personal responsibility and the search for appreciation in successful professional action (which in turn is seen as approval for the next step of successful professional action moving forward), into a theory of achievement motivation. According to this theory, parents and educators promote children’s and adolescents’ self-reliance primarily by preparing them for small challenges, the accomplishment and independent completion of which motivate children to gradually face further challenges. Although the connection between selfreliant education, achievement motivation, entrepreneurial action and economic development has not only been studied but also empirically proven in classical sociology (Max Weber) as well as in classical psychology (David McClelland), modern family and socialization research has never addressed it. The latter has essentially studied the conditions that prevent children from disadvantaged social groups from developing their competences. Therefore, it can only be formulated as a research desideratum to take up these classical questions again in the future and to examine how the socialization processes of children in business families proceed in global and flexible capitalism, and whether the classical assumptions of Weber and McClelland apply to all children today or only to children from such family contexts. The challenge for industrial knowledge-based societies is precisely to integrate evolving human capital into the market to meet society’s demands, while ensuring

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that human capital development continues to be achieved in the same way. The industrial society’s response to the hunger for human capital in this social formation was a traditional-warm family model that ensured child development by mothers separate from the man’s world of work, and dispensed with women’s capital for economic development, which was considered dysfunctional. The question also arises as to what answer the post-industrial society has found for this core problem in shaping the future of modern society. For the technological development of modern society with the reorganization of communication and interaction, the worldwide networking of economic and professional action, the development of new identities in the European and international context as well as the handling of crises and conflicts in distant regions, which are also always present here through their links with the international order, presuppose acting subjects who are able to move within these structures, which are in part not yet consolidated. At the same time, these acting subjects must prepare the next generation for such a relatively open and unstable perspective on life. The young Erich Kästner could rely on his mother, without formal education, to pass on to her son the educational concepts and ideas of industrial society with its emphasis on self-reliance and independence. Richard Sennett’s example in Flexible Capitalism (2000) describes a father who works as a janitor in Chicago and is fully integrated into the community and neighbourhood, and to that extent represents industrial society. His son is employed as a financial service provider worldwide; he has built up a network of professional relationships in the various places where he works. But the question of how, in such a nomadic life with frequently changing relationships in different contexts, the stability of relationships in the private and intimate spheres, which is a basic prerequisite for the socialization of children, can develop, is hardly addressed. This extension is well understood: children in households where the occupation of the parents is not strictly separated from the family way of life, as in the case of the industrial worker or a clerk or civil servant in large organizations, usually also benefit from directly experiencing the methodical way of life of their parents. For children learn best by direct observation.

Free Time, Outsourcing of Intimacy and the Institutionalization of Childhood After the education revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, the demand for human capital and the extensive integration into the labour force of men led to an extensive integration into the labour force of women, who traditionally also made up the

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largest proportion of housewives and mothers between the ages of 25 and 49. Contrary to the opinion of many scholars (Esping-Andersen 1990, 1999), the developments in the 1980s and 1990s had little to do with family policy models such as the so-called Scandinavian model (Esping-Andersen 1999) or with the expansion of childcare. Indeed, the relative proportion of housewives not in employment in the 25–49 age group fell between 1983 and 1998 in Germany from just under 45% to 22%, in the same period in the Netherlands from 54% to 27%, in Greece from about 54% to 36% and in the UK from 36% to 26%. During this period, the CDU ruled together with the FDP in the Federal Republic of Germany, conservative governments ruled in Greece as well as in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands it alternated. The implementation of a family policy oriented towards Sweden began for Germany with the Seventh Family Report (2006), when the labour force participation of women in this age group was already on a par with France. In all the countries examined here, a relatively uniform, if somewhat different, decline can be observed. This speaks to the structural change of the industrial society to a knowledge-based industrial society, which was only able to meet the demand for human capital by requiring the now wellqualified young women to combine family and work. It should also be emphasized here that the southern federal states in Germany already had the highest rates of labour force participation in these age groups in the 1970s, and still do today (cf. Fig. 1). They are in fact now also ahead of the New Länder (see also the European comparison in Fig. 2). It is not without a certain irony that the model of both parents working to secure the livelihood of the family already emerged in earlier centuries but was experienced as a housewife family model in the nineteenth century. Using the Cadbury family as an example, it was shown that the joint economic activity and division of labour for the tea trade was organized in such a way that the father was responsible for travelling, while the mother managed the household and, of course, the business during the father’s absence. This model still exists today in many handicraft businesses and small and medium-sized enterprises. The model of the housewife and mother has declined in Europe in general and is only found to a significant extent in Italy; it should also be noted in the case of Italy that the economic structural change there has not yet been as complete as in the other countries. For this reason, economists who monitor family policy and develop family policy perspectives are particularly interested in this and also make proposals on how the part-time employment model that predominates in this age group can be converted into a full-time model. For only when mothers are gainfully employed to the same extent as fathers and men are the reserves of human capital in this area exhausted from an economic perspective. In the 1970s and 1980s, work-family

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100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

1973 Unemployed Inactive Employed

R

100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

2008 Unemployed Inactive Gainfully employed

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or N Br th RW em R hi m B en ne aj e -W or rli es citi n M tp es ec kl Sa hal en a ia bu Lo H rlan rg w an d -W er ov es Sa er te rn Ha xon Po m y Sa m b xo er urg ny an - ia R G Anh hi as a ne O lt l Sc an f hl d- H fice es Pa e w la sse ig ti -H n Ki ols ate el te Fr /Lü in an be kf ck Ba Th urt/ de ur M. ni W B ngi ür av a tte a m ria b M B un r S erg ic an axo h/ de n N n y ur b em ur g St ber ut g tg ar t

Percent of women

N

or

th

R

hi ne S N -W a a r R hi W est lan ne m ph d la aj al nd or ia -P ci Sc al tie at s hl in es w Br ate i g Lo -H em w ol en er st Sa ein xo n To y Ba de K H tal n- iel es W /L se ür üb tte ec m k H b Fr am erg an b kf urg ur t/ M un Ba M. ic S va h/ t r N ut ia Be ure tga rli mb rt n er (W g es t)

Percent of women

25- to 49-year-old women by employment and region 1973 and 2008

Fig. 1 Female employment rates 1973–2011 Federal Republic of Germany. (Source: Scientific Use Files 1973 and 2008, own evaluation and presentation. Credits: Frauenerwerbsquoten 1973–2011 Bundesrepublik Deutschland: Bertram, H., Die Zweiverdiener-Familie: Ein europäischer Vergleich. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Berlin/Bad Godesberg 2017)

coordination was interpreted as a double burden (Bundesregierung 1979); today, by contrast, the time that fathers and mothers spend with the family is referred to as “free time” (Prognos 2014). In this way, socialization time for children can theoretically be interpreted as time that should not be considered further in the analysis of possible burdens on this group of individuals. To achieve this, this line of reasoning gives extraordinary priority to the expansion of childcare, including for children under three years of age, and calls for all-day schooling (OECD 2017). In this way, the time allotment for the presence in the labour market of mothers with children can

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60

Inactive population as a percentage of the total population, 25 - 49 years (%) Eurostat lfsa_ipga

Percent

50 40 30 20

do

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en

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ng Ki

ai

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A person is economically inactive. according to the International Labour Organisation definition, if he or she is not pari of the labour force. So inactive people are neither employed nor unemployed. The inactive population can include children, students, pensioners and housewives or -men. provided that they are not working at all and not available or looking for work either; some of these may be of working-age.

1983

1998

2008

2015

Fig. 2 Development of labour force participation of women aged 25–49 in a European comparison in the years 1983–2015. (Credits: Entwicklung der Erwerbsbeteiligung von Frauen zwischen 25 und 49 Jahren im europäischen Vergleich in den Jahren 1983–2015: Bertram, H., Die Zweiverdiener-Familie: Ein europäischer Vergleich. Konrad-AdenauerStiftung. Berlin/Bad Godesberg 2017)

be increased. The logic behind this is to create the necessary time quotas of presence on the labour market for mothers with children by outsourcing family-related childrearing services. Unfortunately, only a few countries have long-time data on the time use of men and women in the household. This is because only such long-term budget studies make it possible to examine in detail the time allotments for the individual spheres of life according to the age of the children, the age of the fathers and mothers and the time requirements of the various institutions for the parents and the children (Fig. 3). Bianchi et al. (2006) used the American time use studies to reconstruct the change described here for time use as well (Bertram and Deuflhard 2014). In this context, for mothers, the average working time increased from about 16 hours in 1965 to 24 hours in 2008, which is only slightly more than half compared to men in the U.S., at about 43 working hours per week. In contrast, household work hours have declined significantly from 32 to 17 hours for mothers and increased to about 10 hours for men. Childcare has also increased from 4 to 8 hours for men and from

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Weekly time use of American mothers and fathers in hours: 1965-2008. MOTHER

FATHER 32

32

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33 72

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Physiological regeneration Errands Childcare

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Term paper Gainful employment

Fig. 3 Time use over time: American mothers and fathers. (Source: Bianchi 2011, p. 27 ff. Own representation. Credits: Zeitverwendung im Zeitverlauf: Bertram, H. & Deuflhard, C. (2014) Die überforderte Generation. Familie und Arbeit in der Wissensgesellschaft. Leverkusen)

10 to 14 hours for women. These data show, first of all, that domestic work time is now handled in a much more egalitarian way than in the 1960s, but still by no means gender-equal, at a ratio of about one to two thirds. Similarly, in the case of employment with children, both parents now spend more time with their children than they did in the 1960s. Those who feared that the increased presence of mothers in the labour market would lead to parents caring less for their children must note that American parents are more engaged with their children and spend more time with them today than they did in the 1960s. Nor does the data from Bianchi et al. (2006, see also Bianchi 2010) bear out some economists’ notion (OECD 2017) that increased childcare provision would “outsource” parts of parental responsibilities to state or municipal or private organizations. And this is not solely an American finding. According to data from European time comparison studies, albeit for a much shorter period of time, the amount of time parents spend with their children has also increased significantly in Europe (Boll and Leppin 2011). Therefore, the thesis that more and more family work is being shifted to the market is empirically incorrect, at least in the case of

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child rearing. What is probably correct is Jürgen Zinnecker’s thesis from the early 1990s that the expansion of municipal and state offers for children at all ages does not lead to parents being replaced, but rather that it is additional offers that lead to an increasing institutionalization of childhood. In earlier decades, children had a lot of free unsupervised time until around the age of six. In contrast, today the purpose-rationally organized everyday life of children begins at the latest with the second or third year of life, when the children, regardless of their personal needs, arrive at a certain point in time, just like their parents at work, at the day nursery or kindergarten, where they are assisted in their competence and social development together with professionally well-qualified staff according to the latest psychological and pedagogical knowledge. The institutionalization of childhood means nothing other than the extension of methodicalrational life management on the basis of the latest scientific findings into the earliest childhood, and this process does not stop when children start school. There, too, the institutionalization of childhood is now well advanced, and children have to plan their everyday life very precisely in order to make use of the various pedagogical offers in a way that suits their development. It should be said that this development has been criticized. From the perspective of human capital, however, this development is actually to be welcomed. For not only do parents now invest more time in the socialization of their children than in the past, thus contributing to the differentiation of the child’s personality, but the expansion of professional and well-qualified provisions of care also supplements parental efforts and provides children with sustained support in their development. The fact that a childhood which is completely planned and organized according to methodological criteria can also have negative effects on the next generation will not be explained in detail here; briefly, it has been shown that in personality tests over several generations, the youngest generation shows higher levels of dependency and also anxiety (Twenge 2017). More important for the discussion here is the fact that in the societies described, the urge to optimize the human capital of children through optimal support in the parental home as well as in public spending has obviously increased, as have the efforts to optimize the human capital of parents for the economic processes of society. This optimization process is considered successful if fathers and mothers now work full-time and also fulfil their socialization tasks to the same or a greater extent, possibly even aligning their preferences in such a way that in the long term the differences between the sexes are negligible. For the future of children and young people, the picture of society that is emerging here certainly needs to be discussed in more detail. For the context discussed here, it should be noted that the fears of Hochschild (2005), for example,

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that the private lifestyle and socialization of children would be shifted to state institutions, have not yet been proven. Both public institutions and parents invest more time in children today. Also, an actual deduction of the parents’ time allocation for socialization of the children by these institutions cannot be proven in most studies, because in earlier decades childhood also meant that children could spend a large part of their everyday life without adults, whereas today everyday life with adults is organized according to the principles of a methodical-rational way of life based on the latest scientific findings. Even without presenting figures in detail here, it can be said that this path of optimizing human capital in modern societies comes to an end in time. For at some point the full-time employment of mothers is reached and the last free time of children in everyday life is subjected to methodical life management, so that there are no further gains in time and thus no further development of human capital for economic processes.

Human Capital, Family Development and a New Life Course According to the previous argumentation, the economic development of knowledge-based industrial societies is characterized above all by the enormous demand for human capital. Other economic formations, such as agrarian societies or societies whose economic structure is essentially based on the wealth of their mineral resources, are not dependent on human capital in this way. On the other hand, it should also have become clear that the resource of human capital can only be well developed if families, in their socialization function for the children, are in a position to impart that methodical-rational form of life management which is an essential component of social relations in the purpose-rational organizations of this social formation. In industrial societies, this is best achieved by both parents themselves having a well-developed human capital through educational qualifications and at the same time using their resources and time in solidarity for their children, without expecting anything in return from society or from the children. For unlike what Becker (1991) described in the new household economics for traditional societies, in knowledgebased industrial societies children are no longer valued as cheap labour – which is normatively correct as they contribute to the economy of the family household – but represent the potential for the development of human capital for the whole society. Therefore, the livelihood of parents in old age, as well as that of those without children who have not themselves provided care for children, is borne jointly by

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society as a whole. This society needs the human capital of mothers for economic development in the same way as that of men. At the same time, both are responsible for ensuring that children can develop into decent adults that meet the expectations and requirements of social formation. In the meantime, however, not only are a large percentage of men and women foregoing children altogether, but almost 50% of men today no longer provide day-to-day care for children after the age of 45 because they are either childless in a partnership or have chosen to live alone as divorced partners (Bertram and Deuflhard 2014). This creates a considerable asymmetry in society between the time burden on couples with children in the socialization phase and other forms of life. One can ignore these burdens and assign the parents’ socialization and care provision for the children to “free time”, as economists do (Prognos 2014). However, by comparing time use over the life course, it is possible to examine whether there are societies that have now solved this time problem, or whether this time problem is typical of highly developed societies (Fig. 4). Zagheni has suggested that the time parents spend on shopping, household chores and child rearing should be referred to as “productive unpaid work” rather than “free time” (Zagheni et al. 2015), following the thesis that this time could also be bought on the market. Moreover, rather than statistically comparing groups of individuals, he proposes to analyze the amount of time spent over the life course, as time spent on children depends on the age of the children and the parents. For his time analyses, repeated here with the inclusion of Germany, he uses the European time comparison data prepared by the statistical offices of Sweden and Finland, which are important in this context. These are official data provided by the statistical offices of the states that supposedly practise a “Scandinavian” family model with greater equality and higher integration of women into the labour force than in other countries. Comparing the Swedish results with those from Germany in 2001 – more recent comparisons at the European level are not available – it can be seen that the time burden of Swedish mothers over the life course differs only marginally from that of German mothers. There is a time burden peak between the ages of 30 and 40, the “rush hour of life”, which occurs in the “Scandinavian” model as well as in the supposedly “traditional” German model. The crucial difference between the two countries is that this peak of stress lasts somewhat longer in Germany than in Sweden. In this analysis, France lies between Germany and the southern European countries of Spain and Italy, which have a marked increase after the age of 30 that also does not decrease. The amount of time German men spend on the household and children is similar to that of the Swedes and French, while a different pattern emerges again in Southern Europe.

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Weekly Time Use for Unpaid Productive Work by Sex and Age in European Comparison: 2001* Finland

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hours per week

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hours per week

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40 30 20 10

Women Men 0 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 age Spain 50

hours per week

hours per week

Women Men 0 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 age Italy 50 40

30

50 hours per week

hours per week

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40

40

Women Men 0 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 age

0 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 age 50

Sweden

40 30 20 10

Women Men 0 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 age England

40 30 20 10 Women Men 0 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 age

Fig. 4 Time used for child rearing, household management and shopping. (Source: Harmonised European Time Use Survey (HETUS) [online database version 2.0]. Created 2005–2007 by Statistics Finland and Statistics Sweden. http://www.tus.scb.se; own categorization of the Main Activity Codes. France: 1998–1999; Finland: 1999–2000; Sweden, United Kingdom: 2000–2001; Germany: 2001–2002; Italy, Spain: 2002–2003. Note: Unpaid productive work is defined according to Zagheni et al. 2015, p. 25; illustration is a reproduction

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According to these data, a family model that presupposes full-time employment of fathers and mothers in the same way in order to make use of the human capital of both, while at the same time allowing time for the socialization of the children, leads for a certain period between the 30th and 35th or 40th year of life to a time overload for the families, and this independently of the infrastructure for children in the respective country. This is because the expansion of the infrastructure does not mean any time relief for parents, as parents spend the same or even more time with the children, but serves primarily to further strengthen children’s human capital and to further reduce children’s scope for freedom. A stronger redistribution between men and women in the use of the human capital of both is not very effective, because for the redistribution in Sweden 12 to 14 hours would be available, and in Germany about 16 hours would be available; these periods being the time difference in the peak load phase between fathers and mothers in the household. The solution can only be to look at the human capital of both parents not in crosssection, but in a life course perspective. It is obvious that the time burden of children and household decreases significantly by the age of 40 at the latest. A dynamic life course and occupational concept that reflects these different time burdens in relation to the life course certainly has a much higher relief effect on family relationships, the development of the family and the simultaneously necessary use of the available human capital. Although this is empirically proven, in various time budget studies and from different regions – Bianchi already presented these results in 2000 – societies find it very difficult to discuss how the human capital of adult persons and the production of human capital by parents in the socialization process with children can be organized in such a way as to be better aligned. In the 1950s, a proposal was the famous “three-phase model” of Myrdal and Klein (1960), which envisaged being educated in youth, then working, then mothering and then returning to work. This model failed to gain acceptance because, especially in qualified positions, the prolonged suspension of professional activity also leads to the loss of human capital, limits career opportunities and also does not necessarily correspond to the interests of those concerned, who have put a lot of energy into their education. In the last 15 to 20 years, a multitude of concepts and models and also legal regulations have been developed that enable flexibility in the world of work, even in ä Fig. 4 (continued) of Zagheni et al. 2015; p. 26. Credits: Zeitverwendung für Kindererziehung, Haushaltsführung und Einkaufen: Reproduktion von: Zagheni et al. (2015) mit den Zeitbudget-Daten 2001 des Statistischen Bundesamtes, erstellt von C. Deuflhard)

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the intensive phase of parental socialization, and this process is not yet complete. Now a further step would have to follow, which has actually already been completed in sociology, both theoretically and empirically. It is likely that every social scientist who deals with life course or biographical research would point out that the biographies for building stable relationships in the family as well as the professional development steps have become so differentiated that there is even talk of “crafting biographies” (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1993). This may seem exaggerated in detail, but there is a certain consensus here. Strangely enough, in the professional sphere, and this applies to pension policy, promotion in the civil service, labour market policy and education policy, to name the most important fields, politicians have not yet found the courage to put the professional life model that has been in force since Kaiser Wilhelm, with the fixed end of working life at the age of 65 or 67, to the test. This is not about extending working lives, but about learning something new once again, and about designing life course and career progression models that allow the various requirements in the life course to be related to each other in terms of time. This can also mean longer working lives, but what is crucial is to make career entry, career patterns and promotion policy in the public sector more dynamic, as well as to develop an education policy that does not focus solely on initial training, but integrates education into the entire life course. At large companies listed on the German stock exchange (Bertram and Deuflhard 2014), there are the same number of young men as young women among the 30-year-old “high potentials”; at 34, there are only half as many young women, and among the later top management positions, there are just 2% to 3%. Why is it not possible for large corporations to organize career planning so that there are actually fewer female high potentials available among 34-year-olds than among young men, but that this is balanced out again at the age of 35 or even 40? This simply presupposes different career patterns. In the civil service, many young women are oriented towards the health and social sectors, which usually have few career-advancement opportunities and no opportunities for promotion; as a nursery school teacher, at best, they can be the head of a day care centre. Why doesn’t the civil service, similar to the Bundeswehr, offer temporary soldiers the possibility of taking up another course of study after a certain period – say twelve years – and then reorienting themselves, perhaps to become a judge at the age of 45 or 50, but working until the age of 75? These examples may suffice to illustrate that the use of human capital in modern society and the need for parents to invest in the human capital of their children can only be meaningfully related to each other if the life course is seen as a dynamic construction in the professional sphere as well, without fixed transitions, but adapted to the individual needs of the people

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concerned. This may sound now utopian, but at the beginning and even in the middle of the nineteenth century hardly anyone could imagine that the model of the industrial society family, based on the division of labour, would one day be the model of life for half of society.

References Baum, M. & Westerkamp, A. (1931). Rhythmus des Familienlebens. Das von einer Familie täglich zu leistende Arbeitspensum. Berlin: Herbig. Beck, U. & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1993). Nicht Autonomie, sondern Bastelbiographie. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 22 (3), (pp. 178–187). Becker, G. S. (1991). A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. Bell, D. (1976). The Coming of Post-Industrial Society: A Venture in Social Forecasting. London: Basic Books. Bertram, H. & Deuflhard, C. (2014). Die überforderte Generation. Arbeit und Familie in der Wissensgesellschaft. Leverkusen: Barbara Budrich. Bianchi, S. M. (2010). Maternal Employment and Time with Children: Dramatic Change or Surprising Continuity? Demography 37 (4), (pp. 401–414). Bianchi, S. (2011). Family Change and Time Allocation in American Families. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 638 (1), (pp. 21–44) Bianchi, S. M., Robinson, J. P. & Milkie, M. A. (2006). Changing Rhythms of American Family Life. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Boll, C. & Leppin, J. (2011). Zeitverwendung von Eltern auf Familie und Beruf im internationalen Vergleich. Hamburg: Hamburgisches WeltWirtschaftsInstitut. Bott, E. (1971). Family and Social Network, 2. ed. London: Routledge. Braudel, F. (1986). Die Dynamik des Kapitalismus. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1965). Socialization and Social Class Through Time and Space. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Brooke, M. Z. (2017). Le Play: Engineer and Social Scientist. New York: Transaction Publ. Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (2006). Siebter Familienbericht. Familie zwischen Flexibilität und Verlässlichkeit. Perspektiven für eine lebenslaufbezogene Familienpolitik. Bundesdrucksache. Berlin. Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (2017). Zweiter Gleichstellungsbericht der Bundesregierung. Berlin. Bundesregierung (1979). Die Lage der Familien in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland – Dritter Familienbericht. Bonn. Dahrendorf, R. (1966). Bildung ist Bürgerrecht. Hamburg: DIE ZEIT. Donzelot, J. & Raulff, U. (1980). Die Ordnung der Familie. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Durkheim, E. (1992). Über soziale Arbeitsteilung: Studie über die Organisation höherer Gesellschaften. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Esping-Andersen, G. (1999). Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies. New York: Oxford University Press. Flandrin, J.-L. (1978). Familien: Soziologie, Ökonomie, Sexualität. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Friedeburg, L. v. (1965). Jugend in der modernen Gesellschaft. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Gans, H. J. (1982). The Levittowners: Ways of Life and Politics in a New Suburban Community. New York: Columbia University Press. Gloger-Tippelt, G. & Tippelt, R. (1986). Kindheit und kindliche Entwicklung als soziale Konstruktion. Bildung und Erziehung 39 (2), (pp. 149–164). Goode, W. J. (1970). World Revolution and Family Patterns. New York: The Free Press. Heckhausen, H. (1962). The Anatomy of Achievement Motivation. New York: Academic Press. Hernandez, D. J. (1993). We the American Children. US Bureau of Census. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. Hochschild, A. R. (2005). The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes from Home and Work. Ch. 16. The Culture of Politics: Traditional, Postmodern, Cold-modern, and Warmmodern Ideals of Care. Social Politics 2 (3), (pp. 331–46). Hrdy, S. B. (2011). Mothers and Others: The Evolutionary Origins of Mutual Understanding. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press. Isaacson, W. (2017). Leonardo da Vinci. New York: Simon & Schuster. Kästner, E. (1977). Als ich ein kleiner Junge war. München: dtv. König, R. (1969). Soziologie der Familie. In: Handbuch der empirischen Sozialforschung. Stuttgart: Enke. Korzilius, S. (2005). “Asoziale” und “Parasiten” im Recht der SBZ/DDR: Randgruppen im Sozialismus. Köln: Böhlau. Landes, D. S. (2003). The Unbound Prometheus: Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lehmann, H. & Roth, G. (1993). Weber’s Protestant Ethic: Origins, Evidence, Contexts. German Historical Institute. Washington: Cambridge University Press. Marx, K. & Engels, F. ([1845] 2014). Die heilige Familie oder Kritik der kritischen Kritik. Tübingen: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. McClelland, D. C. (1962). The Achieving Society. Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press. Meder, S. (2010). Grundprobleme und Geschichte der Zugewinngemeinschaft: Wandel der Rollenbilder und fortschreitende Individualisierung im Güterrecht. Halle-Wittenberg: Universitätsverlag. Mitscherlich, A. (2003). Auf dem Weg zur vaterlosen Gesellschaft: Ideen zur Sozialpsychologie. Weinheim: Beltz. Myrdal, A. & Klein, V. (1960, zuerst 1956). Die Doppelrolle der Frau in Familie und Beruf. Köln/Berlin: Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Neidhardt, F. (1965). Schichtspezifische Vater- und Mutter Funktionen im Sozialisationsprozeß. Soziale Welt. Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft. OECD (2017). Warum manche Jugendliche trotz schwieriger Startbedingungen in der Schule erfolgreich sind – und wie Schulerfolg auch bei allen anderen Schülerinnen und Schülern gefördert werden kann. Eine PISA-Sonderauswertung der Organisation für wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit. Paris: OECD Library.

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Parsons, T. & Bales, R. F. (Hrsg.). (1955). Family, socialization and interaction process. New York: Free Press. Parsons, T. Bales, R. F., Olds, J., Zelditch, M. & Slater, J. R. (1998). Family, Socialization and Interaction Process. London (ursprünglich: 1955): Routledge Chapman & Hall. Perrot, M. & Aries, P. (1994). A History of Private Life, Volume IV: From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War. London: History of Private Life. PEW Research (2016). Religion and Education Around the World | Pew Research Center. Retrieved from http://www.pewforum.org/2016/12/13/religion-and-education-aroundthe-world/. Accessed: 19. Oktober 2018. Pfeil, E. (1961). Die Berufstätigkeit von Müttern: Eine empirisch-soziologische Erhebung an 900 Müttern aus vollständigen Familien. Tübingen: Mohr. Pfeil, E. & Ganzert, J. (1973). Die Bedeutung der Verwandten für die großstädtische Familie. Zeitschrift für Soziologie 4, (pp. 366–383). Picht, G. (1964). Die deutsche Bildungskatastrophe, Analyse und Dokumentation. Freiburg: Walter. Prognos, Bundesministerium der Finanzen & Bundesministerium für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend (2014). Gesamtevaluation der ehe- und familienbezogenen Maßnahmen und Leistungen in Deutschland. Berlin. Roth, G. (2001). Max Webers deutsch-englische Familiengeschichte 1800–1950: mit Briefen und Dokumenten. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. Princeton: Yale University Press. Scott, J. W. & Tilly, L. A. (2009). Women’s Work and the Family in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 17 (1), (pp. 36–64). Segalen, M. (1990). Die Familie: Geschichte, Soziologie, Anthropologie. Frankfurt/M.: Campus. Sennett, R. (2000). Der flexible Mensch: Die Kultur des neuen Kapitalismus. Berlin: btb. Spock, B. & Needlman, R. (2012). Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care. New York: Pocket Books. Tenorth, H. (2014). Kurze Geschichte der allgemeinen Schulpflicht. http://www.bpb.de/ gesellschaft/bildung/zukunft-bildung/185878/geschichte-der-allgemeinen-schulpflicht. Accessed: 19. Oktober 2018. Teuteberg, H. J. (1986). Stadtwachstum, Industrialisierung, sozialer Wandel. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Twenge, J. M. (2017). IGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy – and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood (And What This Means for the Rest of Us). New York: Atria Books. Weber, M. & Winckelmann, J. (2002). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft: Grundriss der verstehenden Soziologie. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Wissenschaftlichen Dienst des Deutschen Bundestags (2016). Dokumentation Benachteiligung von Jungen im Bildungswesen. Berlin: WD 8 – 3000 – 068. Zagheni, E., Zannella, M. & Movsesyan, B. W. (2015). A Comparative Analysis of European Time Transfers between Generations and Genders (SpringerBriefs in Population Studies) Vol. 1. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781107415324.004

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Hans Bertram Prof. Dr., is sociologist, from 1984 to 1993 scientific director of the German Youth Institute in Munich and from 1992 until his retirement in 2014 university professor for micro-sociology at the Institute of Social Sciences of the Humboldt University in Berlin.

Western (Business) Family Models in Historical Change: A Process– Sociological Sketch Désirée Waterstradt

Introduction Historically speaking, the separation of living and economic activities is a relatively recent phenomenon that has spread worldwide from Europe along with economic change during the last two centuries. From ancient Greece and Rome through the Middle Ages to the early modern period, household communities were the central identity-conferring institution of pre-modern agrarian societies in which the majority of people lived and worked. These households were composed of people who were related and people who were not. They did not at all correspond to the family myth moulded by Western–Christian socio-historical development (Sieder 2010a, p. 46) that is widespread today, with its idealized notions of family as an unchanging natural constant and harmonious emotional community of three or more generations (Lenz and Böhnisch 1997, p. 11). In the German-speaking world, for example, this is the widespread “myth of the pre-industrial extended family” (Ger. Großfamilie) (Mitterauer 1977; cf. Lanzinger 2015a), of the “whole house” (Ger. das ganze Haus) (Hahn 2015; Eibach 2015a) or of the “stem family”1 (Ger. Stammfamilie) (Haddad 2015, pp. 66 ff.; Lanzinger 2015b, p. 327).2

1 A stem family continues family lineage across generations. It is often visualized in a family tree rooted in one male ancestor (or an ancestor couple) and therefore described with the tree metaphor of a stem. 2 In modern German language these kinship terms are powerful and suggestive, evoking an aura of yearning, bonding, naturalness, comfort, security, warmth, wholeness, magnitude and

D. Waterstradt (✉) Karlsruhe University of Education, Karlsruhe, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_3

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The Western family myth turns out to be anything but harmless, as it obstructs a better understanding of this important area in which people grow up and develop their identity. With it, the Western world is indulging in illusions of reality, deluding itself and others even as Western Enlightenment has found its way into many areas worldwide. One example of how the myth distorts reality is in the area of family conflicts, where an understanding of the family that does not correspond to the reality of many people hinders adequate analysis of conflict and the search for potential solutions. This is particularly problematic for family businesses and business families, since in their case the economic and the familial are still closely intertwined and the effects of conflicts are much more far-reaching. They can become existentially threatening for the people affected as well as for many of the company’s internal and external stakeholder groups. This study outlines the socio-historical change of Western (business) family models on the basis of Norbert Elias’ process sociology. Firstly, the theoretical foundations are laid in order to better understand the concepts of modern family businesses and business families as a result of long-term socio-historical processes. Subsequently, the transformations of Western households and production communities over the course of 2500 years are described – from pre-antiquity to the present day. The more recent Western development paths are presented using the German example – with its concepts and terminology. On this basis, the selfevident German concept and term of the business family (Ger. Unternehmerfamilie) is reflected critically and the pressure placed on such families to change is illuminated.

Theoretical Foundations Myth Hunting with the Help of Process Sociology Norbert Elias once called process sociologists “hunters of myths” (Elias 1970/2012, p. 48), and here we will be investigating, or “hunting”, the Western myth of the family, demystifying it so as to better understand its limitations. To do so, we will briefly outline the historical foundations of Western (business) family models. To

sacredness. The word Großfamilie contains the adjective groß (Engl. grand) which is also used in other emotionally loaded terms of relatedness like grandmother or grandfather. The term Großfamilie mostly implies that three or more generations are living together. The background of the German terms das ganze Haus and Stammfamilie will be described below.

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this end, the transformational thrusts in the historical course are examined. This requires a sociologically grounded synthesis of the epoch-spanning retrospective, incorporating the most important findings from a wide range of academic disciplines – from economic and business history to social and family history to the history of religion or gender. To this day, not only a transdisciplinary synopsis, but also “the view beyond all too familiar epochal boundaries [. . .] is a desideratum” (Eibach 2015a, p. 20).3 In view of this extensive task, the present study can only be an initial suggestion and outline. Figuration and process theory or “process sociology” based on Norbert Elias’ works represents a sociological approach that provides a theoretical foundation for such a synthesis.4 The approach “opens the view beyond the disciplinary boundaries of sociology and yet is sociologically relevant”, as Treibel states. It contributes “to a better understanding of social contexts and in particular the integration of historical, individual and social aspects”. “Struggles for power and recognition” are seen here not as deviations but as “normal components of social life”. In it, they are seen as an indispensable engine of social processes – “the social force field does not lie with individual persons, but with what is between them”. Process sociology is thus “transverse to other theories”, making it possible for them to link into it and enabling syntheses across disciplines (Treibel 2009, pp. 153–156). • Image of the human being Whether homo oeconomicus, homo psychologicus or homo sociologicus, when working “with an image of human beings which is restricted in a specialized way”, this represents a major obstacle to knowledge for all professional and scientific disciplines, but especially for sociology (Elias 1985/2009, pp. 210–211). In order to overcome this obstacle, process sociology explicitly reflects on it and takes as its basis an open, elementary relationship-based conception of human

3

All citations originally in German have been translated into English by the author. In its reception, this approach has often been reduced to the theory of civilization and the concept of figuration, without taking into account the theory of social processes at its core and the sub-aspects and concepts of work derived from it. These include, for example, the theory of power, the concept of habitus, the theory of symbols or the theory of charisma. Elias therefore emphasized shortly before his death that he “prefers, if one is already looking for a label for my work, ‘process sociology’” (Elias 1989b/2013, pp. 278–279). Since it provides an important theoretical foundation for all human sciences, it can also be referred to more generally as figuration and process theory (Treibel 2009).

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beings. Humans are regarded as “homines aperti” (Elias 1970/2012, p. 120)5 moulded by the “elementary group character of human existence” (Elias 1972/ 2006, p. 326),6 which is also reflected in the human constitution – this makes human beings “in some respects unique” within the animate or inanimate world (Elias 1986a/2009, p. 1). Only as bio-psycho-social-relational beings were (and are) humans able to survive. Therefore, they stand in multi-layered, fundamental dependencies – they are dependent on their own body, alimentation, surrounding nature, psychogenesis and sociogenesis or social habitus development of previous generations, personal habitus development, etc. – and are also dependent on each other. In this respect, process-based research sees itself as “human science” (Elias 1939/2010, p. 38), which examines humans, the web of relationships they form and how these networks change. It must always strive for an appropriate balance of “involvement and detachment” in order to neither identify too strongly with its object of research nor distance itself too much from it – both would severely limit the opportunities for acquiring knowledge (Elias 1983/2007). • Social process In contrast to other theories, the fundamental processuality of human societies is not a secondary aspect of process sociology, but is at its centre: “The present can only be understood as a point in the course of processes” (Elias 1987/2005, p. 347). Human societies change within the framework of long-term social processes. These are metaprocesses that are distinct from other types of processes, and their understanding is fundamental to all human sciences. Social processes are “continuous, long-term transformations – that is, usually encompassing not less than three generations – of the figurations formed by human beings, or of aspects of them, in one of two opposite directions” (Elias 1986b/2009, p. 5),7 such as integration or disintegration, cooperation or competition, and so on. In other words, they are by no means unidirectional, but mostly opposite “pendulum movements” within unstable

5

From a process–sociological point of view, images of human beings develop as a function of social development and the self-awareness possible therein. Since the early modern period, human beings have been portrayed in society and science as “one version after another of the same figure of the isolated person, in the form of the homo clausus or we-less I, in his voluntary or involuntary loneliness” (Elias 1987/2010, p. 178), as “thinking statues” (Elias 1950/2010, p. 85) and “a kind of non-social machine” (Elias and Dunning 1986, p. 113). 6 Since the English edition of the text was shortened, the translated German original is quoted here. 7 For more detail, see the essay Towards a theory of social processes (Elias 1977/2009).

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balances – often with surprising developments and setbacks (Treibel 2009, p. 155). Therefore, they are in principle reversible, in contrast to biological processes (Elias 1986b/2009, pp. 4 ff.) or production processes, for example. The main driving forces of social processes are tensions and conflicts between people (Elias 1986b/ 2009, p. 4). Examples of social processes are Christianization, densification of small settlements into villages, development of mill-based (craft) structures, bourgeoisification, industrialization, urbanization, globalization or digitalization. Underlying these are basic social processes such as the economic process or the state-building process (Elias 1989a/2013, p. 268). • Figuration “The concept of figuration is distinguished from many other theoretical concepts in sociology in that human beings are expressly included in the concept”, it does not abstract from the uniqueness of the networks of relations they form with each other and illuminates these networks of relations in their fundamental processuality (Elias 1986a/2009, p. 1). Figurations are “the variable, dynamic-processual, complementary, self-regulating, functional webs of relationships of people in the fivedimensional social space at different levels of integration and differentiation – independent of the context or size of the respective web of relationships” (Waterstradt 2015, p. 30).8 The size of figurations is variable and ranges from a relationship of at least two people to the largest conceivable figuration of humankind (Elias 1970/2012, pp. 96, 9–10 footnote 2). Relationships of two people, a family, an association, a company, a state or a confederation of states are examples of figurations. People need figurations as anchors of their identity. I-identities only develop within and on the basis of we-identities. The identity of people consists of complementary we- and I-parts, which are in a variable “balance between we-identity and I-identity” (Elias 1987/2010, p. 176). Since human beings are processes, their identity describes the personality structure in the respective developmental phase. A condition for a person’s identity has a “continuity of development” across the different ages (Elias 1987/2010, p. 165). If a figuration is an important survival unit, its threat is also simultaneously perceived as a threat to I-identity. The disappearance of a figuration that is important for survival or its fusion with a superordinate,

8

In addition to the three spatial dimensions and time, the symbol dimension developed by humans is seen as the fifth dimension.

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larger figuration is felt as an emptying of meaning, if no we-feelings can be associated with the new figuration (Elias 1987/2010, pp. 199, 201). Despite their interweavings and dynamics, figurations are not chaotic, but “an ordered network or figuration”, within which behaviour, knowledge, thinking, speaking or feeling cannot be unilaterally attributed exclusively to one person, but is to be seen as a continuation of the preceding interweavings and the expected future interweavings of the figuration partners (Elias 1970/2012, p. 79). Figurations are representatives of the respective figuration order (Elias 1986a/2009, p. 2). Each figuration order contains certain positions that are constitutive for the respective figuration. In terms of power theory, it becomes apparent that the formation of central positions not only has a stabilizing effect, but is also constitutive for figuration orders – for example, the formation of the king’s position for courtly society (Elias 1969/2014). Through the increasing functional differentiation, socio-historically more and more different figurations developed, each with a specific figuration order. Depending on variations in structure and modes of functioning, the web of relationships of the people living in them is organized differently. These “types of organization” (Elias 1969/2014, p. 151) are ultimately separate types of figurations that have emerged over time. From the continuous change of the figuration stream, new types of figurations emerge again and again (Elias 1969/2014, p. 251). Thus, for example, states have developed as large organizations which are specialized primarily in political functions, while companies are specialized in economic functions (Elias 1969/2014, pp. 151–152). In this context, kinship figurations have often forfeited political and economic functions to a large extent – they usually remain responsible for necessary complementary functions such as biological– social generativity, which is not taken over by other figurations. Figurations are always in motion and dynamic transformations are quasi the “normal state” – they are therefore processes (Elias 1983/2007, p. 107). When analyzing figurations, therefore, the fundamental process and interweaving nature must be taken into account, since otherwise they cannot be adequately grasped and explained. For example, the figuration of a football team cannot be adequately described by the situational observation of a single game sequence. Therefore, in order to examine figurations with scientific precision, their development must always be examined as a long-term “figurational change” (Elias 1969/2014, p. 251). New figuration types always emerge from previous figuration types and process their inheritance, so to speak. Therefore, often no absolute beginnings of new figuration types can be discerned, but only phases in which developmental thrusts have led to a recognizable, gradually greater otherness.

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Figurations form, stabilize and change in “relatively self-regulating and relatively autonomous” processes of interweaving, so that this dynamic can become tangible for the people interwoven in them (Elias 1970/2012, p. 91). A figuration of interdependent human beings has “a movement of its own within a mightier cosmos, a regularity and tempo of change that are in their turn mightier than the will and plans of a single person within it” (Elias 1939/2010, p. 47). • Survival Unit Human beings need figurations as units of protection and identity that fundamentally secure the most important, indispensable elementary or survival functions: providing group members with food, clothing, shelter, etc.; producing, preserving and passing on means of orientation; group pressure for self-control; control of violence; and the associated economic distribution functions (Elias 1983/2006, pp. 394 ff.).9 While such “survival units” (Elias 1970/2012, p. 134) were historically often kinship associations such as tribes or clans, they have developed into ever larger, more highly integrated survival units up to today’s national welfare states. Because the respective survival unit secures existential functions, it is usually inescapable for individuals (Elias 1987/2010, p. 182) and becomes a “community of fate” (Elias 1983/2013, p. 430). The development of the highly integrated figuration type of the nation-state conditions the development of other figuration types – for example, the less integrated figuration type of the family or the economically specialized figuration type of the company. But these complex highly integrated figuration types like, for example, the state, are only able to function as long as families take over the indispensable functions of generativity, care and primary psychogenesis. These higher and lower integrated figuration types are complementarily intertwined and depend on each other. Due to the broad penetration of the system concept into everyday language, the figuration concept has also been “brought much too close [. . .] to the old concept of the system” (Elias 1989b/2013, pp. 373–374). The demarcation is therefore outlined here in a few particularly salient points. “Starting from the basic distinction inside/ outside or system/environment”, the system concept of the different system theories denotes “the relation and interaction of elements/element operations in a delimited/ demarcated unit with a particular organizational structure” (Ziemann 2009, p. 469).

9

Since the English edition of the text was shortened, the translated German original is quoted here.

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This abstraction makes it “applicable to many different things”, not only to people, families or companies, but also to machines or organisms (Ziemann 2009, p. 469). From a process–sociological point of view, such an abstraction is problematic, since it obscures rather than improves the view of human beings, their social processes and figurations in important respects (Elias 1989a/2013, p. 278). One important point: “The remarkably diverse and subtle emotional bonds10 which people enter into with each other” (Elias 1970/2012, p. 130) are not fundamentally inherent in systemic “elements”, but must be reattributed to them in each case – otherwise people are easily seen as “a kind of non-social machine” (Elias and Dunning 1986, p. 113) within abstract systems. Process sociology, on the other hand, emphasizes that “human beings are not society-less individuals and societies are not human-less ‘systems’” (Treibel 2009, p. 138). Moreover, due to the variable–open view of figurations as multi-layered webs of interdependence, the clear basic distinctions inside/outside or system/environment seem problematic from a process–sociological perspective. This is because it impairs the balances of involvement and detachment and promotes a mental separation of interweavings with other figurations and figuration levels. Regardless of the respective theoretical approach, Elias saw it as the task of people in science, as “hunters of myths” (Elias 1970/2012, p. 48), to investigate prevailing collective conceptions and to unmask factually unsubstantiated myths of conception by observing facts. In doing so, however, there is the danger that scientific ideas and theories themselves turn into “belief systems” or myths (Elias 1970/2012, pp. 48–49). Exactly this seems to have been the case for a long time in the field of research on the home, household and family.

Theoretical Concepts: From “Stem Family” and “Whole House” to “Open House” From Greek and Roman antiquity to the Middle Ages and the early modern period, household communities were characterized by “varying degrees of openness or closure to the outside world”, as Hahn summarizes the current state of research. Today, this is examined with the help of the scientific–analytical concept of the “open house”, which was proposed by Joachim Eibach in 2004 and 2011 (Hahn 2015, p. 61). This concept shows that the figurative type of the house has always

10 Elias calls these “valences”. These can be free and unsaturated or more or less firmly bound and anchored.

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been unstable, dynamic and open in European history (Eibach and Schmidt-Voges 2015). The house served as an important, multi-layered symbol and essentially has four aspects of meaning: • buildings for living and working, • social group of relationships, interactions and affiliations, • an ordered model as ideal, legal–institutional integration and communicative practice (Schmidt-Voges 2015), • an object for the cultivation of a higher we-identity, which serves the existential, identity-creating sense and the supra-individual, cross-generational self-location. For the first three aspects of meaning, the concept of the open house has already been presented in detail (Eibach and Schmidt-Voges 2015). A fourth aspect of meaning has been added which proves to be extremely relevant and indispensable for a deeper anthropological understanding. Precisely because of the house’s existential significance, it has been an important object for the cultivation of a higher, meaningful we-identity since the beginnings of human habitation, as sociohistorical, anthropological and other sources show. The “house cult is one of the oldest cults in world religions” (Wachsmuth 1980, p. 34) and one of the most widespread forms of religiosity (Öhler 2011, p. 203). This form of cultivation apparently had “an identity-forming function for the house and its social fabric” (Stein 2008, p. 40) not only in well-researched antiquity. It instigated a house or “family identity” that was central to the “cohesion of the home” (Öhler 2011, p. 215). The house, household community or family was, as a rule, arguably the survival unit that had to remain undamaged and whole, i.e. “holy”, in the interest of the individual and all those belonging to the unit, and in this respect was “sacred”. To this day, however, this aspect of the house has been “conspicuously neglected” in research, as Wachsmuth and Öhler point out with regard to ancient studies and theology (Wachsmuth 1980, p. 34; again in Öhler 2011, p. 203). This seems to be related in particular to Christianization and the Enlightenment, whose higher figurative cultivation contents have so far only been revealed to a limited extent due to their own involvement and identification. In Greek and Roman antiquity,11 the house as a cult community was “not precisely determined” in its scope, but variable – in any case, however, “for the one who belongs to this house, [the house was the] individual and communal place of worship” (Öhler 2011, p. 212). Early Christianity likewise had as its “ideal image

11

More detailed in the section Ancient Greece: oikos and Ancient Rome: domus and familia.

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the Christian house in mind” and biblical narratives depict “the turning of entire household communities towards the gospel” (Öhler 2011, p. 201) – in its proclamation, Christianity in this respect did not only address individuals (Öhler 2011, p. 231). Socio-historical evidence also shows that dissemination occurred “through homes and communities gathering therein”, for the congregations of early Christianity generally gathered in a private home (Öhler 2011, p. 216). The “cultic unity” of the house was determined by the head of the household – whether that was a man as paterfamilias or a woman as materfamilias (Öhler 2011, p. 231).12 According to these ideas, the salvation of the house depended decisively on its faith (Öhler 2011, pp. 222–223) and secured it across generations: “If the Christian faith is the cult of a house, then this means an assurance of the worship of Christ across the generations” – this forms the “basic structure of a lasting Christianity” and is “a decisive step towards stabilization” (Öhler 2011, pp. 231–232). In the centre of the previous belief in the ancestors moves “the belief in the Kyrios Jesus” and Christianity becomes “everyday religion” (Öhler 2011, p. 232). The point is not “that the houses as places become holy places, but that the house communities become Christian cult communities” (Öhler 2011, p. 233). The household community as a religious paradigm is thus characterized by the fact that in it the faith in the Kyrios Christos given by the head of the household is lived in everyday life. Thus, the religious experience of the community takes place in the non-public sphere of the home and the family, which thus becomes a cult community for God and Christ. (Öhler 2011, p. 234)

The transition from the ancient house with its domestic ancestor cult to Christianity thus did not take place in early Christianity as a break, but as a “further development” (Öhler 2011, p. 233), which also seems more convincing and effective from a process–sociological perspective. The figurative or habitual heritage can still be found today in countless relics of the ancient house cult (Mitterauer 2000). In the Middle Ages, the Church rose as a more highly integrated, cultic-religious figuration or we-identity, and the house lost importance in this function (Mitterauer 2003b). With the Reformation, a counter-thrust formed through a return to the Bible and early Christianity. This was accompanied by a renewed “spiritual-religious exaltation” of the house (Gestrich 2003, pp. 372–373). This development was reinforced in the early modern period when, in the course of the Enlightenment,

12

Recent approaches to theological research that take gender into account increasingly reveal the relevance of women in early and later Christianity – among other things, that there were not only men in the discipleship and preaching of Jesus (Eckholt 2017; Fulkerson 2012).

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kinship was increasingly cultivated and renewed as a “family religion” (Nipperdey 1990, p. 43), i.e. the family was exalted and mythically shielded from Enlightenment tendencies.13 As Mitterauer states, religious factors generally tend to be underestimated in the discussion about special paths (Mitterauer 2003b, p. 286). In this respect, it seems necessary not to assume an end to the cultivation of a higher we-identity of house, household or family, but rather to assume transformations with numerous, sometimes opposing transformations. The legacy of the cultivating exaltation of house, household or family is still present in countless secularized customs – for example, the topping-out ceremony during house construction, which goes back to the mass of raising (Wachsmuth 1980, p. 34). The concept of “house honour” or family honour in the Middle Ages and modern times (Adelung and Soltau 1807, pp. 1025–1026; Lieberknecht 1959) also takes on a new dimension against this background – house (business) communities became companies and honour became reputation or image. Cultivation seems to have developed fluidly in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries into the communicative charismatization of companies, persons and products, involving the targeted construction of narratives and images (Jentges 2010, pp. 85 ff.). In view of the religious loading of basic economic problems of risk, trust and guilt (Seele and Pfleiderer 2013, 2015), a clear demarcation between cultic-religious and secularprofane myths seems questionable. From this development, the problems of a clear demarcation and the resulting uncertainties for the we- and I-identities of modern “enlightened” people become apparent. While the first three areas of meaning in the concept of the open house can be justified in a purely secular-profane and rational way, this is precisely not possible in the cultivation of a higher figurative foundation of meaning. It gains its functional added value and its meaning only from the fact that it eludes an exclusively profane–rational justification. In this respect, the contents of cultivation are only revealed to the members of a figuration in their credibility, while they seem strange or alienating to others. Consideration of this fourth level of meaning is indispensable for deciphering the deeper meaning of a society. Without a closer understanding, the figuration of the house appears not only profane and arbitrary, but also devoid of meaning and inexplicable. Therefore, it is essential to clarify its respective function in historical change in order to comprehend the resulting changes in sociogenesis and psychogenesis. However, secular sciences, societies and languages apparently do not find it easy to systematically trace these higher functions in their psychosocial goal-setting

13

More detailed in the section Medieval: House and Early Modern: House.

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function. This is due, among other things, to the Enlightenment itself, in which the own and the foreign were differentiated from one another and thus polarized (Pickerodt 2015) – the own as reason, faith and culture, the foreign as irrationality, superstition and cult.14 In particular, it seems to be the higher function of giving meaning that has long obscured the view and promoted the desire that the house, household or family as a type of figuration should not be unstable, dynamic and open. This desire is expressed socially not only in nostalgic narratives of the extended family (Ger. Großfamilie), but also in the two ideological constructs of the nineteenth century, which were designed by “sociologists and historians critical of modernization” (Lanzinger 2015b, pp. 327–328) and which still prove to be effective today: • Stem family In 1855, the French social scientist Frédéric Le Play described three family models, one of which was the “stem family” (Play 1855) (Fr. la famille-souche; Ger. Stammfamilie).15 For him, it represented “the best of all possible family forms, which should serve as a model for social forms” – characterized by “the undivided succession of property by an heir, centred on a house and the associated business enterprise, in which an extended family lived”. As a result, families were intended to be less unstable than contemporary models, and at the same time less static than the

14

The Latin word cultus stands for cultivation and care of plants, cultivation of art and teaching, veneration, worship. The expression “is integrated into German towards the end of the seventeenth century, having been common in the Latin inflected form in German texts before. It first became widespread in the second half of the eighteenth century with the rise of agriculture and forestry, but gained its real weight in its metaphorical use (also prefigured in Latin) in that culture (since about 1700). It also denoted the education and spiritual perfection of the individual. The word was extended into the social sphere and became a catchword of the epoch in the philosophical thought of the German Enlightenment; Herder and Kant played a special role in shaping and specifying its content” (DWDS 2018). On this basis, evaluativecontrasting conceptual terminology was formed, for the charismatization of one’s own group and its habitus as well as complementary to the stigmatization of foreign groups and their habitus (for the connection between communicative charismatization and stigmatization processes, see footnote 21). Terms such as culture or cultivation serve to meliorate, whereas terms such as cult, cult object or cult figure serve to pejorate. 15 The title of his study was: Les Ouvriers européens. Études sur les travaux, la vie domestique et la condition morale des populations ouvrières de l’Europe, précédées d’un exposé de la méthode d’observation – translated in English: European workers. Studies on the work, the domestic life and the moral condition of the working-class populations of Europe, preceded by an exposé of the method of observation.

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patriarchal forms of antiquity (Haddad 2015, p. 66). This model has repeatedly led to “confusion and misunderstanding”, in part because it is rarely demonstrable in Europe – only in central and southern France, in the French Pyrenees, and selectively in the Alpine region (Haddad 2015, p. 68). Here, the “position of authority lay with the older generation. Economic management and decision-making power lay in the hands of the father or grandfather; the adult, married son or son-in-law was subject to his domestic authority” (Lanzinger 2015a, p. 297). • Whole house Also in 1855, the German social researcher Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl developed his concept of the “whole house” (Ger. das ganze Haus) (Riehl 1855, p. 177).16 Riehl had been “chief editor for press affairs of the royal house and the exterior” at the Bavarian royal court since 1854 (Dirrigl 1984, p. 1682). He was a conservative national ideologist and the German antipode of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. His concept of the “whole house” is part of his Natural History of the People as the Basis of a German Social Policy (Ger. Naturgeschichte des Volkes als Grundlage einer deutschen Social-Politik) and describes the figurative order from the family to the national level as a “German house” (Riehl 1855). Riehl was distinguished by a good power of observation, but his works are a suggestive glorification of all things considered German (Ger. deutschtümelnd), and because of their nationalist ideology are no longer considered citable today (Eibach 2015a, p. 34). With the goal of social stabilization, Riehl, like Le Play, designed “projections into a supposedly better past” with “notions of extensive self-sufficiency with regard to production and consumption, unquestioned paternal and marital authority”, and an affirmative asymmetrical gender relationship (Lanzinger 2015a, p. 297). The German historian Otto Brunner further expanded the concept from 1949 onwards, although he quickly encountered criticism – nevertheless, the term developed into the dominant concept in German-language research (Hahn 2015, p. 49). In the meantime, a large number of studies show that the house was never “whole” or a kind of unchanging “closed container space” (Hahn 2015, p. 61), but unstable, dynamic and open (Eibach and Schmidt-Voges 2015). Whether it is the “stem family” or the “whole house”, whether it is the ancient or modern exaltation of the family as sacred, it always seems to be about the mythical function of a higher foundation of meaning: as Assmann makes clear, myths represent a “grounded narrative” that offers meaning and orientation for the present

16

Sometimes translated as “entire house”.

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(Assmann 2004, p. 15). In terms of communication strategy, they have the function of a mission statement or vision. In this respect, Eibach points out that the myth of the house, the domestic community or the family “conveys a message” and has a “political function”: “The mandate to contemporaries is not to abandon this steadfast patriarchal heritage in favour of insecure social conditions and illegitimate state intervention. Such discourses of loss are not only to be found in the conservative camp of social and cultural studies” – they extend as far as socially critical scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu17 with his study on the Kabyle house (Eibach 2015a, p. 37). From the beginnings of research on house, household and family until today, it is striking that these “often corresponded with questions about the construction of collective identity and were in this sense political” (Eibach 2015b, p. 46). Process– sociologically, this is only logical, as the figuration type of house, household community or family, respectively, represents a lower level of integration within more highly integrated webs of interdependence. Higher-integrated figuration types such as states are functionally dependent on them, which makes clear “how little the family is an autonomous figuration within the surrounding figuration of the state society” (Elias 1980/2008, p. 36). In terms of power theory, it follows from this that the constituent central positions of the figuration type of house, house community or family also by no means develop independently of higher figuration types, but are functionally conditioned and supported by them. In terms of power theory, the “steadfast patriarchal heritage” (Eibach 2015a, p. 37) lies in the fact that the central position and the entire web of relationships must be stabilized and balanced by a patriarch. The strength of this central position relies on the dependence of all other figuration members. At the end of the twentieth century, the patriarchal habitus was noticeably losing its radiance. In this respect, it seems only logical that in more recent research, at the same time, “above all the gender aspect proved to be a door-opener for new questions”, because this brought the “historical roles of women and men”, which are so significant for the home, household and family, into the focus of research (Eibach 2015b, pp. 45–46). The “gender habitus” and in particular the “male gender habitus” (Meuser 2010, p. 116 ff.) appear to be indispensable aspects when it comes to hunting myths and researching the “steadfast patriarchal heritage”.

17 It is only in Bourdieu’s later work that social and gender theory are systematically intertwined (Jäger et al. 2015).

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Transformations of the Primary Figuration Type: dem*, oikos, domus/familia, House, Family The current state of research clearly shows that Western social and kinship relations did not change only with the Industrial Revolution – quasi in a one-time transformation surge – as suggested, for example, by the myth of the extended family. On the contrary, a look at history reveals a “great process of transformation” (Mitterauer 2003b, pp. 58–98) lasting over 2500 years, which was by no means a straightforward sequence and can therefore not be simplistically interpreted as “progress”.18 Rather, it reveals an extremely multi-layered development with countless highly contradictory, even opposing thrusts at many levels. In the process, the changing (business) family models become visible in the change of figuration – not only the family and company of modern history, but also the house of early modern times and the Middle Ages, domus and familia of Roman antiquity, oikos of Greek antiquity and *dem- of the Indo-European peoples (Fig. 1). In this respect, the present study can only attempt to point out a few selected historical aspects in the course of time, where mythical notions obscure the view of the past and our own present that has emerged from it. In fact, a detailed critical synopsis of Western family, economic and corporate history would be necessary, for the transformation process of Western social and kinship relations opens up a view of sociogenesis and psychogenesis, which form the basis of today’s societies. In this development, not only have today’s senses and habits of thought, world view and conception of human beings been formed, but also institutions, selfunderstandings and identity concepts, standards of manners and emotions. This is how today’s understanding of what an “entrepreneur” and a “family” are, what a “family business” and a “business family” are, came about.

Status of Historical Representations Historical accounts of individual family businesses or business families began in the German-speaking world in the 1950s. Often, this was a historiography for selfpositioning and the representation of a historically shaped identity. It was not until the end of the twentieth century that awareness grew that family businesses were by no means an irrelevant, dying relic of past economic times. On the contrary, today it

18 For more detail, see Mitterauer and Sieder (1977), Goody (2002), Gestrich et al. (2003), Mitterauer (2003b), Sieder (2008, 2010a, b), Sieferle (2008).

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(Corporate) Family Models in Historical Change* b./n. Chr. ... -1200 -1100 -1000 -900 -800 -700 -600 -500 -400 -300 -200 -100 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 2000 2100

IndoEuropean peoples

Greek antiquity

Roman antiquity

Middle Ages, Early Modern Times

Modern history

*dem-

oikos domus, familia

House

Functional differentiation Company *Simplified schematic representation

Fig. 1 (Business) Family models in historical change. (Own representation)

Family

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can be seen that they remain a very central type of business, even in large, highly differentiated economies such as the USA or Germany. However, it is becoming increasingly clear that so far only one side of this web of relationships has been systematically examined: the functional area of public–visible production. The other side, which is indispensable for a family business, is the functional area of the, as it were, “private” reproduction of the ownership and management structure, which is, however, only private and invisible to a limited extent. This becomes clear at the latest when these are perceived and described as “economic dynasties” (cf. Rüsen et al. in this volume) or when family conflicts lead to crises in the family business. Family businesses would not be family businesses without the families behind them as owners – and often also as managers. In this respect, it seems inappropriate to think of the two figurations separately. In fact, they must be thought of as a figuration with two sides, or more precisely as a fundamentally two-sided type of figuration. General histories of the development of this type of figuration have so far mostly focused on the economic side, i.e. on family businesses and their development since the Industrial Revolution – also in comparison with other types of businesses (Colli 2003). Sometimes the historical considerations reach back to the Middle Ages and illuminate the foundations of “feudal rule, trade and crafts” as well as the “nobility as a model of family and property organization” (Klein 2004, p. 22 ff.). Here, we will now refer to roots that go back further and, in doing so, also outline the private– invisible reproduction side of this figuration type in its sociogenesis and psychogenesis.

Household and Production Communities Through the Course of Time In Western historiography, processes of change can be traced back to their developmental foundations in Greek and Roman antiquity – including family and economic history. This is why a historical–sociological localization of this kind is of central importance for a better understanding of (business) family models. The etymological roots of central key terms such as economy, family or dynasty already indicate that important foundations of understanding are to be located here. The word economy goes back to oikos, the household concept of ancient Greece.

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Indo-European Peoples: *demLinke shows the social structures that preceded early Roman society, for example, for the tenth to ninth centuries BC. In this area of settlement, the Indo-European peoples combined cattle breeding and individual hoeing and were only able to achieve small surpluses. Their exercise of power was not centralized, but communal through social structures based on precedence: “The older men rule over the younger men and the women of their kinship group” based on a “principle of balanced reciprocity”,19 a “generational contract” of provisioning and control of the marriage system (Linke 1995, p. 40). The Indo-European language root *dem- stands for the domestic cult community as a central social institution. The associated central position lay with the *dempoti,20 who was “priest of the domestic cult community, the trustee of the community assets and the arbitrator in cases of internal conflict” (Linke 1995, p. 41). Social and kinship relations were not a “purely patrilineal system, but a mixed system in which cognatic relatives played a central role through the mediation of women”. Through these complementary interrelationships, it was characterized by solidarity relations that prevented hierarchization and the institutionalization of leadership structures. However, it could not concentrate enough authority in one central position to guarantee legal peace. A typical means of balancing the law was a strictly regulated system of blood revenge (Linke 1995, p. 84). Towards the end of the eighth century BC, however, a “process of social differentiation” set in, which led to a strict social “hierarchization of the kinship order” and the formation of state structures (Linke 1995, pp. 76–77). In the process, the relationship between the community and the head of the household was reversed, and large segments of the population lost their rights: “No longer was the head of the household dependent on the consensus of the other members, but the latter became dependents of the head of the household.” The holders of this central position were now “the only independent legal subjects, demanding unconditional subordination from all members of their community”. This was accompanied by a charismatization of the position of the head of the household.21 The community was no longer guaranteed by “the union of male seed

19

On the state of research on the concept of reciprocity in ancient studies, see von Reden (2015, pp. 28–29, 95–96). 20 In Greek it has developed into a word for the master of the house: despótēs. 21 Elias describes the connection between power and charismatization processes in the context of the development of process sociology (Elias 1964/2009, 1969/2014, 1989; Elias and

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with female fertility” but “solely by the social creative power of the householder who brought the household community into being as a social unit”. There were two Indo-European expressions for this householder: while atta denoted the “bodily and materially caring father”, pater stood for the idea of “supernatural powers beyond the mere fertility of the male seed”. The Latin word pater22 became “a common epithet of the gods, which did not aim at a genealogical ranking, but was only supposed to be an honorary title for their creative power” (Linke 1995, pp. 82–83).

Greek Antiquity: oikos23 The Indo-European knowledge systems about the domestic cult community were further developed in different ways in Greek and Roman antiquity (Habenstein 2015). Even then, however, authors were by no means in agreement, but conveyed a whole range of changing views (Habenstein 2015, p. 652). The word for the central social institution or figuration in Greek antiquity was already oikos at the beginning of the archaic age, described, for example, by Hesiod around 700 BC. In the later classical age, oikoi were described as the basis of higherintegrated figurations such as the polis, in which oikoi are united. The word oikos was, among other things, a synonym for dynasty (Coloru 2012, p. 86), but beyond that it had numerous aspects of meaning in which the diverse social functions of this institution are reflected. As a central anchor of identity in ancient Greece, the oikos was both an intergenerational cultic-religious community along the male line and a unit of life, economy and law. It was an association of rulers whose honour had to be preserved and increased, and at the centre of which stood the cult of the oikos (Krause 2003, p. 44).

Scotson 1965/2008). In the formation of central positions such as the king position, intergenerational communication or “charismatization processes as processes of reality construction” (Jentges 2010, p. 79) play a central role. In his “charisma theory”, which has scarcely been discussed so far, Elias decisively develops Max Weber’s concept further (Jentges 2014, pp. 70–71). A particularly important aspect of this is to understand charisma not primarily as a phenomenon of the individual habitus, but as the result of social processes and figurational change. In the social habitus, “group charisma and group disgrace” (Elias 1964/ 2014) are reflected, which leads to the advancement or relegation of those individuals who can and should embody group charisma or group disgrace. In many cases, this exerts considerable pressure on the respective individuals and is accompanied by (self-)alienation processes. 22 In composites piter as in, for example, Jupiter, Marspiter, Diespiter. 23 For more detail, see Krause (2003) and von Reden (2015).

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Similarities in character were derived from consanguinity in many cultures (Mitterauer 1993, p. 63) and the heritability of abilities was also part of Greek belief (Burckhardt 2014, p. 170). In this respect, it was of paramount importance to maintain a close connection with deceased parents (Mitterauer 1993, p. 55).24 In the oikos, the belief in genealogical habitus inheritance was cultivated and institutionalized. The household community of the oikos was obligated to maintain the cults that had been passed down from their ancestors – adapting and supplementing them, and thus shaping a collective cultic identity that was lived out in everyday life (Öhler 2011, p. 216). According to this belief, the well-being of the oikos depended on whether a household community was “particularly capable, zealous and happy” in practising and shaping its household cult (Burckhardt 2014, p. 170). While gods were worshipped within the framework of religion, people were also worshipped through the house cult and, according to Greek conception, were not gods but heroes: “They had a tomb in which they were commemorated as if continuing to live, at which they bestowed benefits on the people who prayed to them, and around which their cult was organized” (Mitterauer 1993, p. 64). The house cult was in this respect a “cult of heroes”, which concentrated “on individual figures of the ancestral line”, especially among princely families. Names of gods were taboo for naming people, whereas heroes’ names shaped oikos identity and were passed on (Mitterauer 1993). They were honoured in writing, images, festivals and countless other cult forms. The name appropriately derived from the paternal line, the patronym, was both a “mark of status” and a sign of the “power of the noble families” (Mitterauer 1993, p. 55). The identity and value of each person were primarily determined by this lineage. The extinction of the oikos would have threatened the house cult as the central basis of faith and identity. In this respect, the oikos was to be preserved and thus increased in trust for the following generations. The focus was therefore not on the present nuclear family of father, mother and children – for which there was no separate word – nor on individual persons (Krause 2003, pp. 33 ff., 44 ff.). Situationally, an oikos included the persons belonging to the household and the movable and immovable property. The persons included the husband, the wife,

24 With exceptions, then, it was not an ancestor cult, as Mitterauer makes explicit. It is unclear with regard to the gender aspect, which is so central in all areas (Scheer 2011), whether this was limited to honouring the dead parents of the husband (although the ancient Greek kinship configuration was in principle bilateral (Krause 2003, p. 92)). In other words, it is unclear whether the understanding of male and female kinship was different at various levels of concretization.

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adolescent children, unmarried daughters and sons, relatives and parents, dependents and slaves. The leadership lay with the husband (Krause 2003, p. 44 ff.). The ancient oikos economy was agrarian and consisted mainly of farms, usually small, where 80% of the people lived. There were also crafts, sometimes highly specialized, but considered less respected. Household self-sufficiency was an ideal, but it was not fully realized, as some market connection was essential. The ancient world had a great variety of agricultural systems – from tenancies of unfree peasants and free smallholders to large private landholdings (von Reden 2015, p. 54 ff.). Structurally, the oikos economy was characterized by a fundamental division of tasks in which social hierarchies were mapped and reproduced – for example, between the sexes or between the free and the unfree or slaves (von Reden 2015, pp. 26 ff., 122–123). The division of tasks along the gender order (detailed in Scheer 2011) presupposed a close, hierarchically structured cooperation between the spouses, which was at the same time an extensive division between the inner and outer spheres of the oikos. This corresponded to the separation of spheres between private–female and public–male that dominated in the Mediterranean. To a certain extent, the oikos was regarded as the “women’s workshop” under the direction of the wife as oikouros (Reuthner 2006, p. 83 ff.). It had its own women’s chambers. The wife’s primary responsibility was to bear legitimate sons to continue the patrilineage and prevent the oikos from dying out. In the spirit of perpetuation, women were married off no later than shortly after puberty and remained largely active in the inner workings of the household to prevent the procreation of illegitimate offspring (Krause 2003, pp. 44–94). The wife contributed a dowry, but this remained oikos capital only if the couple did not divorce or remain childless (von Reden 2015, p. 25). The wife was responsible for the internal management and operational administration of the oikos, such as raising children, preparing food, making clothes and supervising slaves in the household (Krause 2003, pp. 44–94; Reuthner 2006). As part of her activities, she could make purchases, though she could not dispose freely of her property (von Reden 2015, p. 121). The wife’s operative labour was usually of central importance – at least beyond the upper classes. The necessary skills were learned from the mother or within the female inner sphere of the oikos (Krause 2003, pp. 44–94; Reuthner 2006). The overriding management function for the entire oikos and the rights of disposal over the property of the oikos lay with the husband, the oikonomos. He set the normative standards (nomos) and enforced them – but was limited by social guidelines. He was the link between the household and the community and therefore had to be a man with legal capacity (kyrios). Sons learned the necessary skills from the age of six from their father, in school or in gainful employment for other oikoi

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(Krause 2003, pp. 44–94). Crafts also had the qualification structures that are still characteristic today, with apprentice, journeyman and master stages (Rößler 1985, p. 87) and with evolving work contract structures (Kloft 1984). These helped to pass on skills and knowledge of the male outer sphere to the next male generation, and to expand and accumulate them (Schulz-Falkenthal 1972, p. 196). The age at which sons married was 10–15 years older than that of girls, because setting up a household required financial resources which large sections of the population did not have. In most cases, the death of the father had to be waited for in order to be able to take over the oikos and marry.25 In this respect, there were hardly any three-generation households (Krause 2003, pp. 23–39, 44–94). Due to the generally high mortality, oikoi were usually anything but static. The death of children in particular, but also of adults, was omnipresent and quite a few oikoi died out. This could often only be prevented by adoption. Remarriages were frequent, and involuntary childlessness was feared as an evil. In this respect, usually only 1–2 children lived in an oikos. However, these children also meant a high financial burden, which could threaten the standard of living even in the upper classes (Krause 2003). The goal of the relationship between the spouses was to have legitimate sons. The marriages were arranged homogamously, i.e. within the same class. Sexuality and eroticism played a minor role; courtesans and prostitutes were available for this purpose, and, before late marriage, often homosexual relationships took place. In view of the complementary division of tasks, hardly any work was done together. The wife was out of the question as a discussion partner – simply because of the age difference. Meals were taken separately. Spatially, the oikos was divided into women’s and men’s spheres. The relationship as a whole was rather distant. The Greek ideal of marriage was that of a harmonious–asymmetrical partnership in terms of power opportunities, cooperation, affection and love. Nevertheless, the wife was not completely powerless, but often had a strong position within the household – on the one hand through her great functional importance and on the other hand through the support of her family of origin (Krause 2003). Alongside the division of labour along gender lines, slavery was a central basis of the ancient economy. It offered a “low-cost instrument of contract labour” and was more controllable than contractual labour relationships via an “ideology of loyalty and fidelity”. Slavery and semi-freedom formed a “spectrum of ownership over persons that encompassed a varying bundle of rights over a person” so that the

25

This Mediterranean marriage pattern persisted through the Middle Ages and early modern period.

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“transition from slavery to other forms of dependent labour” was fluid. The scope of employment ranged from the heaviest, often most physically demanding work, to administrative contract work, to accountable work as a middleman (von Reden 2015, p. 26). Another basis of ancient economies beyond the upper classes was child labour, the pawning of children in debt and the sale of children into debt slavery (JochumBortfeld 2008, p. 156). The central position of the oikonomos within the oikos was constitutive of the oikos society of Greek antiquity. It allowed a functional integration and a stabilization of power dynamics – which later led to the formation of the polis.26 It formed the stabilizing centre in the “rise of the gentilic aristocracy” (Linke 1995, p. 70.), in which civil rights were tied to descent from specific dynasties or families, who in turn described their own leadership as the “rule of the best, the noblest” (DWDS 2018). This was in contrast, for example, to anarchy or gynaikokratia, the “rule of women in the houses” (Wunder 2009). This self-charismatizing self-image is also reflected in the ancient economy. It was “dominated to the highest degree by the behaviour and interests of very small, extraordinarily wealthy elites” (von Reden 2015, p. 3) and was based on the effective social control and use of people without legal capacity – lower classes, women, children and slaves. From various traditions, a body of economic literature developed on household management, oikonomia, which later also sought to link private and state household management and is the eponym of today’s economics. It is part of the philosophical and constitutional theoretical reflection of the upper classes around the political constitution of society, as Habenstein points out. In the formation of categories, the household was henceforth regarded in the history of Western ideas as the basic institution indispensable for the individual, in which fundamental social relations with their social inequalities, including their power and leadership structures, are expressed and become recognizable as social orders of knowledge (Habenstein 2015). At the centre of the image of human beings in classical economic theory was the legally competent man kyrios, who constituted the central survival unit of the oikos and to whom social, economic and cultic-religious (value-added) creative power as well as sacral charisma were attributed. He was the head of the household and was not only permitted to but had to seek his own advantage, which was considered

26

In terms of power theory, the central position-forming power dynamics of relationship networks were described by Norbert Elias using the example of courtly society (for a summary, see Waterstradt 2015, p. 71 ff.).

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reasonable and rational. All others were unfree, thus easily controlled, and to that extent bound to an ideology of loyalty and fidelity. The later designation homo oeconomicus is the extended and today ubiquitous version of this conception of humans (von Reden 2015, pp. 3, 90; Krause 2003, p. 54 ff.).

Roman Antiquity: domus and familia27 In Roman antiquity, too, the household community was the central social institution or figuration. The cult of ancestors played a key role here, as Mitterauer and Linke show: the identity of each person – men as well as women – was primarily determined by their descent from their personal or anonymous forefathers. These were cultically revered as di parentes and di manes, respectively, i.e. as divine. Because of the close cultic ties to the ancestors, the name of the household and descent community, “gens” (the gentile name), became the actual name. The cultic community could not be continued through female descendants, but only through legitimate male descendants – either bodily or adopted.28 In a cultic sense, women belonged to their father’s cultic community throughout their lives and retained the name of his household and ancestral community. Slaves, too, could receive this name after release and even be buried in the grave of the house and descent community (Mitterauer 1993, p. 79; Linke 1995, p. 23 ff.). In Roman antiquity two different words stood for this cultic house community: domus and familia. The word domus goes back etymologically to *dem-, the Indo-European word root for house (Linke 1995, p. 42). It has comparable aspects of meaning to oikos: • • • •

House, House community including family members and slaves, Kinship, Family assets (Krause 2003, pp. 44–45).

The word familia is an abstraction of the word famulus for valet, servant or, in late antiquity, slave. It goes back to the Oscan word famel or famelo as well as to the

27

For more detail, see Krause (2003) and von Reden (2015). However, this changed in the early imperial period and polynymy developed, i.e. the continuation of as many important names of the paternal and maternal line as possible (Mitterauer 1993, p. 81). 28

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Umbrian word fameria. The Oscan word famat means to dwell and thus refers to the basic meaning of living together (Sell 1879, p. 5). There was no separate word for our present concept of the nuclear family at that time. The word familia had several aspects of meaning: in everyday usage, familia meant “slaves of a household”. Furthermore, it could mean: • Group of persons descended in the male line from a common ancestor, • Group of persons who were subject to the patria potestas, i.e. the power of the central position of the householder, such as the wife, children, grandchildren or slaves (Krause 2004, p. 96). The formation of patria potestas as paternal authority distinguishes Roman development from virtually all other societies (Krause 2003, p. 158). It was a result of the “dissolution of the old egalitarian kinship and economic system” of the Indo-European peoples (Linke 1995, p. 81). Economically, the shift of settlement to the valleys and the transition from hoeing to ploughing at the end of the ninth century BC led to an increase in yields (Linke 1995, p. 175). In this early Roman society there were not yet any institutionalized leadership structures (Linke 1995, p. 40 ff.), so that the domestic cult community and the central position of the *dempoti as head of the household incorporated within it form the basis here: “The core point of the process of social differentiation lies in the further development of the position of the fiduciary redistributor to the owner of the household goods, i.e. from the Indo-European *dem-poti to the Latin pater familias” (Linke 1995, p. 81). This led to a “consolidation of social prestige, material power and social influence in the person of the pater familias”, which gave rise to an “institutionalization of rule” and created “new forms of social subordination” (Linke 1995, p. 85): The title pater familias already underlined the new claim to power: while pater has a transcendent connotation through its reference to divine creative power, familia was no longer a kinship term but a term of social stratification. Thus, the power of the householder, the potestas, had evolved from a symbol of fiduciary responsibility to the household community through its transformation into patria potestas to a platform for the patres’ claim to power. [. . .] Thus the originally closest relatives of the pater familias sank to the status of social dependents. (Linke 1995, p. 177)

In the rise of the gentilaristocracy, economic prosperity and social authority were purposefully used to “build up a religious charisma of their own” (Linke 1995, p. 177). The “slow transformation of the patriciate from gentile to official nobility” brought about a “senatorialization of the patres” from which republican statehood developed (Linke 1995, p. 180).

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In the ancestor cult of the Roman household community, the privileged relationship of the pater familias and the ancestors generated his almost absolute authority and almost godlike position. For “if he dies, he himself becomes a god” (Oesterdiekhoff 1992, p. 222). While in the Greek household concept the householder belonged to the oikos, the Roman pater familias stood above his familia: he was largely autonomous and independent and had “legally no duties, but only rights” (Leist 1892/1896, pp. 191–192). The patria potestas was almost unlimited in purely legal terms, which extended to the right to kill and ended only with the death of the father – for example, even beyond the age of majority and the marriage of a son. Although it was limited in the course of the imperial period, it was not abolished until 565 AD. Kinship from the female side was strengthened over time, but male kinship had priority until late antiquity (Krause 2003, p. 132 ff.). Similarly to the Greek development, the domus household community was also guided by the goal of procreating legitimate offspring. It was also characterized by low stability, high mortality, late marriage of men, early marriage of women, arranged homogamous marriages, numerous remarriages and a large number of step-parents or step-siblings – a marital ideal of harmonious inequality. There was close solidarity between relatives – from routine matters to emergencies to lending (Krause 2003, pp. 23–38, 40–43, 95–159). Besides the great dependence on the patria potestas, there were in particular the following differences: beyond the regular manus marriage, in which the woman was subject to the patria potestas, the sine manu marriage developed. Here she remained under the patria potestas of her father and could come into possession of her own property on his death. Thus, gender guardianship (Ger. Geschlechtsvormundschaft29) was considerably reduced in the second century AD, but subordination was still typically expected. In addition, there were warnings that having a rich wife could reverse the balance of power in the household. Divorces were free and common, especially among the upper classes – at least until their restrictions in late antiquity. After divorces, children generally remained in the father’s household (Krause 2003). The separation of the spheres of inside–female and outside–male also shaped the division of labour between men and women here. However, it was somewhat more relaxed – women attended banquets or public events together with men. All children, whether boys or girls, were equally entitled to inherit. In addition to manus and sine manu marriages, concubinage existed as a socially accepted

29

Sometimes also translated as gender tutelage.

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alternative in which children were not entitled to inheritance and which was also open to the unfree (Krause 2003). The economy, as in Greece, was mainly agrarian, with small farms and specialized crafts. From the second century BC onwards, the villa economy developed in large estates specialized in wine and olives, run by administrators and leading to a more dynamic surplus production (von Reden 2015, p. 56). In the crafts, apprenticeship contracts already existed at the end of the second century AD, with a structure reminiscent of today’s apprenticeship structures in Germany and other central European regions: during the first 31 months there was a small payment in the form of food and clothing, and then there were subsequent payments with gradual increases (Jochum-Bortfeld 2008, p. 156). In some cases, even comparatively poor households had slaves. According to estimates, the proportion of slaves in the Italian population was one third; in the entire Roman Empire it was 20% (Krause 2004, p. 196). The principle of self-sufficiency pursued by Greek economics was abandoned in Roman agricultural literature in favour of profitability, optimized production of goods and sales opportunities. Economic theoretical considerations are reflected in Roman law – especially in the competences of the pater familias (von Reden 2015, pp. 84–85).

Middle Ages: House30 In the Middle Ages, the institution of the house continued to change. In particular, ritual–religious functions of a house or ancestor cult were pushed back by Christianity, and economic functions came to the fore through the development of the manorial system. Both influences mutually reinforced each other and, in interaction with other factors, formed the medieval foundations of a special European path that emerged from antiquity (Mitterauer 2003b). “In the West, a Christianity inimical to the rights of genealogical descent maintained its supremacy” (Mitterauer 2003b, p. 83).31 It worked “against thinking in categories of descent” and thus fostered a new kind of “social flexibility through

30

For more details, see Mitterauer (2003a, b). Mitterauer emphasizes the importance of this development in understanding the special Western European path: the “divergent developments are significant not merely for the history of the family and kinship; taken together they provide a key to our understanding of how [. . .] cultures and societies can develop so differently” (Mitterauer 2003b, p. 83).

31

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loosened ties of descent” (Mitterauer 2003b, pp. 73, 58). Due to their great social cohesive power, descent relations became social ideals, after whose model competing institutions now developed. Whether monasteries, household communities or guilds – everywhere new forms of solidary social relations emerged whose positions were often conceptually characterized in reference to kinship relations: as father, mother, brother, sister, squire (boy) or maid (girl) (Ger. Knecht (Knabe), Magd (Mädchen)). With the “devaluation of blood kinship as a structuring element of society”, the Christian religion or Church promoted a “de-familiarization of the social” (Jussen 2013, p. 170). Conversely, a multitude of “quasi-kinship social relationships” (Mitterauer 2003b, p. 284), the “model of separating from one’s parents” and the “trend towards individualization and towards singularization” (Mitterauer 2003b pp. 94–95) developed. The foundations of these canons were developed by the itinerant wandering charismatics of early Christianity, as Theißen describes: Jesus and his disciples purposefully turned away from lineage relationships, left their families, detached love from the kinship circle and offered it as charity to outsiders – if necessary also in conflict with or breaking from the family. In order to be able to establish the Christian ethos in descent-based societies at all, Paul already developed a more moderate variant of the family-critical ethos as a kind of preliminary stage. The family-supporting ethos that emerged was a conservative love–patriarchalism. On the one hand, social inequalities were left in place, but on the other hand, they were imbued with a spirit of consideration, respect and personal care (Theißen 2000). By abolishing the protection of status through descent, early Christianity turned against the patrilineal genealogies of early societies. It thus established its own privileges and did so in full knowledge that this would probably cause tensions (Theißen 2000). The spirit took the place of genealogical descent and became a status-conferring power – justified by the Holy Spirit descending at baptism. From this, the new phenomenon of spiritual kinship developed in the Christian world in the third to ninth centuries AD and gave rise to new forms of ties that were treated as kinship – a specifically Christian–European developmental phenomenon. The extent to which spiritual kinship approached consanguinity can be seen in the way marriage prohibitions were extended within spiritual kinship. These began in the fourth century and reached their peak in the eleventh century (Mitterauer 2003a, pp. 186 ff.).

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In the concept of spiritual kinship, birth according to the spirit took precedence over birth according to the flesh32 in shaping the personality. This changed standard of kinship contributed to a changed understanding of society, closeness of relationships and identification in the underlying social and kinship relations, and led to confrontations with tribal societies from the early Middle Ages onwards. In the special path of European family development, not only were paternal and maternal relatives increasingly placed on an equal footing, but also blood relatives and marriage relatives as well as blood relatives and spiritual relatives – which was also reflected in corresponding prohibitions of incest. The Latin terms for the spiritual relatives (Engl. godparents) compater (Engl. godfather) and commater (Engl. godmother) clearly indicate the expansion of the circle of those responsible for care as co-parents (Mitterauer 2003a, pp. 165 ff.). Christianity institutionalized itself within the birthright order and successfully claimed the order of marriage as a separate estate: thus the marriage state became part of the order of the home and later societies. Ecclesiastical law applied to man and woman in all estates: “Their consensus brings about marriage. This remains the hard core of European, Catholic, Protestant as well as later secular marriage law, emanating from monogamy and gender equality” (Dilcher 1999, p. 60).33 In this respect, it was the Church that enforced the marriage consensus “consistently protecting the conjugal couple against relatives” (Jussen 2013, p. 170). By weakening descent relationships through religion and the organization of work, among other things, the concept of the “spouse-centred family” emerged in the Middle Ages – an “exceptional phenomenon” in cross-cultural comparison (Mitterauer 2009, p. 22). In the early Middle Ages, the household community of antiquity was gradually transformed into a serf system (Ger. grundhörige Unfreiheit) with a fundamental lack of freedom. There developed “a multiplied interlaced system of superordinate and subordinate household communities, in which the royal court provided the outer framework” (Mitterauer 2003a, p. 271): prince’s courts, noble courts, frone labour associations, ecclesiastical household communities and urban and rural household forms. The landlord’s protection and service association often comprised hundreds or thousands of unfree persons, who were themselves subject to the landlord’s right See the Bible Romans 8:9: “You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.” 33 See footnote 12 for scholarly discussion of the extent to which canons of early Christianity were shaped by a distinction in gender habitus. Socio-historically, these foundations were repeatedly patriarchally reformed and institutionalized. 32

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to marry and to manifold marriage prohibitions. This association was called familia, which, however, was not a word in the everyday language in this period. The economic demands led to a particular openness and flexibility of social and kinship relations as well as to an increase in productivity. This had a lasting impact on the development of social and kinship relations, identity concepts and biographies (Mitterauer 2003a, b, 2009). In the work organization of the home, the concept of competition- and performance-based male patronage meant that the patron did not hold his position for life, but had to hand it over to a younger person. With him lay the obligation to protect (Ger. munt), which developed out of the constitution of defence and was later called muntgewalt (Mitterauer 2003a, p. 317) and developed further into domestic authority (Ger. häusliche Gewalt) or paternal authority (Ger. väterliche Gewalt34) (Justi 1760, pp. 416–417). This Western Christian variant of “patriarchal rule” no longer established life-long claims to positions, but was increasingly based on performance (Sieder 2008, p. 306). For those who were led, the lord had to be able to ensure protection and shield (Ger. Schutz und Schirm) as well as access to certain services and benefits. This concept of competitive and merit-based male patronage became the epitome of legitimate authority and good power and remained “the social-cultural prototype of many institutions” – whether for monasteries, crafts, families or businesses – until the twentieth century (Sieder 2008, p. 14). It was also the basis for the long-lived, “ideal-typical model of [. . .] patriarchal parenthood” (Sieder 2008, p. 306). With the transformation of the ancient house to the figuration of economic units oriented on performance and added value in the Middle Ages, the interests of the landlords moved to the centre: for them, a functionally complementary working couple at the head of a court was more important than the patriline within the households: “The peasant family farms, which developed through increasing emancipation from the frone labour community, depended on the cooperation of husband and wife” (Mitterauer 2003a, p. 323) – i.e. for emancipation from the frone labour community of familia. The housefather and housemother became the indispensable double head as house parents, under the priority of the protective rule of the man. The “marriage and work couple” (Wunder 1992, p. 98) asserted itself from the 34 The German word for the domestic authority (Ger. häusliche Gewalt) went through a radical semantical shift of pejoration. In the Middle Age and early modern period it stood primarily for the legitimate authority of the father in the house, but today it stands for an abuse of power through different kinds of violence (physical, economical, emotional, verbal, etc.) in the house i.e. family (Honig 1988; Bals 2008; Imbusch 2002; Dlugosch 2010, p. 17 ff.; DWDS 2018).

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eleventh century onwards as the leadership structure in the small households of urban and rural communities. They led the servants belonging to the household and the children, whether biological or not. This economic community was characterized by considerable fluctuation due to the overall high mortality and the frequent change of maids and servants.35 In the event of the death of a spouse, it was important to quickly find a new spouse to complete the dual leadership. The landlord’s interests in the productivity of the economic unit played an important role here, so that widowed housemothers on farms, for example, not infrequently married a younger (more productive) man. The principle of monogamy thus applied only until the death of one spouse, and successive polygamy became established (Mitterauer 2003a). In the spouse- or “‘parent-centred’ kinship system” of Europe, the term of synthesis for the dual head was thus of central importance; accordingly, “the appearance of parental terms stands for systemic change”. In the development of necessary parental terms, European languages took different paths (Mitterauer 2003a, pp. 178–179). The German parental term Eltern (Engl. parents) and the old English term elder have their etymological roots in the Indo-European al- for “to grow, to make grow, to nourish” (Pokorny 1887, p. 26). The economization of life since the manorial system of the Middle Ages was clearly reflected in patterns of life. These had little in common with the widespread ideas of early parenthood and life as a multi-generational family in the ancestral home. John Hajnal (1965) investigated the socio-historical background and initially came across a specifically “European marriage pattern”. Gradually, the underlying life course and social structures became discernible. Even beyond the period of the Middle Ages, these were formative for the modern era in many respects and continue to have an impact today (Mitterauer 2003a). In order for a household in the Middle Ages to function as an economic unit, not only was the dual head of the household parents necessary, but usually also servants were. Since the mother’s labour was valuable as a productive factor, children were often looked after by a carer – usually a young girl who was not yet fully capable of working, or an old man or old woman (Mitterauer 2003a).

35

Until the twentieth century the custom of a yearly or even half-yearly change of servants on farms was maintained in many regions of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The start of the farmers’ year was on the second of February, the Catholic holiday of Candlemass (Ger. Mariä Lichtmess) in the Church calendar. On this day the servants’ year ended so they went looking for another position or renewed their agreement by handshake. Until 1912 the day was a national holiday in Bavaria (Moser 2007; Schmidt 2017).

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Children had to work at an early age; this was a central component of socialization. Then, at the age of about 10–14, the servant phase of life began, the precursor of the later phase of adolescence and young adulthood: as a maid or servant, the place of service was changed frequently (see footnote 35). Skills were acquired and money was saved in order to be able to settle down later on. In the skilled trades, too, training was intended to broaden the view beyond the parental home and to further develop the concept of training that had its origins in antiquity. To this day, the “apprentice and itinerant years” (Ger. Lehr- und Wanderjahre) are a familiar concept. The predominant pattern was not to take over the parental household, but to set up one’s own household – called neolocality. If marriage took place, it was only after the servant phase, i.e. relatively late. Moreover, this was subject to the marriage rights of the landlord, and his own economic interest was paramount. For the majority of the population, therefore, parenthood occurred in the second half of life (Mitterauer 2003a). The life expectancy of a newborn was low because there were many life risks to survive: a very high infant and child mortality, numerous life-threatening diseases, hunger, hard physical labour and high parental mortality in childbirth. Those who survived the harsh living conditions barely lived to be 50 years old on average. To experience one’s own children as adults or even to see one’s own grandchildren was therefore rare in these life course and social structures. Also, in terms of the age structure of these societies, the “elders”, in the modern sense of the word, were indeed the older people. In view of the shortened time to have children due to the servant phase and a high infant and child mortality rate, the number of children in the household also usually remained limited: there were usually only about two, and in rare cases three children living in the parental household (Mitterauer 1992, 2003a, 2009). The elites of the nobility and the gradually emerging upper middle class deviated from this European pattern of life. However, this pattern remained influential for the broader population until manorial ties and marriage bans were loosened (Mitterauer 2003a). Economically, the millennium of the Middle Ages continued to be predominantly agricultural – supplemented by crafts, trade, mining, etc. – and was characterized by considerable fluctuations. Already in the early Middle Ages, bed ploughing, shifting cultivation, harnessing horses with the horse collar, horseshoeing or millwork were common work tasks. The economy gradually differentiated and developed institutional innovations such as guilds or the Hanseatic League (Gilomen 2014).

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Early Modern Period: House; from Seventeenth/Eighteenth Centuries Family and Business In the early modern period, the house with the “marriage and work couple” as the dual head continued to be the central figuration of living and economic activity – on the farms of the still primarily agrarian economy, but also in the crafts or in offices as an official couple (Wunder 1992). In the division of labour there was no fixed segregation of activities, but rather responsibilities that changed with the demands and many common areas of activity (Mitterauer 1992). Only in the very small, slowly emerging stratum of the upper middle class (bourgeoisie) (Ger. Bürgertum36) and the patricians did a different model develop, which was to become increasingly prevalent with the economic development of the

36

This term is often translated as the bourgeoisie in other contexts, but here it is simply referred to as the upper middle class to distinguish it from the characteristics of the bourgeoisie in other European countries. The emergence of an upper middle class – of the citizens (Ger. Bürger) – is a core aspect of European historical development, which, as Kocka shows, formed in different paths and characteristics depending on regional constellations. During the Enlightenment an anti-absolutist utopia of a civil society (société civile (French), Zivil- or Bürgergesellschaft (German)) emerged. It was the model of a modern, secularized, non-classbased society, not controlled from above, non-hierarchical, reasonably self-regulating, or “bourgeois”. In Western societies numerous contradictions between the utopian ideas and realities proved to be formative and particularly ambivalent. This was true for Germany, too, maybe in an even stronger and more radical way.In Germany, the educated upper class (Ger. Bildungsbürgertum) had a unique charismatic character and was intellectually, culturally and socially very influential. A strong civil service state and a thoroughly state-driven school and education system developed relatively early. Class antagonisms and social hierarchies were particularly pronounced. Civil servants had a unique position as elites and role models, with bureaucratic models and cultures that were particularly influential. This was evident, among other things, in the imitation of officialdom, deep-seated submissive mentality and a pronounced title system. The German upper middle class was state-heavy and strongly influenced by the authoritarian state – especially in education, professionalization processes and the economy. For an in-depth analysis of the particularity of the German Bürgertum, see Kocka (1993, 2004, 2008). In short: “In Germany, the upper middle class and civil society [...] often stood against each other”, so that progressive utopia and conceptualizations became at the same time a negative image of individual utility maximization, privileges, self-interest, exploitation and self-satisfaction (Kocka 2010, pp. 6–7)The particularly ambivalent character and the intrinsic contradictions of the German upper middle class, its culture and values also run through the new concept of the house(hold) or family – the bürgerliche Familie – that developed and spread as a role model throughout all classes in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (see below).

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modern era: spheres of separation of living and economic activities along gender lines. The husband was exclusively responsible for securing the household’s livelihood – for example, as a lawyer, pastor or physician – and the wife presided over the household (Wunder 1992; Gestrich 2003; Mitterauer 1992). The “dissociation of gainful employment and family life” led to a “polarization of ‘gender characters’” (Hausen 1976/2012) and an “economic system based on the gender order” prevailed (Hausen 2004/2012). For the slowly developing upper-middle-class model of the home, which was focused on the private sphere, the German word Familie (Engl. family) emerged. It gradually entered German everyday language from the end of the seventeenth century onwards (coming from French). At first, it was a synonym for the house and only with time did it refer to the closer unit of parents and children (Gestrich 2003, p. 367). In the long-term historical process, the term underwent a most astonishing change of meaning – in Roman antiquity, familia were the slaves of a household, in the Middle Ages it was a frone association of dependents and now family is the closer unit of parents and children, cultivated in a mythicalemotionalizing way as “unchanging, eternal, sacred” (Sieder 2010a, p. 46). An important basis for this were the Reformation movements of the early modern period. While the cultic-religious function of the house had been pushed back in the Middle Ages, this now experienced a clear counterthrust: in the course of the Reformation, there was a “spiritual-religious exaltation” of the house and its hierarchical structure – the leadership lay with the father of the house as house priest with the assistance of his wife. On this foundation, at the same time, a “parallelism of father of the house and father of the country” was established and newly institutionalized as a power by the grace of God (Gestrich 2003, pp. 372–373). With the erosion of the corporative social order, social and kinship relations also changed fundamentally (Sabean and Teuscher 2007, p. 23). Between the nobility, the clergy and the lower estates, upper-middle-class milieus gradually increased. Due to their economic and socio-cultural success, they became increasingly important social leadership milieus, even though the social spread from the upper to the lower middle class was and always remained wide. With the separation of living and economic activities, of private and public space, the hitherto central social figuration of the house as a living and economic unit changed. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, the agricultural sector lost importance, so that society and the economy changed fundamentally. The private and public spheres became further differentiated. The “oicocentric worldview” that prevailed until the seventeenth century turned away from the institution of the household, and political economy or national economics focused on the new institutions of the nation-state and the enterprise

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(Richarz 1997, pp. 104 ff.). In the early seventeenth century, the German word Unternehmen (Engl. enterprise) came to mean a venture or intention, and in the eighteenth century it took on its present meaning as an economic undertaking or enterprise. At the same time, the English and French words undertaker37 and entrepreneur were transferred into German and from then on the German word Unternehmer (Engl. entrepreneur) stood for a man who owns and manages a commercial or industrial enterprise; the female form Unternehmerin derived from it appeared much later and is still rare today,38 as the corpus analysis of the Digital Dictionary of the German Language shows (DWDS 2018). The rise of upper-middle-class milieus was based on growing economic and socio-cultural opportunities that could be used to build up resources or capital39: • Cultural capital: education and action knowledge that is incorporated, objectified and institutionalized,

37 Until the 1690s the English word undertaker meant a contractor or project worker of any sort. Only later did the specialized meaning of funeral-undertaker emerge (Klein 1971). 38 The German language faces severe problems in making women visible (Bußmann and Hellinger 2003; Kotthoff and Nübling 2018). In German “the major suffix that derives masculine human nouns [. . .] is -er. [. . .] The resulting nouns are always male-specific, but may, in addition, be used in generic contexts” (Bußmann and Hellinger 2003, p. 152), like for example the German word Unternehm-er. This leads to an invisibility of women in the German language. In the structure of the German language, grammatical gender is a central category. While English lost this category completely, German is one of the few languages that has retained the Indo-European three-gender system with masculine, feminine and neuter. German still conserved “the historical fact that originally men were the first to perform most prestigious or ‘male’ occupations and professions, while only few, and generally low-status occupational terms developed from female domains. [. . .] Underlying these morphological and semantic asymmetries is the ideology of MAN (‘male as norm’), which considers the male/masculine as the higher, more prestigious category and the female/feminine as secondary and subordinate. This ideology also motivates the prescription that in neutral contexts, masculine forms should be the default choice for personal nouns. However, the prescription of masculine terms in neutral contexts which are intended to include women, [. . .] has increasingly been interpreted as sexist practice in German” (Bußmann and Hellinger 2003, pp. 157–158). This makes women linguistically invisible and has profound but unconscious psychological and habitual consequences on all genders. Since the feminist critique that started in the 1970s, guidelines for non-discriminatory usage have been developed. They still cause feelings of embarrassment, communicative disorientation and helplessness and lead to significant public controversies. But by now more and more German companies use gender-sensitive language or at least recommend it (Samsonova 2021; Fischer 2022) and the German Society of Public Relations (DPRG 2021) also recommends doing so. 39 Types of capital with reference to Pierre Bourdieu (1982).

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• Social capital: social relationships that enable cooperation and information exchange, • Economic capital: tangible and intangible property that can be monetized when needed, • Symbolic capital: social recognition, prestige, reputation, honour, image, • Human capital: people who can become carriers of cultural, social, economic and symbolic capital. The new upper-middle-class milieus benefited from the erosion of the birthright principle, in which ties of descent were primarily a privilege of the nobility. Now kinship could also become an increasingly important resource beyond the aristocracy, which was intensively used and reshaped from the mid-eighteenth century onwards (Sabean and Teuscher 2007, p. 23). In imitation of aristocratic descent, genealogy, family trees, coats of arms, palatial family residences, and ancestral and family portraits became fashionable in the upper middle classes. Elevation to the nobility became a coveted distinction and a son as a progenitor (Ger. Stammhalter40) was of the utmost importance. “Bourgeois master thinkers” conceived of civil society as a “birth of the mind”: “Before it came into the world, it existed as an idea in the minds and concept papers of its fathers” (Frevert 1988b, p. 17). This includes family models, such as Frédéric Le Play’s ideal of the “stem family” (Play 1855) and Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl’s ideal of the “whole house” (Riehl 1855, p. 177).41 The cultivation of the principle of descent, which had been pushed back beyond the aristocracy in the Middle Ages and had led to loosened descent relations, once again became an important resource. Kinship relations were successfully cultivated, especially in the upper-middleclass milieus, which enabled the productivity and value creation of all types of capital to be expanded and strengthened (cf. Kocka 1982) – cultural, social, economic and symbolic capital as well as human capital. Depending on the focus of capital accumulation, the rising milieus of the nineteenth century can be assigned to the educated upper-middle-class milieu (Ger. Bildungsbürgertum) or the economic upper-middle-class milieu (Ger. Wirtschaftsbürgertum) (Kocka 1995a). With the rise of these particularly successful upper-middle-class milieus, their family model (Ger. Bürgerliche Familie) (Nave-Herz 2013, p. 23) initially developed into the “centrepiece of upper-middle-class culture” (Budde 2009, p. 25) and

40

Literally translated into English this would be stem holder. See above in the section: Theoretical concepts: From “stem family” and “whole house” to “open house”.

41

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gradually also into the leading social model on which other milieus and soon the entire civil society oriented themselves (Nave-Herz 2013). The model understood itself as a “special relationship of cooperation and solidarity based on tradition, custom and law” (Nave-Herz 2013, p. 19). In contrast to the household communities of antiquity and the Middle Ages, which were unstable, dynamic and open (Eibach and Schmidt-Voges 2015), it saw itself as a closed community with an exclusive character (Nave-Herz 2013, p. 23). There were gradual gradations of exclusivity: (1) nuclear family consisting of father, mother and children; (2) extended family including close relatives such as grandparents or aunts and uncles; and (3) entire kin. In the upper-middle-class family ideal, the central position lay with the husband as the head and breadwinner of the family on the basis of his domestic authority (Ger. Häusliche Gewalt42), which was later referred to only as paternal authority (Ger. Väterliche Gewalt). It continued to be based on “gender guardianship” over the wife (Holthöfer 1997)43 and guardianship over the minor children, including the associated rights of disposal over their labour and property. In many respects, paternal authority remained unlimited in the nineteenth century, but in the course of the twentieth century it became increasingly institutionally embedded and thus limited – first as parental authority (Ger. Elterliche Gewalt) and then as parental care (Ger. Elterliche Sorge) (Brokamp 2002, p. 11). The basis of the upper-middle-class family ideal is the “ideology of the complementary theorem of the sexes, which above all limited the life of wives to the internal family sphere and excluded them from gainful employment and their own income” (Nave-Herz 2013, pp. 26–27). What was cultivated was the “recognition of romantic love as the only legitimate reason for marriage”, the “emotionalization and intimization” within a graduated internal family structure and the “autonomy of marriage” (Nave-Herz 2013). The gender aspect is of such centrality to the figurative order of the upper-middle-class family that it seems questionable to Kocka whether a full emancipation of women is even possible in a civil society:

42

With the development and civilization of society the German word Gewalt (Engl. authority or violence) changed and evolved. While in former times it stood for legitimate power, if necessary forceful or violent, today it has a very negative connotation of an illegitimate use of power or physical strength as violence. Historical corpus analyses shows that the use of the word is decreasing (DWDS 2018). 43 For more detail on the historical development of gender guardianship from antiquity to the nineteenth century, see Holthöfer (1997).

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D. Waterstradt A fundamental question is whether [. . .] the full emancipation of women must lead to the collapse of basic pillars of civil society and is therefore ultimately not feasible within civil societies. [. . .] For on the one hand, with the differentiation of social spheres (such as working life, family, politics) and their internal specialization (increase in lifetime occupations, qualification increases, professionalization), the demands increased which fixed individuals to continuous, specialized activities and thus also more sharply permeated and solidified the role differences between those who work and those who raise children, between work outside the home and domestic work, between production and reproduction, between men and women. On the other hand, it cannot be overlooked that in civil societies, too, the family functions as the main instance for securing economic, social and cultural continuity across generations, and that in civil societies in particular – in contrast to earlier times – it is at the same time emphasized as a sphere of compensation for the losses and renunciations suffered in working life and the public sphere. (Kocka 1995b, pp. 29–30)

Also of great importance for the upper-middle-class family ideal was the “spatial distance from the family of origin and the service personnel” (Nave-Herz 2013, pp. 26–27). The new consolidation of kinship relations, together with increasing life expectancy, initially led to greater stability in family relationships. In the course of these developments, grandparent roles also emerged (Chvojka 2003). The upper-middle-class family ideal found its strongest spread at the end of the 1950s to the mid-1970s (Nave-Herz 2013, p. 29), i.e. long after it had developed. Since then, thrusts of social change have led to a shift in the central position from the husband to the child44 and to a pluralization of the family (Peuckert 2012). There is a renewed dissolution of the boundaries between family and work (Jurczyk et al. 2009). Today the word family has the following meanings: • Nuclear family consisting of a parent couple or at least one parent and at least one child, • Group of all persons related to each other by blood, • Systematic unit of more closely related genera in animal or plant organisms or in products, technical devices, etc. (Duden 2018), • Metaphor or rhetorical image for an exemplary, natural-solidarity network of relationships (cf. Lüscher 1995; Tjarks 2011). The importance of kinship or family as a resource, especially in the emerging economic middle class, is shown by the many works on family businesses that

44

For more detail on the phenomenon of child-centredness, see Waterstradt (2015, p. 352 ff.).

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have emerged since the 1950s – whether out of private, entrepreneurial, journalistic or academic interest. In the associated family model of the economic upper middle class (Ger. Wirtschaftsbürgertum), the demarcation between family and business never fully asserted itself, as the business always remained more or less closely linked to the family through working, management and ownership relationships.

Business Family: A Process–Sociological Reflection of the Term With the change of the (business) family models, corresponding composites for the designation gradually developed in the German language. The German word Familienbetrieb (Engl. family business) can be traced back to 1860 and refers to a “(smaller) enterprise, business or similar, which is owned (and managed, operated) by a family”. From 1890, the German word Familienunternehmen (Engl. family enterprise) is known and from 1910 the German word Unternehmerfamilie (Engl. business family) can be seen (DWDS 2018). The difference in meaning between the German words Familienbetrieb and Familienunternehmen seems to lie on the one hand in the size, and on the other hand in the described separation of living and economic activity. The concept of Familienbetrieb is even closer to the tradition from the Middle Ages and early modern times – it indicates a greater closeness and intertwining of family members and business enterprise, potentially also with the married couple as a working couple with dual leadership. In contrast to this, the complementary German concepts of Familienunternehmen (Engl. family business) and Unternehmerfamilie (Engl. business family) stand as a conceptual pair for the comparatively more separated spheres of living and economic activity. The German word Unternehmerfamilie makes explicit that this separation of spheres usually runs along the genders. The husband as der Unternehmer (Engl. the male entrepreneur) holds the central position, which is constitutive for the two-sided web of relationships of family business and business family. The members of both figurative spheres are dependent on whether the holder of the central position proves to be skilful at holding this position. They all depend on him succeeding in a “careful cultivation of the balance of tensions” (Elias 1969/ 2014, p. 294) between the family business and the business family as well as other figurations such as the state or cooperation partners. The status of everyone depends on it.

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In this model, the place of the business or enterprise is no longer the household in which one lives, but a separate building that serves exclusively as a production facility – with the primary goal of generating economic capital. The generation of the capitals required for this purpose, such as human, cultural and social capital45 – reproduction, as it were – takes place separately in the family household economy under the direction of the wife as entrepreneurial wife. In this respect, entrepreneurial business and family home economics are two locally separate economic “enterprises”, which are nevertheless functionally and fundamentally dependent on each other. These are part of a new institutional order that has emerged through a veritable “institutional revolution” (Wischermann and Nieberding 2004). In particular, the “transition from the birthright to the ‘occupational’ principle” loosened established lifeworld ties, orders and connections (Gall 1996, p. 83). The development of homeor oikos-centred economics into market or competitive economics (Richarz 1997) was accompanied by a “dissociation of gainful employment and family life” (Hausen 1976/2012). This caused “especially in the middle classes a more striking demarcation of male-female functional spheres” (Frevert 1988a, p. 15), which was of central importance for the success of entrepreneurs, business families and family businesses and is only now gradually being questioned: To be a Bürger, a citoyen, a citizen of the state was not only the social characteristic of economic independence, but also a “natural” quality: not to be a child, not to be a woman, but to be a man of full age. In their gender role, women were thus fundamentally and unalterably outside the political-legal context of civil societies. Performance orientation, the mobility principle, the expectation of progress – all these terms and concepts borrowed from the upper-middle-class self-image had no meaning for women. (Frevert 1988b, p. 22)

The opportunity to become an entrepreneur was largely limited to upper-middleclass men. The upper-middle-class family model was an important prerequisite for (cf. Kocka 1982) working one’s way up to an “upper-middle-class personality” (Ger. bürgerliche Persönlichkeit) through ownership and even to build up one’s own family business via the “emancipatory effect of the free market” (Frevert 1988b, p. 22). In the rise of work as a newly codified, national ordering principle (Conrad et al. 2000), the importance of the husband’s work as an entrepreneur also grew and

45 The economic capital required for investments or loans also often comes from the family or relatives.

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experienced a considerable revaluation. Conversely, there was a “concealment and devaluation of – especially female – work practices in the home”, whereby their “intensification and differentiation” remained invisible (Eibach 2015a, p. 24): Whereas in the world of the domestic fathers46 the work of the housemother still had a prominent and productive role, the view of female domestic work was now reduced to a secondary role, socially undervalued, macroeconomically neglected, statically not recorded,47 because there were no market prices for the products produced here. (Wischermann and Nieberding 2004, p. 120)

The upper-middle-class family model also underlay the formation of habitus in business families: upbringing was “early and open-heartedly geared to the business–bourgeois activity of the sons, which was expected and desired almost as a matter of course. That one of the sons, usually the eldest, would later take over the business was at any rate taken for granted in merchant and business families” (Kocka 1982, p. 169). Daughters were brought up to marry, which – similar to the aristocracy – strengthened “networks of kinship relations” within the economic upper middle class and expanded them “according to economic-family strategic aspects” (Kocka 1982, pp. 178–179). To this day, many family businesses are based on the model of the “stem family” and older family businesses on a division into family tribes, as Jäkel-Wurzer et al. describe. However, social change is not bypassing family businesses either, so that succession here is “in a state of upheaval” (Jäkel-Wurzer et al. 2017, p. 2). On the one hand, in contrast to the past, there are now diverse international career opportunities. On the other hand, the model of the business family as a “stem family” is often no longer perceived as contemporary by the following generation. The successful model of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is under increasing pressure to change, especially with regard to the coexistence of the generations, the separation of the spheres of the genders, the patriarchal habitus and the associated ideals of figuration. The next generation of sons is “less and less willing to accept conflicts of rivalry and to follow paths that have already been mapped out”, as Jäkel-Wurzer et al. make clear. Today’s self-image of daughters also hardly fits into the historically

46

Formerly also called housefathers in English. Only slowly is the invisibility of the family household as an indispensable economic enterprise being dismantled. In terms of economics, there is a shift towards gathering data not only on paid but also on unpaid work. On average, 43% of daily working hours are unpaid in the OECD, and a good 48% in Germany (OECD 2018). 47

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developed model of the “business family” – it was “organized and shaped in male structures” and for a long time it was therefore “unimaginable how it should go with a woman at the top” (Jäkel-Wurzer et al. 2017, p. 3). In this respect, Jäkel-Wurzer et al. emphasize: “Old role patterns must be reconsidered and new strategies developed” (Jäkel-Wurzer et al. 2017, p. 2). However, the renewed change in (business) family models is by no means trivial and is still in its infancy. In order to shape the upcoming change, sobriety and realism are required, especially in view of the historical development. Concealing, covering up or ignoring psychogenetically embedded standards of behaviour, feeling and speaking usually proves to be only partially sustainable. New contemporary models seem indispensable in order to further develop existing (business) family models.

Conclusion The historical perspective makes it clear that the demarcation between family and economy is by no means as clear-cut as the upper-middle-class family ideal suggests. It also shows how misleading the myth of the pre-industrial extended family is today. This myth was nothing more, but also nothing less, than the contradictory but highly identity-forming narrative of the nineteenth-century “kinship-hot society” (Sabean and Teuscher 2007, p. 3), which re-opened kinship as a social resource and once again anchored it normatively. In the process, kinship was increasingly exalted as a “family religion” (Nipperdey 1990, p. 43), cultically renewed and mythically shielded from Enlightenment tendencies: The triad of father, mother and (biological) child envelops the mythical aura of a togetherness of nature. It arises from the cultural interpretation of biological–social filiation in metaphors such as that of “one’s own flesh and blood”. Although it is easy to demonstrate that marriage and parenthood are designed, shaped and experienced in highly diverse ways synchronically – in different social classes – and diachronically – in different historical periods – the family myth nevertheless paints them as timeless and placeless. It suggests that the rule of the man over the woman and the rule of the parents over the children are unchangeable, eternal, sacred. Whoever does not respect this, sins. (Sieder 2010a, p. 46)

The historical development was largely obscured, in particular, by recourse to the romantic idea of large, economically self-sufficient and solidary kinship groups. These include the “harmony myth”, i.e. the “idea that family life in the past was characterized by harmony and concord” and that today’s problems are a sign of

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decay. The “size myth” implies that families used to consist of three or more generations. The “constancy myth” sees the family “as an emotional community, a natural constant” that always exists everywhere (Lenz and Böhnisch 1997, p. 11). But through the renewed mythical charging, connections remained diffuse and inaccessible. What is more, the historically longstanding separation of private and public spheres was perpetuated and the associated areas of conflict between the genders,48 the generations and the various forms of work (Hildebrandt 2003) were concealed. Due to the close connection between family and business, it is essential for family businesses to focus on these areas of conflict and to develop new, viable solutions for them. As history shows, these can not only take on a model character, but also pay off economically and socio-culturally. The great transformation process of economic, social and kinship relations is far from over, even after more than 2500 years, but must continue to be actively shaped.

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Désirée Waterstradt Dr. phil., is Management Consultant for Strategic Communication and Parenting Researcher, Associate Member at the Institute for Transdisciplinary Social Science, Department of Sociology, Karlsruhe University of Education.

Families and Organizations: Similarities, Differences and Linkages Stefan Kühl

Introduction: Beyond the Schema of Interaction, Organization and Society What is generally overlooked when investigating the different social fields, is that at the level between interactions and society, the differences, similarities, transitions and overlaps of different types of systems such as groups, movements, organizations or families can be systematically investigated. Instead of “two kinds of differentiations” (Tyrell 2008), I believe that “three kinds of differentiations” can be identified in systems theory. At the level between interactions and society not only have organizations differentiated, but also other social contexts such as groups, movements or families have differentiated, too. The extent to which such social contexts – one could also add communities or strata – take on the character of social systems still needs to be determined in more detail in terms of systems theory. Against the background of these considerations, the aim of this paper is to take a closer look at the difference between families and organizations. To this end, the following second section elaborates the fundamental differences between families and organizations. The third section shows how families and organizations have developed as system types with their own types of logic. The concluding fourth section briefly presents the analytical possibilities one has when considering the nesting of families and organizations.

S. Kühl (✉) Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_4

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Different Concepts of Membership It is noticeable that in everyday language we speak of members not only of organizations, but also of families (and also of groups or protest movements). Certainly, the use of a term in everyday language does not in itself argue for its use in the sociological definition of social systems. However, the use of the concept of membership for a variety of social phenomena can be taken as an indication that there are a variety of membership-based social systems (Martens 1997; Mahlert 2011). Not only in organizations but also in families an attribution of communication takes place around whether a person is considered a member or not. Furthermore, in both organizations and families, people can serve as “points of identification of communication”, as “addresses for communication”, or as “units of attribution of action” (Luhmann 2005a, p. 194).1 If we now acknowledge the fact that families also identify people as members and thus make communications attributable, an explanation must be given as to why we are dealing with different social systems with different types of logic. In the following sections, it will be shown that both organizations and families identify people who belong (or do not belong) as members, but that the memberships of these people to the respective social systems are handled differently. This results in different forms of demarcation of the respective system types – which is spontaneously obvious – in addition to different forms of communication through which the different social systems reproduce themselves.

Organizations Membership – the decision about a group of people whose decisions are perceived as decisions of the organization – is regarded as a characteristic of organizations by most organizational researchers of different theoretical orientations (see, for example, Caplow 1964, pp. 1–2; Mayntz and Ziegler 1977, p. 34). In systems theory, however, membership is used not only as one but as the central defining characteristic of organizations. Organizations, according to Luhmann, always form when

For my purposes, the term “person” is more precise than the term “address”, which is currently popular in current theoretical discussions (cf. Fuchs 1997 and, following him, for example Tacke 2000 or Stichweh 2000). Address is the clearly broader term, because in principle not only people, but also animals, organizations, states and spirits can be addressed. 1

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“entry into the system” and “exit from the system” are “presupposed to be decidable” (cf. Luhmann 1975c, p. 99; see also Luhmann 1975a, p. 12). The organization can therefore decide who belongs to a company, an administration, a party or a sports club, and who does not. And more consequentially, it can decide who should no longer belong to it if someone no longer follows the rules of the organization. The organization creates boundaries within which the members (and only the members) have to submit to the rules of the organization, and within which there is a permanent threat that the member will have to leave the organization if he or she does not follow the rules (Luhmann 1964, pp. 44–45). In organizations, decisions regarding the entry and exit of individuals – the determination of memberships – are a central instrument for establishing conforming behaviour on the part of their members. Through the possibility of conditioning membership – i.e. making behaviour predictable for all by threatening to terminate membership otherwise – organizations can form decision communication as a system-specific form of communication (cf. Luhmann 2002, p. 160).2 This does not mean that all communication in organizations takes the form of decision communication. There is often vociferous debating, criticizing and “imagining” in organizations. But the distinctive feature is that through membership conditioning, all communication can be transformed into decision communication. In this way, communication in organizations differs from that in movements, families and groups, in which decisions are also made, but in which decision communication cannot be recursively linked in the same way.

Families There are clearly two conditions through which one can become a member of a family, and both must take place for a family to come into being at all: the formation of a relationship between usually opposite-sex partners and the affiliation of children either by birth or adoption. Thus, with the birth or adoption of a child in the context of a relationship, a new family is “fully set in motion”. “All the necessary positions – father, mother and child – are occupied, even though this family may multiply by additional children (but no longer by additional parents)” (Tyrell 1983,

2 Luhmann (1973, p. 44) states early on that formal organization is “that evolutionary achievement” which enables decision-making processes to become reflexive.

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p. 364 in an early determination still partly informed by a normative picture of the family). The definition of families later propagated by Hartmann Tyrell via an often “risky coupling of partnership and parenthood” seems to be a further development of the overly harmonious representation father–mother–child. The logic of partnership is often a very different logic from that of parenthood. In the family, these two logics are coupled (Tyrell and Herlth 1994, pp. 1 ff.; see also Tyrell 2008, p. 317).3 This splitting of the determination of families into partnership on the one hand and parenthood on the other hand also makes it possible to determine the view of families more precisely via the aspect of membership. In the case of parenthood, memberships cannot simply be terminated. Children cannot simply be excluded from the family if they do not behave according to their parents’ demands. And it is also difficult for children themselves to terminate family memberships. Children are aware of this impossibility of exclusion and exploit this with spectacular acts of resistance against their parents, especially, for instance, at large family celebrations or in the queues at supermarket checkouts. Here the following position seems to prevail: “What’s going to happen, they can’t just sack me.” In the case of partnerships, the dissolution of membership is not only conceivable, but – at least in modern society – the rule. Even if at first glance one can have the impression that a relationship – similar to membership in an organization – is “terminable” (Tyrell 2008, p. 317), the special character of partnerships must be kept in mind. In a relationship, it is difficult to enforce behaviours on the partner by threatening him or her with separation. If a partner makes the continuation of the partnership conditional on regular cleaning of the household, more careful driving in future or refraining from further amorous adventures with other sexual partners, there are already clear signs of crisis. Despite (or perhaps precisely because of) this fragility of membership, intimate communication in families today is not only permitted to a surprisingly high degree compared to pre-modern society, but is fundamentally required (in detail and insightfully in Gilgenmann 1994, p. 66; see also Luhmann 2005b, p. 213).4 Intimate

3

With its emphasis on the often opposing logics of partnership and parenthood, this model distances itself from the concept of the nuclear family with “its strong suggestion of unity”. With this interesting idea, Tyrell opposes the widespread notion in family sociology of families as a triad of mother, father and child (Tyrell 2008, p. 317, where the relevant literature references can also be found). 4 That parenthood and partnership are assigned the same form of communication may come as a surprise. After all, the concept of intimate communication was originally used only for partnership, which was shaped by the romantic ideal of love (Luhmann 1982), and then later

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communication does not mean that communication in families is characterized by permanent “love talk”. There would be little empirical plausibility for that. Rather, intimate communication states that “everything that concerns a person” is in principle “amenable to communication”. Secrecy, Luhmann argues, can be practised by parents, but also by children “but it has no legitimate status”. One cannot, in the family, “reject communication about oneself with the remark: that’s none of your business!” (Luhmann 2005a, p. 193). Intimate communication differs from personal communication in that – and this idea has not yet been elaborated in systems theory – in intimate communication there is a claim to be able to thematize all other roles, whereas in personal communication there can only be a claim to thematize some other roles. In an interaction among friends, the question about religious practices that may seem bizarre can be rejected, while not answering the same question in a couple’s relationship would require explanation.

Similarities and Differences The common feature of organizations and families is that there is a permanent evaluation and re-evaluation of whether a person who makes a communicative contribution is treated as a member of the social system or not. In contrast to the social system of society, which is oriented towards the principle of communicative accessibility, membership refers precisely to the distinction between belonging or not belonging to a system. The lamentation of a person or the crying of a baby has – depending on whether the person is considered a member or not – a correspondingly fundamentally different meaning for a system. The distinction between members and non-members thus functions as a “recognition signal” not only of organizations but also of families (Luhmann 1991, p. 202). The differences between organizations and families, however, are now based, as shown, on the fact that membership (and thus also non-membership) is determined differently. In more simple terms, it can be said that people in organizations become members through decisions about joining and leaving, and in families through birth and death. Whereas in organizations membership comes about through a

extended to families as a whole – i.e. also to parenthood (Luhmann 2005a). Even if the semantics in partnership and parenthood are surprisingly similar at first glance (for example, in the statement “I love you” used with both children and partners), similarities and differences in intimate communication in partnership and parenthood still need to be examined more closely (see Tyrell and Herlth 1994, pp. 6 ff. on the “bourgeois unitary semantics”, which is certainly responsible for the similarity in the form of communication).

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combination of self-selection (of the member) and external selection (of the organization), in families there is no possibility of self-selection or external selection, but new members are “assigned” to a family through birth. There are certainly always borderline cases – organizations in which, for example, one becomes a member little by little or “insidiously” via free associates, or families in which the children “divorce” their parents – but these grey areas are not significant enough to disrupt the distinction between organizations and families. Because of the different ways of handling membership, families and organizations tend to form different forms of communication – decision-making communication in organizations and intimate communication in families. The formation of distinct forms of communication does not mean that in the respective social system communication takes place exclusively in the respective specific form, or that the form of communication is to be found exclusively in the respective social system. For example, in families sometimes decisions are made and in organizations there can be instances of personal communication. But only in the respective social system – as Luhmann suggested – does the respective form of communication serve to reproduce the social system in question.

The Differentiation of Groups, Organizations, Movements and Families A central idea of Luhmann’s social theory is that the change from a segmentary to a stratified to a functionally differentiated society has led to an “increasing differentiation” of the levels of interaction, organization and society. In segmentally differentiated archaic social formations, Luhmann argues, interaction, organization and society “were virtually identical”. An archaic tribal society consisted of the “perimeter of foreseeable interactions accessible to the individual”. It expels, “like an organization [. . .] persons who do not comply” and absorbs, “above all through marriage, persons”. In the stratified society of advanced civilizations, the “scope of interactions possible for the individual” is multiplied. In the urban centres, organizations were formed in particular “for religious, political, military, or commercial functions or for individual production tasks”. However, because “the access of organizations to the conduct of life in everyday life was minimal” and, conversely, “society itself was understood as a political organization, as cooperation capable of action”, one could not yet speak of a complete differentiation of the levels of interaction, organization and society: this only formed with the emergence of a functionally differentiated society. Society could then be understood neither “as

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the sum of everyday encounters” nor as a “unified organizational system” (cf. Luhmann 1975a, p. 13). How must this part of Luhmann’s social theory be modified if one locates various systems such as movements, groups, organizations and families between interaction and society?

Profiling of Families and Organizations as Social Systems Against Each Other Projecting social systems typical of modern society back onto segmentary or stratified societies is problematic. One can certainly point out that segmentary societies and stratified societies (similar to modern organizations) expel people who do not comply, but this already exhausts the analytical possibilities for comparison. In this respect, one must be cautious about using social systems typical of modern society, such as organizations or families consisting only of two parents and children, for the analysis of segmentary or stratified societies. Rather, it is interesting to see how organizations and families developed as distinct types of social systems in the transition to a functionally differentiated society. It was only with the emergence from a social formation characterized by tribal and class affiliation that it became possible for individuals to increasingly differentiate memberships in different and mutually independent social systems. In the following section, it will be briefly shown that the differentiation of organizations and families as separate types of systems took place largely in parallel and was at least partially mutually dependent. Even if an important root of the emergence of organizations lies in the period in which religious communities developed into religious associations that recruited their members on the basis of their own decision and – in contrast to before – independently of ascriptive criteria such as family membership, class affiliation or ethnic roots (Parsons 1964, pp. 347 ff.), a differentiation of organizations as a system type of its own across various social fields can only be seen from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries onwards. It was only with the separation of politics, law and economics from religion that organizations developed in these fields as well and were increasingly able to dispose autonomously of their memberships (Parsons 1972, pp. 88–89). Particularly with industrialization, wage labour increasingly differentiated itself as a specific role freed from all other expectations, but bound in organizations (Parsons 1972, pp. 100 ff.; see also in detail Türk et al. 2002, pp. 148 ff.). A dominant model increasingly emerged in which membership in an organization was based on a conscious decision by both

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the member and the organization itself, and at the same time members – with the exception of total organizations – were no longer integrated into an organization with all their role references (Lieckweg and Wehrsig 2001, pp. 39 ff.). The differentiation of the family as a system in its own right also falls into this period of transition from a stratified to a functionally differentiated society. In the tradition of Ernest W. Burgess and Harvey J. Locke, the differentiation of families can be described as a transition of the family from a multifunctional to a unifunctional system. Educational, economic, religious and medical functions in modern society, Burgess and Locke argue, are increasingly transferred to a few specialized institutions each, while the family is primarily based only on “mutual affection”, “sympathetic understanding” and the “sense of community of its members” (Burgess and Locke 1945, p. vii). Because political, religious and economic functions are increasingly performed outside families, there is no need – and this idea is central – to consider the “kinship connections” of the respective partner when marrying (Luhmann 1982, pp. 183–184).5 Whereas in a stratified society the “family was still understood as a unit that transcended the change of generations”, which often also included servants and employees, in a functionally differentiated society every marriage, indeed every choice of partnership, harbours the potential for a new foundation of a family (Luhmann 1982, p. 163).6 The thesis to be examined in more detail is that in the process of differentiation, the two system types – families and organizations – “distinguish themselves more

According to Luhmann, it is only with the birth of children that the “families of origin of the parents symbolically unite [. . .] only to be reduced again to that narrow band of a new connection with their marriages” (Luhmann 1982, p. 183–184). 6 I consider the differentiation of the family in modern society to be a model case that could be used to demonstrate the strength of the approach presented here. In the orthodoxy of systems theory, the family is only located on the level of social theory. The problem of the “alienation of the individual” arises in modern society “across the board” and could only be solved through the differentiation of a functional system “family” (Kieserling 2012). Instead, in line with general family sociology, I propose to state a differentiation of families as social systems in their own right in the transition from a stratified to a functionally differentiated society. Of course, individual families fulfil an important social function in reducing the “alienation of the individual”, but they are – similar to organizations or groups – to be understood in a multireferential way, because they also show references, for example, to functional systems of education (in the upbringing of children and – with some exceptions – also of life partners) or of the economy (as a community of consumption or sometimes also of production). This multi-referentiality of families as a social system cannot be recognized by viewing families as a functional system. 5

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sharply against each other” as their own system types (cf. for the formulation Luhmann 1975a, p. 14). Luhmann’s argument that, within the framework of interaction systems, “concrete empathy” can, for example, “be increased into the unusual in the form of intimate relationships” if the interaction is “no longer burdened by socially pervasive expectations of normality” (Luhmann 1975a, p. 16), must be attributed primarily to the differentiation of family-specific interaction (and precisely not interaction per se). Furthermore, the “organizational specification of behaviour” can be significantly increased if organizations can no longer simply disregard the religious activities, political attitudes, sporting preferences, or friendly loyalties of the organizational member, but beyond that also do not have to take into account the loyalties of members in families.

Consequential Problems of the Differentiation of Organization and Family When one speaks of the differentiation of families and organizations, one must of course – in the sense of Niklas Luhmann’s original intention – first understand the differentiation of these systems from society. As a rule – unlike in stratified societies – one cannot derive any claims for a position in organizations or families from a social position. Even the daughter of an influential industrial manufacturer has to live with the fact that she does not occupy an exceptional position in the organization that employs her, a position that can be derived from her origins.7 For our purposes, however, we are primarily interested in the fact that organizations and families in modern society are also more strongly differentiated from one another. Often without this being explicitly conveyed, one learns that organizations and families follow quite different types of logic. While Socrates for the stratified society still quite naturally assumed that the requirements of the leadership of a family and an army were similar, because it was important to make subordinates “obedient and docile”, “to punish the bad, to honour the good” and to “arouse good disposition against oneself” in subordinates (Xenophon 1789,

7

I cannot explore the consequence here that interaction as a social system with its own types of logic is also differentiated from families and organizations. Sociological research on interactions in families and interactions in organizations, which is not only empirically guided but also theoretically classified, is rather underdeveloped (but see, for example, for interaction in families Keppler 1994, p. 23 ff; or for interaction in organizations Kieserling 1994, pp. 168 ff). What seems to be largely lacking are comparative studies of interactions in families and organizations.

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pp. 111–112), such a position of a father or mother in modern society would cause irritation, to say the least.8 The young person who wants to be treated in an organization as in a family will probably be viewed with similar scepticism by his environment as the manager who wants to run his family similarly to an organization (Dreeben 1968, for the first case, and Loriot’s (1991) Pappa ante Portas, for the second). While the self-descriptions of families and organizations not infrequently emphasize the compatibility of membership in one’s own system with membership in other systems – keyword “we are a family-friendly company” – sociology tends to emphasize the tensions that arise from the fact that people are exposed to the demands of different social systems. Whereas it has been repeatedly pointed out in educational and business texts that membership in organizations such as armies, companies and schools in the military is naturally compatible with membership in a family, it is precisely in the sociological descriptions that the tension between organization and family is presented (Treiber and Steinert 1980). The tensions between schools and families over educational sovereignty for pupils (Dreeben 1968), the disputes between armies and families over access to young adults (Shils and Janowitz 1948) and the debates in companies about “work-life balance”, which are usually about balancing the demands of organizations and families (Oechsle 2008), are only particularly prominent examples in which the tensions that have arisen as a result of the differentiation of organization and family are addressed.

Perspectives: Entanglements, Combinations and Transitions of Families and Organizations Because families and organizations are systems based on the determination of the membership (or non-membership) of individuals, the representation of role conflicts, which has been shown in sociology, is useful when considering the interaction of the system types. The basic idea here is always that in modern society there is a differentiation of various social systems, each with its own requirements. In exceptional cases, a single role may dominate a person – for example, if a person

8 Nicomachus expressed doubts in the dialogue with Socrates even then. Of course, Socrates’ position is based on a fundamentally different understanding of family. Accordingly, the German translation of Xenophon from 1789 does not use the word “family” for “oikos”, but the word “household” (Xenophon 1789, p. 112).

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is exclusively a father, a movement activist, an organizational member, or a good friend – but the rule is that role demands are placed on a person by different systems. A systems theory perspective, however, need not limit itself to formulating role conflicts. Rather, it can systematically examine the ways in which the various social systems relate to one another. The possibilities for such analyses will be elaborated in the following paragraphs. Although organizations and families are first of all analytically of equal rank, they can also be entangled with each other. One can think of organizations that employ families and families that operate an organization in the form of a company, for example. But because of the different ways in which different types of systems can expand their membership, some entanglements are naturally more likely than others (Geser 1980 on the sociology of small systems).9 However, because communications can belong to several systems at the same time, it is also conceivable that groups, organizations, movements and families are not nested within each other, but are interwoven without the primacy of one social system. Consider, for example, the founding of a business by a family. As long as no additional employees are hired, it is likely that neither family nor organizational logic will dominate.10

9 Such proposals for the insertion of further levels gain their plausibility from the fact that they take the different size possibilities of the system types as a reason to assume entanglements. Because groups can hardly comprise more than thirty or forty members due to the necessary mutual knowledge of people, it is obvious to locate them on a “deeper” level than organizations whose membership size is in principle not limited (of course, the number of people alone cannot provide information about the complexity of a social system). Although these different size possibilities make some entanglements (for example, groups “in” organizations or organizations “in” movements) more likely than others, or even entirely unlikely (for example, movements “in” families), one need not necessarily think of only one type of entanglement. 10 The case of the family business in particular is suitable to address the advantages of the presented project (von Schlippe et al. 2017; Simon 2012). If one describes the subject of family businesses – as suggested by Kieserling (2012) – as a history of the functional differentiation of business and families at the societal level, then one can only state that with the formation of joint-stock companies there is a “more rational management of economic property” because this frees them from “sentimental considerations of family tradition”. From this point of view, family businesses appear only as remnants of pre-modern societies. This modernization-theoretical approach tends to ignore the prominence of family businesses in the economic system because of a theoretical posit – families are a functional system and differentiate themselves from other functional systems such as the economy. Only if one understands the individual family as a social system with its own types

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One can imagine various forms of transitions from one type of system to another. Think of a family from which joint economic activities have emerged in the form of a family business, and of which only one organization remains after the separation of the parents. Or think of a micro-organization of two people, in which the two fall in love with each other, and remain together as a family extended to include children even when the micro-organization dissolves.

References Burgess, E. W. & Locke, H. J. (1945). The Family. From Institution to Companionship. New York: American Book Company. Caplow, T. (1964). Principles of Organization. New York: Harcourt. Dreeben, R. (1968). On What is Learned at School. Reading: Addison–Wesley. Fuchs, P. (1997). Adressabilität als Grundbegriff der soziologischen Systemtheorie. Soziale Systeme, 3, (pp. 57–80). Geser, H. (1980). Kleine Sozialsysteme: Strukturmerkmale und Leistungskapazitäten. Versuch einer theoretischen Integration. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 32, (pp. 205–239). Gilgenmann, K. (1994). Romantische Liebe und Liebe zum Kind. Zur Differenzierung der Codierung von Partnerschaft und Elternschaft. In A. Herlth et al. (Ed.): Abschied von der Normalfamilie? Partnerschaft contra Elternschaft, (pp. 64–82). Berlin: Springer. Keppler, A. (1994). Tischgespräche. Über Formen kommunikativer Vergemeinschaftung am Beispiel der Konversation in Familien. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Kieserling, A. (1994). Interaktion in Organisationen. In K. Dammann (Ed.), Die Verwaltung des politischen Systems (pp. 168–182). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Kieserling, A. (2012). Notizen zu einem Vorschlag von Stefan Kühl, Luhmanns Ebenenunterscheidung betreffend. Bielefeld: unpublished manuscript. Lieckweg, T. & Wehrsig, C. (2001). Zur komplementären Ausdifferenzierung von Organisationen und Funktionssystemen. Perspektiven einer Gesellschaftstheorie der Organisation. In V. Tacke (Ed.), Organisation und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung (pp. 39–60). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Pappa ante Portas. (Deutschland 1991). Regie: Loriot. DVD/Blu-ray Warner Home Video 2001. Luhmann, N. (1964). Funktionen und Folgen formaler Organisation. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Luhmann, N. (1973). Zweckbegriff und Systemrationalität. Über die Funktion von Zwecken in sozialen Systemen. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp.

of logic, can one bring the aspects relevant for the consideration of family businesses into focus.

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Luhmann, N. (1975a). Interaktion, Organisation, Gesellschaft. In N. Luhmann (Ed.), Soziologische Aufklärung 2. Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft (pp. 9–20). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Luhmann, N. (1975c). Macht. Stuttgart: Enke. Luhmann, N. (1982). Liebe als Passion. Zur Codierung von Intimität. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (1991). Soziologie des Risikos. Berlin; New York: Walter de Gruyter. Luhmann, N. (2002). Das Erziehungssystem der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp. Luhmann, N. (2005a). Sozialsystem Familie. In N. Luhmann (Ed.), Soziologische Aufklärung 5. (pp. 189–209). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Luhmann, N. (2005b). Glück und Unglück der Kommunikation in Familien. In N. Luhmann (Ed.), Soziologische Aufklärung 5. (pp. 210–219). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Mahlert, B. (2011). Mitgliedschaftsbasierte Sozialsysteme in der Weltgesellschaft. Bielefeld. Martens, W. (1997). Organisation als gesellschaftliche Teilsysteme. In G. Ortmann, J. Sydow & K. Türk (Eds.), Theorien der Gesellschaft. Die Rückkehr der Gesellschaft (pp. 263–311). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Mayntz, R. & Ziegler, R. (1977). Soziologie der Organisation. In R. König (Ed.), Handbuch der empirischen Sozialforschung. Vol. 9 (pp. 1–141). Stuttgart: Enke. Oechsle, M. (2008). Work–Life–Balance: Diskurse, Problemlagen, Forschungsperspektiven. In R. Becker & B. Kortendiek (Eds.), Handbuch Frauen– und Geschlechterforschung. Theorie, Methoden, Empirie (pp. 227–236). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Parsons, T. (1964). Evolutionary Universal in Society. In American Sociological Review, 29, (pp. 339–357). Parsons, T. (1972). Das System moderner Gesellschaften. Weinheim; München: Juventa. von Schlippe, A., Groth, T. & Rüsen, T. A. (2017): Die beiden Seiten der Unternehmerfamilie. Familienstrategie über Generationen: Auf dem Weg zu einer Theorie der Unternehmerfamilie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Shils, E. A. & Janowitz, M. (1948). Cohesion and Disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II. The Public Opinion Quarterly, Sommer 1948, (pp. 280–315). Simon, F. B. (2012). Einführung in die Theorie des Familienunternehmens. Heidelberg: Carl Auer. Stichweh, R. (2000). Adresse und Lokalisierung in einem globalen Kommunikationssystem. In R. Stichweh (Ed.), Weltgesellschaft. Soziologische Analysen (pp. 220–231). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp, Tacke, V. (2000). Netzwerk und Adresse. Soziale Systeme, 6, (pp. 291–320). Treiber, H. & Steinert, H. (1980). Die Fabrikation des zuverlässigen Menschen. Über die „Wahlverwandtschaft“ von Kloster– und Fabrikdisziplin. München: Heinz Moos Verlag. Türk, K., Lemke, T. & Bruch, M. (2002). Organisation in der modernen Gesellschaft. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Tyrell, H. (1983). Familie als Gruppe. Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderheft 25, (pp. 362–390). Opladen. Tyrell, H. (2008). Zweierlei Differenzierung: Funktionale und Ebenendifferenzierung im Frühwerk Niklas Luhmanns. In B. Heintz (Ed.), Soziale und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung. Aufsätze zur soziologischen Theorie (pp. 75–105). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.

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Tyrell, H. & Herlth, A. (1994). Partnerschaft versus Elternschaft. In A. Herlth et al. (Ed.), Abschied von der Normalfamilie? Partnerschaft kontra Elternschaft (pp. 1–15). Berlin u. a.: Springer Verlag. Xenophon (1789). Sokrates. Leipzig: Schwickerscher Verlag.

Stefan Kühl, Prof. Dr. Dr., is sociologist, historian and economist at the University of Bielefeld. Senior Consultant of the company Metaplan.

Empirical Findings on Business Families in Germany Isabell Stamm, Fabian Bernhard, and Nicole Hameister

Introduction The German economy is characterized by a high proportion of family businesses. This is confirmed by various empirical studies. The Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim estimates, on the basis of register data, that family businesses account for 96% of all German businesses with an annual turnover of more than €50,000 (Gottschalk and Keese 2014). In comparison, Klein (2004) determines that 71% of the businesses with annual sales of more than €1 million surveyed in their study are family businesses. Looking only at the largest companies, family ownership and management are less prevalent, but a third are still family businesses (Gottschalk and Keese 2014). Even if these figures are difficult to compare due to different operationalizations and size distortions, they do provide a clear picture: the majority of all German companies are characterized by real or potential family influence. The families behind the companies, on the other hand, have been far less researched. While research on business families in Germany is based on a number of conceptual approaches (e.g. Klett 2005; Simon 2002) and a large number of historical or social science qualitative studies (e.g. Bohler and Hildenbrand 1997; Breuer 2009; Leiß 2014; Schäfer 2007; Stamm 2013; Wenk 2005), the difficulty of gaining access to data about the owning families means that most quantitative I. Stamm (✉) · N. Hameister Berlin University of Technology, Berlin, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] F. Bernhard EDHEC Business School, Paris, France e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_5

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empirical studies are based on firm-level data and include few control variables on the family side. We do not know the exact number of business families in Germany, nor how high their income is. We know little about how their working life is structured, or how they manage intergenerational relationships. This lack of research is particularly surprising since business families are socially relevant actors in many respects: ownership of company shares, resources and land is concentrated in business families (Lauterbach 2011; Piketty 2014); they contribute greatly to the socialization of future entrepreneurs (Kocka 2002) and offer financial, emotional and social resources in the start-up process; and, in family hands companies can grow and age. Thus, business families shape the everyday working lives of more than half of all employees in Germany (Gottschalk and Keese 2014). Jennifer Jennings, Rhonda Breitkreuz and Albert James (2013) call for a greater focus on the empirical relevance of business families. They suggest estimating the share of business families compared with all total families and provide examples for 13 countries. In doing so, they use the proportion of a given country’s adult population involved in entrepreneurial activity as identified in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor and relate this to the proportion of married couples in the population. Based on this approximation, the share of business families in Spain, for example, is 15%, with about 2% of all “families” involved in starting a business, about 3% in recently established businesses and about 10% in established businesses. According to this method, similar values can also be expected for Germany. The underlying concept of family, which equates families with married couples, a conceptualization to be found across such diverse cultural contexts as Canada, Spain, South Africa or Pakistan, must certainly be viewed critically here. Nevertheless, this conceptualization draws attention to a key point: while family businesses are the “normal case” of a business, “business families” represent a specific subset of all families. And this is particularly true for multigenerational business families, which we stereotypically associate with the term “business family”. This is because a large proportion of businesses associated with families do not exist long enough to be passed on to the second generation, do not have sufficient value to be handed over, or the next generation is not interested in joining the family business. For example, the research institute IfM Bonn (Kay and Suprinovic 2013) finds that about 135,000 businesses (representing 3% of all businesses) were due to be handed over to the next generation over the period 2014–2018, but stresses that only about half of the entrepreneurs and business owners they surveyed chose an intra-family solution for the handover. The exceptional social relevance of business families, with their simultaneous minority position, makes them a particularly interesting social institution. On the one hand, it can be assumed that these families are very similar to other families, for

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example in their living habits and the way in which family life is practised, and that any differences are thus levelled out. On the other hand, these families clearly differ from other families through their entrepreneurial activity, which can lead to the formation of their own social identity at the level of the individual family as well as the aggregated level of all business families (class identity). In this respect, it is worthwhile to compare business families with each other, for example, with regard to the existing income and wealth gap (e.g. precarious entrepreneurship vs. billionaires), but above all also with other family and co-living forms, for instance, concerning flexible working conditions and work-life conflict. With this in mind, this chapter focuses on the special features of business families. For the first time, we can offer insights into empirical findings that we claim are representative of business families in Germany. After a presentation of different conceptual considerations on business families, we give an overview of the current data infrastructure and explain our choice of the pairfam as a relevant data basis. This is followed by the presentation of our operationalization and descriptive findings. Finally, we present our thoughts on the construction of a possible comparison group and present in detail findings from a comparative analysis (using propensity score matching). This chapter deliberately focuses on a presentation of descriptive findings in order to first address a discussion of operationalization and the construction of a comparison group, and then to discuss the theoretical implications therein. The aim is to stimulate a discussion about an adequate data basis which may enable multivariate analyses of different research directions.

Conceptual Considerations on Business Families A family’s involvement in entrepreneurial activity creates a reciprocal influence between the family and the company (Hildenbrand 2011; Wimmer et al. 2005). It is this reciprocal influence that is often highlighted as a central defining criterion (Sharma et al. 2012) and is the anchor point of theoretical perspectives on business families. Three of these perspectives will be outlined here: a systems theory perspective, a neo-institutionalist perspective and a life course theory perspective. The “Witten approach” (von Schlippe et al. 2017) in particular makes use of the duality of family and organization as two very different social systems that are structurally coupled when conceptualizing business families. In both systems, the coupling results in demands on communication that have been described as paradoxical (Groth and von Schlippe 2012; Klett 2005). For business families, for example, this means that this type of family, “in contrast to what is usually the

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case in families, makes decisions on an ongoing basis and organizes itself to this end, at least to some extent. This brings something foreign to the family into the family. [. . .] The need to build organization-like structures, to organize election procedures and voting procedures is often experienced as something that disturbs family peace” (von Schlippe et al. 2017, pp. 24–25). The business family is thus challenged to deal with the resulting paradoxes. From the perspective of neo-institutionalism (if it can be called a unified paradigm), families and organizations form institutional environments for each other in which they are embedded (Aldrich and Cliff 2003; Granovetter 1985). This theoretical strand understands institutions as structured and meaningful patterns of action that emerge and are perpetuated in social exchange and are based on a shared understanding of meaning. From this perspective, business families align themselves with the institutionalized rules of their environment and strive for legitimacy; they themselves have a self-evident and objectified character (Aldrich and Ruef 2006; Martinez and Aldrich 2014). Thus, instead of conceptualizing business families as families under the influence of business, here business families emerge as entities that attempt to live up to the institutional rules placed on businesses and on families, experiencing role conflict in order to do so, but only being able to achieve legitimacy in this way (Martinez and Aldrich 2014). One of the central insights of neo-institutionalism is that institutional and cultural influence makes organizations within a field more similar to each other (institutional isomorphism, see DiMaggio and Powell 1983), and the same can be assumed for business families, which are exposed to strong individualization tendencies, specific family policies or culturally connoted generational relationships. A life course theoretical perspective assumes that the life course itself – both in its sequential schedule and in biographical narratives about it – is institutionalized (Elder 1994; Kohli 1985, 2007). Thus, there are rule-based, normative and cultural conceptions of how individuals shape their lives (Elder 1994). From this perspective, the individual life is the object of consideration, into which the spheres of family, work and business are to be integrated according to the institutionalized conceptions. The specific connection of family and business causes an increased and different need for biographical narratives for members of business families, more so than is necessary for other individuals in other contexts (Moen 1998; Wenk 2005). The connection can contradict norms of autonomy from parents, for example, but on the other hand it can also enable individualized differentiation from peers (Breuer 2009; Leiß 2014). In spite of all their differences, what these perspectives have in common is that the connection between business and family becomes a special challenge for business families and their members – it is the paradoxes or controversial

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institutional requirements that distinguish them as families of a special kind (Hildenbrand 2011; Jäkel-Wurzer 2010). Here, the specifics are defined primarily by deviation from environmental or system requirements, and an inherently heterogeneous group of business families is unified by common challenges. The influence of the company on the family is reflected in two dimensions in particular: First, entrepreneurship influences the coordination of actions within familial networks of relationships. For example, spouses or siblings may decide to become entrepreneurs together, investing time, money and effort in a joint project (Ruef 2010). Or, a family member may make it possible for another family member to become active in their own business in order to overcome an emergency situation or to open up career prospects. Another instance could be that working in the business may become necessary, especially during short-term peaks (harvest season) or in times of crisis. In all cases, the company becomes a common place of work and activity, where family members meet not only as family members, but also as colleagues or superiors (Klett 2005). This potentially influences the coordination of the working day, the division of tasks at home or the discussion of career options. Furthermore, the business serves as a contribution to or even the basis of wealth accumulation for one or more family members. This specificity influences the negotiation of material transfers during a member’s lifetime or post-mortem, the financial dependencies (e.g. retirement home), but also the financial possibilities (e.g. help in setting up one’s own business) (Stamm 2016). Second, the company can have a meaning- and identity-providing effect on the family (Bäcker 2008). First, it should be noted that the company becomes part of family communication – and thus part of the interactive “doing family” (Langellier and Peterson 2006; Stamm 2018). Casual reports about everyday work in the company, anecdotes about family members’ involvement in the company’s history, or controversial speeches on company anniversaries – the company penetrates the family through stories and develops a vision for the future. It shapes the business family as an in-group within the family to which individual members can feel a sense of belonging or, in contrast, experience exclusion (Stamm 2018). These stories can motivate new entrepreneurial action (Jaskiewicz et al. 2015; Kammerlander et al. 2016) and represent an important element in the socialization of future entrepreneurs (Schröder and Schmitt-Rodermund 2013). Even more important is the effect on cohesion that a shared entrepreneurial history can form (Labaki et al. 2018). Narratives about business family ancestors and company history connect the past to the present and future of the organization. They contribute to the production of transgenerational meaning and significantly influence entrepreneurial work behaviour. Moreover, factual ownership, as well as perceived,

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so-called psychological ownership (Bernhard and O’Driscoll 2011; Pierce et al. 2001) of the business can become part of the identity of the family and its members. The company and the family – both are dimensions that do not function independently of each other in business families (von Schlippe and Frank 2013). This is because the influence of the company changes personal relationships in business families, which are in greater or lesser tension with institutional notions of family, company and life course. For example, with regard to material transfers, there is a growing acceptance of the norm to treat all children equally in inheritance (Kohli 2004), but this is difficult if a disproportionate amount of wealth is tied up in the business. Furthermore, social norms exist for the development of an independent, autonomous life plan. Therefore, the demands on one’s own biographical work are particularly high in a business family, which is characterized by professional and financial interdependencies of parents and children (Breuer 2009; Leiß 2014). In this respect, business families are a social grouping that is based on a specific type of personal relationship (Kormann 2011) and that has to position itself in a special way vis-à-vis social changes (Kleve 2017). An empirical study of business families requires the translation of such conceptual preliminary considerations and findings from previous empirical studies into a concrete operationalization of business families. These go hand in hand with the well-known problems of empirically measuring “families” vs. “households”, but also “entrepreneurs” vs. “self-employed”.

Identification of Business Families in Germany It seems important to first understand that “business family” is not a legal, administrative or political category. Moreover, research on business families is still relatively new and patchy (Fletcher et al. 2016). For example, no standards yet exist for operationalizing these social groups, and there are no usable register data or larger data sets on business families. It is therefore necessary to identify business families in a different way. Even in the absence of clear definitions, research on family businesses has produced concepts and empirical measurement instruments for identifying family businesses, which focus in particular on measuring the influence of a family on a business, the so-called “familiness” of family businesses (Frank et al. 2010, 2017; Holt et al. 2007). This approach, which is usually embedded in systems theory, starts with businesses in general and estimates the extent of the family’s influence in various dimensions – including, for example, the influence on ownership,

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management and control of the business, degree of professionalization of the family, transgenerational orientation, or identity as a family business. More recently, the concept of “enterpriseness” of business families encourages the use of a similar approach to identify and measure business families (Hasenzagel 2018). However, the implementation of this proposal faces two challenges: First, it is well known from family research that families cannot be easily identified; instead, households are often used as a more or less adequate proxy. Second, this proposal implies that higher expression also stands for higher influence. This assumption is in opposition to the isomorphism thesis in neo-institutionalism, which assumes that business families, after all, adapt to their institutional environment. These aspirations would incorrectly reduce the swing of the measured influence; the influence is still there, but is not exercised as implied by the measurement instrument. The identification of business families thus poses a fundamental problem. In the first step of our empirical study, we therefore ask: How can business families be identified and described at all? And which data are suitable for empirical analysis? In accordance with the conceptual considerations made in the previous section, the two dimensions of activity and identity seem particularly suitable as starting points. However, recording the self-perceptions and external perceptions of business families requires an in-depth approach, as is usual in qualitative studies, and seems difficult to reconcile with the aim of providing a representative overview of business families. The entrepreneurial activities of business families, on the other hand, are already recorded in many (also representative) data sets, at least in an indirect way: 1. Activities of the company: The conceptual considerations on business families emphasize the mutual influence of business and family. Accordingly, it is natural to identify business families through their business(es). In Germany, there are a number of data sets that can be used to analyze the German business population. Of particular relevance is the commercial register, which records all company formations and closures, as well as significant changes in the ownership and management structure of a company. The commercial register is publicly accessible. Commercial providers such as Bureah vin Dijk (Creditreform), Bisnode (Hoppenstedt) or Genios (Wiso) use the commercial register as a basis and complement the basic information contained here with information (e.g. number of employees, turnover) from other sources. These commercial databases are also used for scientific purposes, one example being the ZEW Start-up Panel, which processes Creditreform data for the scientific analysis of start-up activity and business demography in Germany. Also worth mentioning

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are the company data of the Institute for Labour Market and Company Research, which cover all companies with employees. The advantage of these data is that they provide an almost complete picture of the German enterprise population and thus enable representative sampling. However, such company data sets do not contain any information on the personal relationships of the respective shareholders or managers, which is crucial for an operationalization of business families. This essential information must be obtained from other sources, collected by means of a survey or gathered by using the surname as an approximation criterion. As a starting point for a targeted case selection, various lists of, for example, the 100 largest German family businesses, or Germany’s “hidden champions” are also suitable. 2. Entrepreneurial activities of households: In family sociology, to capture information on families, the household is often used as a basis for empirical analysis. The household refers to all persons living in a housing unit who form an economic community, i.e. make decisions about the procurement (income) and use (consumption) of resources not individually, but as a group, depending on the needs of the members (Hillmann 1994, p. 323). An example are parents with their (often) minor children. Studies at the household level allow for a number of larger data sets, such as the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), the Microcensus, or the Relationship and Family Panel (pairfam). Based on conceptual considerations of the influence of the firm on the family as an economic unit, business families could be identified here (Heck and Scannell Trent 1999) as those families whose household income (alternatively, household assets) derives from occupational activity in the firm (or ownership of shares in the firm). This promising approach is clouded by two difficulties: First, in the data sets mentioned above, cases of ownership of business shares or business assets are often classified together with other types of wealth (e.g. property or income from renting and leasing). Moreover, it is difficult to infer entrepreneurial activity from the job title alone. Second, even with this operationalization, it seems necessary to collect complementary data in order to overcome a narrowing down to the persons currently living together in a household and to do justice to the multilocality of families today (Bertram 2002). 3. Activity of members of business families: It is also possible, as a starting point, to identify those individuals who are involved in an entrepreneurial project. These activities are of a very heterogeneous nature: they range from ownerentrepreneurs to shareholders to assisting family members. In this respect, it is not sufficient to equate entrepreneurial activity with self-employment. Instead, it is necessary to map the range of different occupational activities in the familyowned enterprise and to combine these with ownership of an enterprise. The

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number of large data sets that depict occupational activity is extensive (e.g. SOEP, microcensus, pairfam, SHARE, IAB data, pension data). Few, however, contain information on the ownership of company shares. And even when they do, detailed information on the size of the shareholding is often missing. Possibilities to combine individual and enterprise data appear promising (e.g. IAB). Starting from the individuals, it is then necessary to supplement information on other family members. On the basis of the preliminary conceptual considerations and after a thorough review of different data sets, we consider that the best way to identify business families is via the individuals involved. This approach makes it possible to do justice to the heterogeneity of individual involvement in an entrepreneurial project by professional activity or by a share of assets. In this way, it is possible to identify members of business families on the basis of their activity and from here to look further at their personal relationships, quite independently of whether this activity already (e.g. in the start-up phase) or currently (e.g. in crisis phases) provides the household income. The pairfam (“Panel Analysis of Intimate Relationships and Family Dynamics”) relationship and family panel, which was launched in 2008 and is a longitudinal study investigating partnership and family lifestyles in Germany, enables the same approach. The annually collected survey data of more than 12,000 randomly selected individuals from the birth cohorts 1971–1973, 1981–1983 and 1991–1993 as well as their partners, parents and children allow for analyses regarding the design and development of partnership and intergenerational relationships as well as the design of everyday family life (Huinink et al. 2011). The identification of members from business families is possible via the following question: “Is someone from the following group of persons (co-)owner of the company in which you (mainly) work?” (job5). Response options include: “Yourself; Your partner or spouse; Family members of your partner or spouse; Members of your own family; No, no one.” To our knowledge, this question is unique to pairfam and included in no other data set. This allows us to relate someone’s occupational activity (captured in a series of additional questions) in a business to family ownership of the workplace. This combination allows members from business families to be identified in a relatively unambiguous way. We distinguish between three variants: • Individuals who own a business (at least in part) and who are self-employed, or self-employed farmers. We can therefore assume that these individuals work on their own farms.

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• Individuals who own a business (at least in part) but who are employed. This variant takes into account that not all owners of a company are also selfemployed. They may, for example, be employed managers in their own company or even work in another company. Unfortunately, pairfam does not contain any information about the size of the share in the company. For this reason, it is not possible to distinguish, for example, a leading employee in a corporation who only holds a minority stake from a managing director in a limited liability company who holds the majority of the shares. For this reason, we take a very restrictive approach to this category and identify only those individuals who own shares in a company and are engaged in an activity other than self-employment, and if they also employ their life partner or spouse, a member of their own family, or a member of their partner’s family. In this respect, at least two family members must be involved in the entrepreneurial project. • Individuals who work in a business that is owned (at least in part) by family members (partner or spouse, other family members, family of partner or spouse). These are therefore individuals who do not have any shares themselves, but who are professionally active in enterprises owned by a family member. These three variants represent the heterogeneous possibilities of family members’ involvement in an entrepreneurial project and can therefore be summarized as the category “member of a business family”. The commitment is not limited to a specific industry, company size, or legal form of the company, nor to a specific household or family form. This category includes individuals who are entrepreneurially active in highly heterogeneous constellations; they may, for example, run an internet shop from home, run a bakery with their spouse, complete an internship in a family-owned commercial enterprise, or have taken over the succession of an industrial enterprise. For our analysis of these members of business families, we use the fifth wave of the pairfam survey with a total number of 7248 participants in 2012/2013, which corresponds to about 58% of the initial sample in the first wave. After a detailed examination of the individual subgroups and the exclusion of civil servants, freelancers and the unemployed (as well as duplications), we identify 396 participants as members of a business family, which corresponds to about 9% of all employed participants of the pairfam panel. The descriptive findings (all unweighted) show the following: Eleven per cent of the members of business families come from the youngest (1991–1993), 34.6% from the middle (1981–1983) and 54.3% (1971–1973) from the oldest pairfam cohorts. Men form the majority (nearly 58%) compared to women (42%). More than one third of the members from business families have

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completed a professional qualification as their highest educational qualification (37%), just under one fifth (18.4%) have graduated from a vocational school and 10.9% from a vocational college. A university degree or a degree from a university of applied sciences is held by 7.3% and 7.8% respectively. A small minority of 0.8% have a doctorate and one tenth (10.1%) have no vocational qualification at all. The remaining 7.6% are still in education. The vast majority of business family members have a partner (79.6%), and just over half (51.8%) are married. On average, they have 1.3 children and an individual monthly net income of €1,870 (average household net equivalent income: €2,059). A high standard deviation in earnings (SD: €4,385) suggests a heterogeneous group. About half of the fathers of members of a business family have completed a professional qualification (46.9%), and another 11.2% of the fathers have a university degree (Table 1).

Table 1 Descriptive findings on members from business families Cohort in % 1991–1993 1981–1983 1971–1973 N Gender in % Men Women N Vocational training in % still in training No professional qualification Professional qualification Vocational School Vocational College University of Applied Sciences University PhD N Partner in % No Yes N

11.1 34.6 54.3 396 57.8 42.2 396 7.6 10.1 37.1 10.9 18.4 7.8 7.3 0.8 396 20.4 79.6 392

(continued)

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Table 1 (continued) Cohort in % Married in % No Yes N Number of children Mean SD N Net individual income in EUR Mean SD N Equivalent household income net in EUR Mean SD N Vocational training of father in % No professional qualification Professional qualification Civil service training University PhD Other N

48.2 51.8 392 1.3 1.2 396 1870 4345 360 2059 2817 336 7.3 46.9 3.1 11.2 1.4 30.2 358

Conceptual Considerations for the Construction of a Comparison Group The descriptive findings presented here offer a first glimpse at the situation of members of business families, their lifestyles and personal relationships. However, if one really wants to understand the specifics of the emotional, normative and also economic connections among members of a business family, one must compare them with others. A particular challenge is to find an appropriate comparison group. This question uncovers a gap in current research on business families, although its answer is highly relevant and complex, both conceptually and methodologically.

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This is because a simple, dichotomous comparison of the small and extremely heterogeneous category of members of a business family with “all other individuals” (i.e. those who cannot be actively assigned to a business family) is not very helpful and is statistically biased. How informative would it be, for example, to compare members of business families with public sector workers, retired people, or the unemployed? Such a comparison would run the risk that any differences would not arise from being a business family, but from a specific work context. What can we learn from comparing members of business families with individuals from different income brackets, when the category of business families itself varies between precarious living conditions and the extremely wealthy? How much sense does it make to compare members of a business family with members of other economically elite groups (e.g. managers) when business families include not only self-employed business leaders but also contributing family members? Thus, any comparison of members from business families requires further selection that either reduces heterogeneity within the business family category or constructs an appropriate comparison group. We therefore argue that not only the identification of business families but also the selection of an adequate comparison group requires stronger theoretical justification. Following the definition and operationalization presented above, the activity in the entrepreneurial project is the essence of membership in a business family. We therefore suggest that a theoretically based selection of a comparison group should follow the enabling conditions for such activity. In other words: How does a business family become a business family? What factors lead one to become an entrepreneur oneself or in the business of a family member? Engaging with existing interdisciplinary contributions to entrepreneurship research, we identify a number of factors that can explain the likelihood of engaging in an entrepreneurial venture. More specifically, we consulted studies on venture creation (e.g. Fritsch and Grotz 2013; Ruef 2010), paths to self-employment (e.g. Poschke 2013; Saridakis et al. 2014), family members’ engagement in family businesses (e.g. Jennings et al. 2013) and finally, socialization in business families (e.g. Schröder and Schmitt-Rodermund 2013). It is interesting to note that studies on personality factors (e.g. willingness to take risks, extroversion), which are commonly believed to explain a tendency towards entrepreneurial activity, produce few clear results (Swedberg 2000). On the other hand, age and gender are relevant factors: taking up entrepreneurial activity seems most likely in middle age; furthermore, entrepreneurial engagement seems to be increasingly balanced between men and women (Evers 2016), with the attractiveness of this activity having increased considerably among women, not least due to higher work flexibility (Gather et al. 2014). Another key criterion for entrepreneurial engagement that has been shown in

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several empirical studies is self-employment and parental education (Siewert 2015). Moreover, entrepreneurial activity seems to be more pronounced in specific regions (e.g. regional clusters) and in specific industries than in others (Fritsch and Grotz 2013; Fritsch et al. 2002). Finally, professional, ethnic and personal backgrounds influence the likelihood of being a member of a business family. For example, entrepreneurs often have professional training, an immigrant background can increase motivation to engage in entrepreneurial activity as a means of social participation, and a partnership can create freedom to implement an entrepreneurial project. In order to analyze the special features of business families, it is therefore necessary to construct a comparison group that is as similar as possible to the group of members of a business family in terms of age, gender, work patterns of the parents, region and sector of activity, education, migration background and partnership. This comparison group thus differs from the members of a business family essentially through their work context, and in two senses: On the one hand, through the nature of their activity. While members of the business family can often be entrepreneurial or at least potentially involved in the development of the business directly or indirectly, members of the comparison group are for the most part bound by employers’ instructions. On the other hand, due to the kinship relationship with the business owners, there may be nepotistic privileges, which may be reflected in the actual day-to-day work. In order to better map these differences in the work context and also to deal appropriately with the heterogeneity within the members of a business family, we differentiate this category internally into owner-entrepreneurs on the one hand and family employees on the other. We assume that for both sub-categories different preconditions for engagement in the entrepreneurial project and different configurations of activity and role in the project apply. Ownerentrepreneurs consist of those individuals within the members of business families who themselves hold shares and are active in the business (N = 232). Family entrepreneurs are recruited from amongst those individuals within members of business families who are employed by a family member (N = 169). The majority of family employees work for their own family (e.g. parents, grandparents, or siblings) (65.2%), just under one third work for their life partner or spouse (29.3%) and only a small minority work for their life partner’s or spouse’s family unless the partner is also a business owner (5.5%). It is to be expected that the differences between members of a business family and individuals in a regular work context will be even more apparent in the sub-category of owner-entrepreneurs than in the sub-category of family employees.

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Propensity Score Matching For the construction of a comparison group to compare with members of a business family based on pairfam data, we created a binary variable: we compared them to workers who are in a regular employment relationship with a non-related third party. To construct this comparison group, we first excluded from the residual category of “all other individuals” those who were unemployed, those who did not provide information on their occupational activity, freelancers and the selfemployed. This residual category was still six times larger than our category of members of a business family. To minimize selection effects and possible confusing variables, and to balance the two categories along the described selection criteria, we applied a propensity score-matching procedure based on Rosenbaum and Rubin (1984; see also Rubin and Thomas 1996), a method widely used to estimate causal treatment effects (e.g. Fuller and Nieto 2014). Thus, by applying this method, we understand the activity in the entrepreneurial project as a “treatment” that only one of the two groups experiences. The results of the analysis then illustrated selected consequences of this “treatment” – that is, they highlighted the distinctive features of the business families (Morgan and Harding 2006, p. 4). We therefore constructed a comparison group that has similar preconditions for engagement in the entrepreneurial project as the members of a business family (Caliendo and Kopeinig 2008). For this purpose, we selected corresponding variables and approximate values from the pairfam data for the conceptual factors identified above that could explain the probability of being active as an entrepreneur. In doing so, we could statistically control for the factors of age, gender, migration background, partnership and education. For the activity of the parents we used information on the vocational training of father and mother, for the region we worked with the spatial classification system of the BIK regions and as a proxy for the industry and occupational status we used the four-digit ISCO (Indicator of professional occupation). A logistic regression that takes these variables into account accordingly makes a statement about the probability of an individual being a member of a business family, and results in the so-called “propensity score”. In the next step, we matched members of business families to individuals who have a similarly high probability of being a member of a business family but are instead in a regular work context with a non-related third party. Using the nearest neighbour algorithm, for each member of a business family we selected an individual from a regular work context who had the same or very similar propensity score (with a calibre of 0.1). In this procedure, the selection and combination of the variables considered in matching are of considerable importance. This is because only an appropriate

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Table 2 Comparison of the models for propensity score matching Variables included Age Gender Region BIK (Original) BIK (3 categories) Professional education (original) Professional education (7 categories) Migration status Occupation (ISCO) Partner available Professional education of the mother Professional education of the father N BEFORE Matching Pseudo R2 BEFORE Matching N AFTER Matching Pseudo R2 AFTER Matching

A X X X X

B X X X

C X X X

D X X X

E X X X

X

X X

X

X

X X

X X

X X

X X X

2921 0.06 748 0.001

X X 2921 0.07 674 0.004

X X X X X 2921 0.07 666 0.004

X X 2921 0.07 674 0.005

2921 0.05 748 0.002

selection of criteria also allows the observed characteristics of business families to be truly attributed to their being a business family. For this reason, we have repeated the matching procedure in several models that consider and combine the described criteria in different ways. Table 2 presents five of these models. For each model, we evaluated how well the matching procedure succeeds in aligning the distribution of the relevant variables in the selection and comparison groups. We have to keep in mind that there may be other distorting variables that we are unaware of or that were inadequately accounted for by our operationalization. As shown in Table 2, the different models already have a relatively good explanatory power before matching, which can then be considerably improved by matching (Caliendo and Kopeinig 2008, p. 16). Finally, we decided to use model B, because in model B the highest reduction of pseudo R2 occurs (from 0.007 to 0.004) taking into account all theoretically relevant variables and with a slightly higher number of cases than model C. The final matching model can assign 337 members from business families to 337 individuals from a regular work context. Table 3 shows the odds ratios for all matching criteria. It becomes clear that in particular a technical college degree, one’s own profession and the father’s professional education increase the probability of working in one’s own family’s business. The analysis of the matching variables in both groups

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Table 3 Probability of working in the company of one’s own family Age Gender (woman, reference man) Region (East, reference West) BIK in 3 categories (reference = large city) Small town Country Professional education (reference = professional degree) Still in training No professional qualification Professional education Vocational College University of Applied Sciences University PhD Migration status Occupation (ISCO) Professional education of the mother (reference = professional degree) No professional qualification Professional education Vocational College Civil service training University of Applied Sciences University PhD Professional education of the father (reference = professional degree) No professional qualification Vocational School Vocational School Civil service training University of Applied Sciences University PhD N Pseudo R2 * ≤ 0.05, *** ≤ 0.001

Odds ratios 1.03* 0.86 1.39* 1.12 1.40* 0.74 1.26 0.83 2.81*** 0.70 0.52* 0.47 1.01 1.00*** 0.85 0.58* 0.79 0.41 0.83 1.25 0.51 1.88* 3.01*** 2.31*** 1.09 0.99 1.75* 2921 0.07

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illustrates that existing differences have been significantly neutralized by matching. In other words, the comparison groups are almost identical except for the variable “business family affiliation” as was the case in the non-matched sample. We have succeeded in constructing a comparison group that is as similar as possible to members of business families with respect to the antecedents of entrepreneurial activity. Thus, we now compare two groups that are similar in their composition of age, gender, region, professional training, migration status, professional activity and professional training of the parents. On the basis of this propensity score matching, it is now possible to compare members in business families with individuals in a regular work context and to identify special features. On a purely descriptive level, we took a closer look at a total of more than 50 variables from the pairfam panel. We noticed that no major differences emerged between the two groups in terms of personal relationships (e.g. number of children, marriages, divorces, type of cohabitation), values and attitudes (e.g. attitudes towards family or family policy), the arrangement of partnership (e.g. division of domestic work) and generational relationships. With all limitations to the descriptive nature of this finding, we can thus assume that business families hardly differ from other families in the comparison group in the way they shape their emotional family life. However, major differences become apparent in the way they organize their everyday working life. Table 4 presents selected descriptive findings on this. Thus, 55% of all members from business families (MBF in Table 4) work after 7 p.m., but only 38% of all individuals in a regular work context do so (RWC in Table 4). Forty-four per cent of all members from business families report not having regular working hours, while this is the case for just under 9% of all individuals in a regular work context. In addition, members of business families work on average over five hours more per week; if they are in a cohabiting or married partnership, then 55% of both partners in business families work full-time, while this only applies to around 39% of all couples in a regular work context. These descriptive findings illustrate the special characteristics of members of business families, which are particularly salient in the area of work design and less so in the area of personal relationships. These findings provide a solid starting point for multivariate testing of a variety of hypotheses about the characteristics of business families and for controlling for other explanatory variables.

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Table 4 Descriptive comparison of REC and FBC after matching Work after 19:00 in % Yes No N Working time regulation Exclusively during the day, on working days Fixed shift, never weekend Fixed shift, also weekend Shift changes, never on weekends Shift changes, also on weekends Other or no regulation N Place of work predominantly in % Home office Home office possible Home office not possible Changing locations N Working under time pressure in % Do not agree at all 2, 3, 4 Agree wholeheartedly N Commuting time in minutes N Working time per week in h N Combination of work situations in % (The first mentioned partner (woman/man) is always the target person) Both partners full-time or self-employed Man full-time/self-employed & partner not gainfully employed Woman not & Partner full-time/self-employed Man not & Partner full-time/self-employed No partner available N Profession is recognized and respected in %

RWC

MBF

All

37.7 62.3

55.2 44.8

46.4 53.6 674

62.9 3.3 11.6 3.0 10.4 8.9

48.4 0.9 3.6 0.0 3.0 44.2

55.6 2.1 7.6 1.5 6.7 26.6 674

0.9 9.5 73.3 16.3

8.7 21.5 35.5 34.3

4.8 15.5 54.5 25.3 672

7.4

13.4

10.4

21.4

16.1

30.2

20.3

37.24

42.62

18.7 672 25.8 600 39.92 671

39.6 36.9 23.4 9.1 21.6

53.0 31.2 15.8 2.6 19.8

46.7 33.9 19.4 5.6 20.7 674

(continued)

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Table 4 (continued) Do not agree at all 2,3,4 Agree completely N General life satisfaction, range 0–10 N

RWC 5.0

MBF 1.2

All 3.1

15.4

24.9

20.2

7.66

7.77

7.71 673

Note: RWC individuals from a regular work context, MBF members from business families

Final Considerations and Evaluation Business families are not only a theoretically interesting but also an empirically relevant social phenomenon. However, studies on business families in Germany that can claim to be statistically representative have yet to be conducted. These circumstances have led to fragmented knowledge about business families, their family life, their working environment, their assets and their income situation, among other factors. The empirical approach presented in this chapter paves the way for more quantitative and, above all, representative research on business families. On the basis of a rich panel data set, it provides a first approach to identify business families through the activities of their members and to describe their work habits, family relationships, values, and so on. In addition, it was practically illustrated how a comparison group analysis can be carried out between family members working in their own company and employees who are not members of the same family. Furthermore, it was shown how a comparison group analysis becomes possible between family members in their own company and employees who are in a non-relative relationship with third parties. The focus was on the conceptual foundations and on illustrating the possibilities of the sociological pairfam panel. Due to the relative representativeness of the data set, future multivariate studies on the characteristics of business families in Germany become possible. On this basis, theoretically derived hypotheses on business families can now be tested. Using the example of the work context of business families, it was possible to identify a number of special features of members of business families at the descriptive level, who in comparison work more frequently from home and tend not to have a fixed working time arrangement. The pairfam data set thus opens the way for future research to test hypotheses on the combination of work and family in

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business families by means of multivariate analyses and thus to gain deeper insights into the work context of this special, but highly relevant group for Germany’s economic power. Important questions concern, for example, how business families deal with flexibility in their everyday work. Unlike employees in a familial non-related relationship, family members seem to enjoy greater flexibility in the work environment, but this flexibility appears to be associated with more working time. It is therefore questionable to what extent this flexibility is expressed in a so-called work-life balance. The presented method for the operationalization of business families and the definition of a comparison group in the pairfam panel, however, also allow us to shed light on further central topics beyond the chosen example of the work context. Another relevant research direction would be the role of values and attitudes of members of business families. Pairfam offers these variables and it would be natural to compare them to those of non-business families. For example, the question of social justice and the equal treatment of women and men and their differences in the business family context can and should also be addressed.

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Isabell Stamm , Dr., sociologist, currently heads the research group “Business, Ownership and Family Wealth” at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, Germany. Previously, she worked at the Department for Sociology at the University of California and the Institute of Sociology at the Technical University of Berlin. Fabian Bernhard , PhD, is Associate Professor of Management and a member of the Family Business Center at EDHEC Business School in Paris. Previously, he was a research associate and professor at INSEEC Business School in Paris and at the Family Enterprise Center (FEC) at Stetson University of Florida. Nicole Hameister is sociologist, research associate at the Research Data Center of the German Center for Gerontology.

Part II Recent Developments

From the Family Business to the Business Family: On the Extension of a Social Science and Systems Theory Perspective Rudolf Wimmer and Fritz B. Simon

What Makes a Business a Family Business and a Family a Business Family? Despite the limitations mentioned, most people generally know what is meant by the term “family business”. The growing research literature on this topic now offers a wide range of possible definitions (see, for example, Chua et al. 1999; Klein 2004; Klein et al. 2005; Wiechers 2006; Simon 2012; Sharma et al. 2014). A distinction is often made between “essence-based definitions”, i.e. those that focus primarily on family ownership, and those that focus more on the “components of involvement” of the family in the company (Chua et al. 1999). It is clear that the choice of definition has far-reaching consequences for the results of the respective research efforts (cf. on these consequences, for example, Astrachan and Shanker 2003). We approach the search for a suitable definition for this type of business by asking what it is that ultimately makes a business a family business. This direction of enquiry makes it clear that we assume that this type of business is an emergent phenomenon. Very specific, usually clearly identifiable processes allow a company to become a family-run business over time, for example, when the founders begin to see not only themselves as individuals but their family as a whole in the role of owner and thus responsible for future development, or when established business families gain a determining influence through the acquisition of shares, as was R. Wimmer (✉) Witten Institute for Family Business, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany e-mail: [email protected] F. B. Simon Simon, Weber and Friends GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_6

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recently impressively observed at Volkswagen. This specific quality as a family business can however also be lost again over time as a result of certain circumstances (for example, through sale or similar changes). We therefore propose to speak of a family business whenever a business organization is wholly or partially owned by a family or a family association and the family can therefore exert a determining influence on the development of the business. This deliberately broad definition ultimately allows for a wide variety of possibilities as to how the business family is linked to its business and exercises its entrepreneurial influence there (as mere owners or collaborating in the business in various functions and roles). The spectrum thus ranges from the small commercial enterprise, in which essentially only family members are involved, to the medium-sized enterprise, which is managed at the top by the owner or owners, to a corporate constellation, in which the family has withdrawn to the “mere” role of a majority owner and has transferred the management of the enterprise in the narrower sense entirely to professional external management and exercises its entrepreneurial influence via supervisory bodies suitable for this purpose (on this understanding of the family business, cf. Wimmer et al. 2018, pp. 6 ff.). Many authors see this differently. Some advocate for a definition of family businesses only when members of the owning family also bear direct responsibility in the management of the business. In our view, this narrower definition is not appropriate as it excludes all those businesses in which the family’s entrepreneurial influence is exercised permanently or even only temporarily from within the supervisory bodies. This is a type of influence that is now increasingly common in practice, which is why we do not want to exclude it from the definition of the object. However, it should be noted at this point that, from a legal point of view, a family cannot be the owner of a company. The German legal system does not accord the family the function of a legal entity in this context. It is therefore always individual family members who are officially in the role of owners. Nevertheless, it makes sense to operate with the construction of familial collective ownership because de facto these families live and work precisely with this double challenge as their defining identity feature. This is one of the central paradoxes whose successful management turns a family into a business family (Wimmer 2011). As already mentioned, the broader definition has been decided on in order to be able to include different types of coupling of family and business, established through ownership of the same, in the consideration of “family business” (similar also to the definition by the Witten Institute for Family Business). For in the course of the transition from generation to generation, the original unity of ownership and management can fan out in quite different ways. Commonly today, there is a growing number of shareholders who are not active in the company themselves,

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with only one or two people from this circle bearing management responsibility; this can lead to a constellation when the owner family exercises its overall entrepreneurial responsibility exclusively via controlling bodies and the company is managed entirely by outside managers. However the relationships of influence between the owner family and the company are lived out in everyday corporate life, all these relationship patterns have one thing in common: the business family (however branched out it may be in the course of its history) has an overall entrepreneurial responsibility towards the company as a family (irrespective of how well or badly it is able to bear this responsibility). It has tied up a considerable proportion of its assets in the company. It is important to keep these assets together across the generations through suitable arrangements and to increase their value through jointly driven and jointly responsible entrepreneurial activities. This context and the specific double challenges make them a business family. These assets are fundamentally non-fungible assets, “patient capital” (Sirmon and Hitt 2003, p. 393), whose cross-generational value enhancement ultimately provides the family’s entrepreneurial commitment with a meaningful framework. The vitality of the family’s transgenerational entrepreneurship, with all its implications in the direction of a common will of the shareholders to shape the company and their willingness to take risks, is ultimately the decisive point when we speak of family businesses (Wimmer 2014). This entrepreneurial self-image of the family embedded in a transgenerational perspective is quite difficult to capture in detail because this characteristic is deeply rooted in the identity of the family and the sense of responsibility of its members (Nordquist and Zellweger 2010). In any case, the transgenerational familial entrepreneurship addressed here means something quite different from merely managing a business-related share of wealth with the mere expectation of being provided with a regular return and/or exploiting this share in the most profitable way possible at the given moment. If this pure investor mentality has begun to dominate the self-image of family companies, then a company is well on the way to losing its identity as a family business. Whatever form this specific interlocking of family on the one hand and business on the other takes in practice, it has far-reaching consequences for both sides in any case; however, these do not lead to the family and business merging into a social system, as is often assumed in the literature. Conversely, it is precisely this close structural coupling of a family system with a company, which is conditioned by the ownership of the latter. This gives rise to a special type of company, characterized by a specific potential for opportunity and risk, which is attributable to the fact that two social entities, which are in themselves contrary to each other, such as a family and a company, mutually shape each other in the form of their system-specific structure. On the other hand, this coupling also shapes families in a very particular

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way. Families that own a company thus acquire a very specific colouring (on the theory of the business family, cf. Stamm 2013; von Schlippe et al. 2017, pp. 72 ff.; Kleve 2020; Kleve et al. 2020; Rüsen et al. 2021). To characterize this specific interlocking of family and business, we use the theoretical idea of “structural coupling”, as coined by Maturana and Varla (1987). Later on, this understanding was further developed by Luhmann specifically for the interdependence of social and mental systems (Luhmann 2002, pp. 118 ff.). Structural couplings mediate mutual influence potentials between systems that remain autonomous in themselves and a specific mutual irritability. This term is intended to describe the phenomenon of closely interlocked co-evolution, i.e. the fact “that an autopoietic system can presuppose the complex performances of the autopoiesis of another system and treat them as if they were part of its own system” (Luhmann 1995, p. 153). Against the background of these theoretical assumptions, it is therefore our firm conviction that one can only obtain an adequate approach to the specific nature of family businesses if one understands them as the result of the co-evolution of two social systems, which fundamentally follow a completely different inner logic: the owner family on the one hand and the business as a certain type of organization on the other (Simon 1999). Both worlds mutually produce each other in their own peculiar way. In this co-evolution, the dynamics of one are fed by those of the other and vice versa: they are mutually constitutive, and use each other in many ways as a resource or as an identity-forming pattern. However, the flip side of this fateful interlocking must also be considered very carefully: the problems of the company shape the everyday life of the owner family in the same way that their unresolved problems have an impact on the development of the company, as can be seen most obviously in the handover phase and the generation change. The fate of family businesses ultimately depends very much on how this mutual shaping process proceeds and whether the decision-makers concerned manage over time to establish suitable structures and processes on both sides and to renew them time and again. In such a way they are able to distinguish between the problems and interests of the family as a survival unit and those of the business in its specific nature, and to deal with them appropriately in each case. Are they able to distinguish between the legitimate interests of the family and the conflicts within the family that are often associated with the survival needs of the company? In important companyrelated decision-making processes within the owning family, is it primarily a matter of closely monitoring the company’s longer-term chances of survival (i.e. does the company and the safeguarding of its value really have priority?), or has the need to assert the personal interests of individual family members or family branches gained the upper hand?

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In this case, the company becomes the battleground for internal family conflicts that are often no longer controllable and which, in their highly emotionalized momentum, seize the company and use it as a tool in the disagreement. Disputes within business families can justifiably be declared the greatest value destroyer in the SME economy (cf. Hennerkes and Kirchdörfer 2015). From the company’s point of view, the business family therefore represents both a resource and a risk that threatens the company’s existence (Danes and Staford 2017). The particular competitive advantages, especially their much-admired longevity, are readily attributed to the specific influence of the business family (Simon 2012; Jaffe 2018). At the same time, the high mortality rate of this type of business, especially in the first three to four generations, is predominantly related to unresolved problems on the family side. The business family is where the characteristic Janus-facedness of this type of enterprise is rooted. They are often among the best in their sector but unfortunately often also among the worst problem children of an economy (Wimmer et al. 2018). Given the undisputed relevance of the specific dynamics of business families for the sustainable survival of their companies, it is surprising that research on the specifics of this type of family is still very much in its infancy (Dyer and Dyer 2009; Rieg and Rau 2014). The owner family remains “a missing variable in organizational research” (Dyer 2003). The rapidly growing body of research on family firms lacks a sound basic theoretical understanding of those specific features that make a family a business family (Sharma et al. 2014). In their review of previous work on the ownership family, Rieg and Rau conclude “that the majority of studies are poorly grounded theoretically” (Rieg and Rau 2014, p. 447). In their 25th anniversary editorial of the most important journal in the field, Family Business Review, Sharma, Chrisman and Gersick strongly emphasize the need “to deepen our knowledge of variables related to the family system so we will better understand why, when and how its characteristic attributes are likely to influence the behaviours and performance of family firms” (Sharma et al. 2012). The following considerations are dedicated to this research concern. As a first step, some social-historical and the resulting social-theoretical foundations need to be analyzed.

The Structural Change of the Family on the Way to Modernity Historically, today’s family business has its roots in social formations in which, quite generally, the respective events of economic production and family life formed a closely interwoven social unit. In pre-industrial times, i.e. well into the

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nineteenth century, these multifunctional social formations, which had been designated by the term “familia” since the early Middle Ages, embodied a space of cohabitation of related and unrelated people in a household, whose affiliations at the same time defined the form of existence and the social status of each individual in a pre-modern society ordered by ranks. The “whole house”, as this type of family economy is often referred to (Brunner 1968, 1978), was thus centrally also a place of production, communal work and economic activity, and thus at the same time always also a living space for non-related employees (apprentices, journeymen, farmhands and maids, day labourers, boarders and sleepers). In its internal order, this “house” was built around the manifold manorial functions of the head of the household (pater familias), which followed the tradition of the estates. The craftsman’s workshop, the farm, the merchant’s family and the aristocratic estate are prototypes of this pre-modern social form, which by the term “family” not only means the cohabitation of parents, children and other relatives, but also includes all persons belonging to such a household (Mitterauer 2009). We are firmly convinced that the special nature of the modern form of business, the “family business”, can only be understood by today’s observer if one understands how, in the course of the past centuries, both the family in the modern sense and the business as the dominant organizational form of our present-day economic system have differentiated themselves as entirely separate social forms from the archetype of the “whole house”. In the transition from the primarily familybased agrarian society (with its very own ideas of ownership) to industrialization, the family was subjected to a fundamental structural change, beginning in the eighteenth century and continuing right up to the present day. The development of modern forms of organizations (industrial enterprises, public administrations, schools, hospitals, universities, religious communities, etc.), which accompanied the transformation of our society in the direction of a dominance of functional differentiation, gradually made wage labour outside the home the predominant form of employment and thus the basis of the economic reproduction of the vast majority of family households. This transition from the family-based organization of the “whole house” to a marketor consumer-oriented way of life [. . .]. The separation of the sphere of gainful employment and the sphere of reproduction, the gradual privatization of the family framework, and the specific shaping of this sphere of life as a “counter-structure to society” become tangible in the division of functions between men and women. This relates to the formation of separate living and representation spaces, the incipient distancing of the narrower family circle from the service floor and craftsmen, the greater attention paid to the education of sons and the “furnishing” of daughters, and

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the development of an independent bourgeois leisure culture. (Ecker and Zahradnik 1986, p. 37)

The family in the traditional sense has lost its political, economic, but also many qualifying and social-care functions in this process of overall social reconstruction towards what we now call modernity (Rosenbaum 1982). In this process, the internal family structures from the pre-modern era have changed drastically. In terms of its personnel composition, today it is essentially built only around the members of the nuclear family. Marriage and blood relations or adoption now determine the boundaries of membership (Mitterauer and Sieder 1991, pp. 18–19). Marriage and birth (or, alternatively, adoption) are now the only criteria for family membership (Tyrell 1983, p. 363). Ultimately, however, this “functional release”, which has been described many times in the literature of social history, was connected with a completely new social task specification of all that we associate today with marriage, family and familylike private forms of life. From a social point of view, this functional release has made today’s family and its family-like equivalents a place of longing for intimacy, for protected privacy, for the development of highly personal relationships that make special closeness possible and for the realization of the personal wishes and hopes placed in these relationships. Only on the way to modernity has a personal “close-world” been differentiated as a counterpart to the task-related working relationships in organizations; this close-world is formed, delimited from the outside and reproduced by a very specific form of communication, mainly focused on intimacy. This specific form of communication and the system formations that accompany it (private love relationships, marriage, family) are, in their societywide institutionalized manifestation, a characteristic “product” of modernity. Intimate communication cultivated in families is such an unlikely principle that it can only function, if at all, in social enclaves (Luhmann 1990, p. 222). This specific form of communication uses as its generalized medium the “love code”, as it found its characteristic form in the course of the eighteenth century in the ideas of “romantic love” and has since been further refined and elaborated with tremendous sophistication (Luhmann 1982). At this time, however, this code revolutionizes not only the formation of adult couples, but also the relationship with one’s own children, which is now experiencing a similar emotional charge (e.g. “discovery of childhood, of motherly love”, etc.; cf. on this the impressive work by Klett 2013). Intimate communication creates exclusive social places in which each participant can assume that the communication is addressing him or her as a “whole person” (Luhmann 1990), whatever the topic may be in this communicative relationship. In social formations based on love and intimacy (such as marriage, family,

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etc.), “one finds, as is often noted, an unconditional confirmation of one’s own self, of one’s personal identity. Here, and perhaps only here, one feels accepted as who one is without reservation and without limitation, without regard to status and without regard to achievement” (Luhmann 2008, p. 21). Usually, in familial contexts, there are no such permanent self-presentation requirements like there are in occupational, professional contexts. Therefore, this kind of “ego affirmation” (with all the practical probabilities of failure of such expectations) is always associated with the attempt to allow a very personally toned, emotionally highly charged, intensely physical contact enabling a close-world of daily living and interaction control to emerge, which makes this highly specialized form of “the mutual expectation of expectations and all that this implies” probable (Luhmann 2008, p. 22). “The very fact that nowhere else in society can you find social resonance for anything you care about increases the expectations and demands on the family . . . it creates for itself a semantics of intimacy, of love and of mutual understanding, in order to hold out the credible prospect of fulfilling these expectations” (Luhmann 1990, p. 208). Intimate communication thrives on the fact that, with regard to mutual personal concerns and expectations, it does not know any fixed thematic boundaries. In principle, everything that touches one’s own ego or that of the other (observations, sensations, impressions) can become the topic of discussion. This also implies all physical dimensions. This is why intimate boundaries with non-family members are of such extraordinary importance in this form of privacy. “Social systems that structure themselves in terms of love place themselves under the demand of communicative openness to topics not fixed in advance” (Luhmann 1990, p. 16). Those bound to each other in love have in principle no secrets from each other (at least according to the claim). “Everything that concerns a person is open to communication in the family. Secrecy, of course, can be practised and is practised, but it has no legitimate status” (Luhmann 1990, p. 201). Modern Western society has firmly institutionalized and legally secured this kind of intimate communication built around the love code as the basis for more permanent partnerships, marriage and family (i.e. also for the relationship between parents and children). Family togetherness is fundamentally designed for the long term. It is thus intrinsically withdrawn from arbitrary terminability. The togetherness is based on a longer-term perspective for the future, which includes the cycles of the children’s development into adults and the ageing of parents. Only in such relationships does the individual appear as a “whole person” without restriction. Belonging to the family individualizes each person to the highest degree. It makes the individual unique and thus also makes each family incomparable. In this respect, it cannot really be understood by outsiders. It can only be understood in its

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exclusivity. “Only the lovers themselves can understand their love” (Luhmann 2008, p. 51). The family is ultimately based on a particular affect-laden quality of reciprocal relationships that ensures a specific intensity of reference to the other, an intensity that can usually bridge a high degree of everyday disagreement and dissent without damage to the existing relationships. Often unspoken solidarity imperatives are woven into this relationship. One senses when the other needs help and support without having to specifically express such a demand. “One loves by enriching the world of the other” (Baecker 2018, p. 159). The nature of give and take in familial relationships prevents the timely, accurate accounting of individual advantages and disadvantages. It does not follow the logic of economic efficiency and performance, i.e. it is not primarily oriented towards benefit calculation. It is therefore based on its very own mutual expectations of compensation and its own ideas of justice (oriented above all towards equality), which govern family interaction with a view to longer time horizons (mostly completely unspoken). In the shaping of its expectations of reciprocity, family events thus fundamentally follow non-economic principles, even if economic considerations naturally play and must play a role in household management. In such forms of togetherness, the domination of the pre-modern family world has lost all meaning as well as the mutual instrumentalization for the maximization of personal benefit. However, precisely because of their high emotional basis, these very personal constellations of reciprocal expectations often also contain the potential for disappointment that can ultimately escalate family conflicts into the uncontrollable and force a separation. “Family bankruptcies” (Tyrell 1983, p. 365) are almost always associated with high personal shocks and experiences of crisis for those involved. Families have their very own modalities of dissolution. In terms of family history, Europe has chosen a special evolutionary path with the institutionalization of a personal close-knit world built around intimate communication in the course of the modern era (building on preliminary forms long since developed in the Middle Ages). The social differentiation of intimate relationships ensures that with every marriage based on the free choice of partner, something new begins in social terms (principle of neolocality, cf. Oesterdickhoff 2008). A difference is set in relation to the respective families of origin of the two spouses, which assumes that what is now beginning to develop as a newly founded social unit is the self-determined responsibility of the lovers and can count on the benevolent support of the respective social environment (principle of the primacy of the newly founded over the origin). Love liberates from the fixity of one’s own origin. In this sense, it contains a “revolutionary” explosive power. “With true, genuine, deep love, neither class nor money, neither reputation nor family, nor any other older loyalties can matter” (Luhmann 2008, p. 33). This is an evolutionary achievement, a potential

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that in practice, as we know only too well, has probably been and is realized only to a very limited extent. Many marriages reproduce the spouses’ milieu of origin even in our cultural context. Nevertheless, we can assume that the system-building principles described for marriage and family have played an important role in the social transformation of the last two or three centuries. This “European special way” (cf. Mitterauer 2003) marks a clear difference with other socio-cultural traditions (see Koellner 2022, 2023), such as the Indian one, where marriage is still primarily an act arranged by the families involved, with the young couple fitting into the order of the man’s family of origin (principle of patrilineality) (cf. on this the impressive work by Schröder 2017). These considerable cultural differences must be taken into account when it comes to adequately reconstructing the co-evolution of business and owner family in their highly complex interrelationships in the individual regions of the world (Rieg and Rau 2014 also emphasize that this requirement is seen far too little in previous research on family businesses).

The Business Family as a Family of its Own Type What does the fact that a company is owned by a family do to it? As already indicated, this does not reproduce the basic structures of the pre-modern “whole house”. However, in addition to its usual raison d’être, the family is given another important task, namely the entrepreneurial care of a business, the successful development of which in return provides the family with very different “benefits” (financing of the livelihood, asset accumulation going beyond economic efficiency, reputational gain, employment and career opportunities for family members, transgenerational continuity, etc.). For business families, this adds another highly significant meaning-giving element to their self-dynamic self-development. This circumstance fundamentally changes the overall family configuration. This “third party”, which comes into a family in the form of a business, usually acquires quite considerable importance in the everyday life of the family. If it does not, then one can hardly speak of a family business. This “third party” focuses much of the family’s internal attention, especially that of the adults. A great deal of family communication time is devoted to this “third party” day after day. The business is omnipresent in the life of the family. It often acquires the position of a particularly important member of the family, always taking precedence, to which other concerns in the family must naturally take a back seat. This unavoidable competition between what the business stands for in the family and the “real” family issues is one of the

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central challenges that business families have to cope with as families today. The familial importance of the business makes communication opportunities for essential family issues scarce, with usually significant consequential costs (firmly established conflict avoidance patterns, unbalanced relationship accounts, chronic disappointments in relation to expectations, stressful conditions for adolescents, etc.). Many of these consequential costs are usually “inherited” within the family in many cases and are passed on from generation to generation and in some cases intensify. These internal family constellations naturally change from generation to generation. Multigenerational business families comprise a large number of nuclear families, often scattered all over the world, who nevertheless experience life as (and in) a business family. In the context of normal families, the term “family” is reserved for the nuclear family. In the business family context, however, which may look back on several generations, people have usually learned to take care of the concerns of the company, which are, after all, bundled up in their ownership function, in specially differentiated structures and in occasions of communication, and are supported by their own sets of rules, which are not always contractually formalized. If this differentiation process, which in itself is quite difficult, is successful, then business families develop the ability to provide for themselves appropriately as a family and to fulfil their ownership function and the associated entrepreneurial responsibility in equal measure, without having to constantly litigate these two dimensions in a hopelessly intermingled manner (von Schlippe et al. 2017 analyze how this dual focus can succeed in business families. On the underlying understanding of the shareholder role see Wimmer 2011).

The Special Role of the “Third Party” The pure form of the old European family model is the following: all members of the household (relatives and non-relatives) work to earn a living on the basis of common property with a clear hierarchy starting from the pater familias. In previous centuries, the boundaries of the family were the boundaries of the household. The business family of today must be clearly distinguished from this economic family model. Within it, the three dimensions of a social system – the temporal (the common future arising from common roots), the factual (ensuring the survival of the business) and the social (the interpersonal ties between the family members) – are indeed closely interwoven. Their interactions have to be managed on a day-today basis. However, family and business are not one. They do not merge with each

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other, as is often seen in parts of the literature (e.g. the three-circle model). They remain separate social entities, each with its own reality and inner logic. Families that are connected in this sense by concern for a common enterprise have, in our language, something “third” that adds to the interpersonal dimension of togetherness in the family and supplements the usual internal orientation of family events with a systematic external reference. This “third party”, the common task of ensuring the survival of the company, usually develops into a special “family myth” which ensures that the absent (the company) is constantly present in the family’s everyday life (on the importance of narratives in business families see also Kleve et al. 2022; Koellner et al. 2023). Especially at the beginning of the life cycle of family businesses, it is true that this “third party” quite significantly determines the family’s communication at the table, in joint “leisure time” and between the spouses even in bed when falling asleep and waking up. The expectation of unrestricted mutual availability of time practically abolishes the distinction between work time and leisure time. Time to communicate with each other primarily on the relationship or individual level, or time for the discussion of individual personal wishes and needs, are hardly ever provided for; “private” or “individualistic” (i.e. purely personal problems) often have little room. As in the traditional family economy, relationships are primarily shaped by the demands of the company or by overriding economic constraints. Direct, person-addressed (primary) communication is less observable here. Comparatively little time is available for this. The company imports problems into the family on an almost daily basis, which considerably limits attention to genuine family issues within the family. Family concerns and company issues compete with each other for the already minimal time available for being together. From the point of view of families with regulated times for work and correspondingly demarcated times for private life, this inseparable merging of work and family life may seem strange, perhaps even frightening. This point of view must be put into perspective, because in many respects this fact also has a relieving effect on the business family (Lindner 1974). Where families lack this “third party” in the sense of a joint enterprise, where earning a living and family life increasingly fall apart, the factual task, such as bringing up children or communicating about it (secondary communication), is entirely in the service of supporting and maintaining the social dimension of the family (primary communication). The “crisis” of the family, which is frequently invoked nowadays, could possibly consist precisely in the fact that it has been so largely stripped of its factual task level, precisely because the securing of economic existence is usually completely outsourced and is the responsibility of the individual there, that the family is thus limited in its interaction almost exclusively to the

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shaping of the common intimate internal space. Thus the family members face each other as “whole persons”, who not infrequently overtax each other with their emotional needs and mutual expectations of each other. The social process of individualization (Beck 1986) has given rise to framework conditions that have enormously increased the demands on maintaining family cohesion. In the meantime, it has become much more likely that family ties, once entered into, will dissolve again and that, as a consequence, complex, diverse forms of family coexistence will develop (Beck-Gernsheim 2000). It is different with business families. There is another bond that holds the family members together, and under certain circumstances also forges them together despite all the ambivalence: something third, the common task, the company. This third party can certainly have a dampening and disciplining effect on the emotional momentum of the interpersonal relationship in the family. Not only do family members thus confront each other in their familial roles, but there can be a prevailing sense of going together, of sticking together, for the sake of the shared task and responsibility. One is bound together by property and has something third, as the defining centre of common life. Just as the family as such does not “belong” to any individual member, so ownership of the company is also perceived as a “common thing” for which one feels responsible, even if this is of course quite different in terms of ownership. Directly linked to this ownership role is also the fact that business families organize to a considerable extent the professional future prospects, careers and earning opportunities of their members (especially the next generation). This provided potential in enabling privileged life chances distinguishes them quite considerably from normal families. These particularities are undoubtedly responsible for some characteristic elements of the specific dynamics of this type of family.

The Internal Differentiation of Business Families The modern nuclear family basically knows only one relevant difference that leads to the formation of stable subsystems: the couple (the parents) on one side and the children on the other. This divergence of roles establishes asymmetrical differences in influence, which become more or less equalized as the children grow up and become adults. Parental authority loses its original functionality as the children become independent. In business families, these asymmetries of influence can develop yet another dimension, especially in the early stages of their life cycle. The unity of parental authority, ownership and management responsibility in the

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company often gives rise to a weight of authority that can rarely be observed in this form in normal families today. The patriarchal leadership structures in the company and the parental authority in the family support each other. The large differences in influence on both sides are based on an understanding of authority that is based on the fact that validity and acceptance can be expected for decisions without having to explicitly talk about them, question them or justify them. Behind this is an image of entrepreneurship that has its roots in the nineteenth century (Kocka 1979, 2013; Plumpe 2014) and remains widespread among enterprising generations today. Underpinning these relationships is the fact that business families do not bend to the usual course of the familial life cycle. They establish an ideal of intergenerational continuity that is only achievable if the following generations follow in the footsteps of their predecessors in whatever form (deviating from the principle of neolocality). This circumstance in particular strengthens the weight of the older generation. These particular asymmetries of influence in business families create, in these specific communication patterns, thematization barriers, conflict avoidance strategies and conditions for coping with the challenges of adolescence, among other things. In sum, against this backdrop, a characteristic form of family togetherness and antagonism usually emerges, which regularly endows the generational change in the management of the business as well as in ownership with considerable mortgages. If family businesses manage to overcome the difficult-to-avoid pitfalls in these initial transitions, then the management responsibilities, the shareholder roles and the positions in the business family become increasingly differentiated, a circumstance that gives rise to new, hitherto unknown challenges for the family in dealing with internal family differences, differences with which a normal family is not usually confronted. “To make a difference is to draw a line – to draw a line is to make a difference” (Simon 1988, p. 215). In the transition to the second generation, the question arises of into whose hands the management or ownership responsibility should be placed. Will only those who have responsibility in the management of the company be involved or will all children be equally entrusted with the shareholder role? Can the successors include their spouses in the circle of shareholders or should they draw the boundaries of the business family more narrowly and have only the direct descendants participate? In multigenerational family businesses, such decisionmaking necessities inevitably arise (Simon et al. 2012), because membership in a business family does not arise quasi “naturally” through marriage or birth. Such demarcations give rise to different family membership relationships that can never be lived out entirely free of tension. Families must first learn to deal constructively with such decision-making requirements for themselves.

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At a certain point in their life cycle, such families therefore develop their own rules for who belongs to the owner family and who does not. Such issues are usually clarified in the course of drawing up a family charter of their own (von Schlippe et al. 2017, pp. 229 ff.). Togetherness, loyalty, mutual support and reliability with regard to ownership of the joint enterprise are basic values, comparable to the manifestation in families of minorities, where the unrestricted ability to trust each other between blood relatives and the drawing of a clear boundary between belonging and otherness represents an important dimension of ensuring survival. In addition to this delicate demarcation between the inside (business family) and the outside (rest of the family), business families are confronted with other internal differences that regularly require careful handling. This is the difference between shareholders who are active in the company and those who are not. Who gets the chance to pursue a “career” in the company, and who has to build up their own professional existence? For the latter group, which usually grows from generation to generation, well-thought-out arrangements are needed to keep them emotionally connected to the company in such a way that they can seriously assume their entrepreneurial responsibility in the long term. Another expected subsystem formation in business families occurs when, in the second generation (or sometimes in the third or even later), different branches of the family emerge around siblings, who become independent through the inheritance processes in the same and become the most important survival unit for their members. This regularly strengthens the centrifugal forces in the circle of partners, leading to the loss of cohesion in the business family as a whole as well as its decision-making ability in all dimensions that affect its entrepreneurial identity. These examples should illustrate that in their internal growth process, business families are confronted with a number of very pressing demands on their own structural development that need to be consciously shaped, in addition to caring for their household emotionally and maintaining family cohesion (Rüsen et al. 2021). These demands arise specifically from their responsibility for the prosperous development of their enterprise. This depends to a large extent on how the family can equip itself with the ability, unusual for families, to represent a decision-making counterpart for the successful further development of the company across the generations.

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Wordless Understanding: A Necessary Fiction? If we now turn our attention to the atmosphere within business families and the way in which members communicate with each other, we can describe a number of interesting features which can have a supporting or endangering effect on the family system. The mood within such families often seems “energized”, with high libidinous tension. A strongly eruptive, creative force is in the air. At the same time, however, the expression of this power seems to be strongly restrained. Particularly strict rules and norms are supposed to curb the imminent danger of losing control over these forces and the members of the family behave in a particularly cool, sober and distanced manner. Nevertheless, there are always surprising, original and creative moments, but also unpredictability and “inexhaustible flashes of inspiration”. In contrast to companies, which are primarily concerned with decision-making, families today are characterized by a pronounced, history-saturated familiarity with one another and an, at least ascribed, increased personal responsiveness of the family members. Thus, a high sensitivity for the individual specifics of the members, strong sympathy with regard to the external roles of the relatives and a code of interaction that virtually forces the discussion of “personal matters” characterize this “intimacy communication” (Tyrell 1983, p. 377). Communicating, however, does not necessarily mean that everything is actually talked about amongst family members. Communication is when the participants perceive each other and it is clear to all that they are in turn observed by the others. Family communication arises completely naturally and as a matter of course from the loving relationships that people have with each other. This is of course a fiction, but a very stabilizing, binding one that facilitates action. Love does not make existing dissent irrelevant, but at most invisible, which in no way diminishes the need for consensus, but rather increases it. In everyday life, we usually assume that the world is as we experience it and that others see it the same way and thus think and understand similarly to us. We assume that every “normal” person shares certain beliefs with us – a highly necessary and functional assumption for everyone’s everyday ability to act. Especially in personal relationships, people like to operate with the premise “that each participant assumes that all participants mean what they say, and that the understanding of the others corresponds to the intended meaning” (Luhmann 1990, p. 227). In this way, one saves oneself from possibly risky inquiries and, on top of that, provides for sustainable mutual confirmations.

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Alois Hahn (1983) describes this phenomenon of assumed understanding in small social groups as “consensus fiction”. This imputation of consensus replaces real consensus and is – at least within certain limits, which are not easy to determine – indispensable. Particularly in small groups, which are bound together by a strong sense of “we”, a feeling of commonality, affection and togetherness, along with the commonality of central views of values and life, memories, norms, values, attitudes and feelings, is regarded as the real basis and condition of the relationship (Hahn 1983, p. 211). This applies to “normal” families and married couples, and presumably to a particularly strong extent to corporate families. This assumption of understanding as a matter of course in understanding oneself, which acts, as it were, like a loan whose coverage never needs to be checked (Hahn 1983, p. 221), is associated with a pronounced shortage of communication. In business families, this scarcity of direct communication about family matters is further intensified by the fact that the business is known to play the dominant role in the private lives of the family members. This leaves very little time for purely private matters. With the unquestioning assumption of a self-evident commonality, one saves oneself from talking about many things and reduces the communication that could demonstrate that one lives in different worlds. “What the issue is is selfevident. We don’t need to talk about it” – this is a frequently heard phrase that is sometimes meant to be self-reinforcing. The demarcation between family and business, although negated particularly often by seniors, is nevertheless there, and everyone knows it. On the one hand, everyone involved must be able to see as a matter of course in which context they are operating, but on the other hand, they must not make it an issue. Family members learn a lot about differences they are confronted with, but have to behave as if everything is as one; certainly a coherent attitude from a founder’s point of view. Clarification is expected of family members, but at the same time they are expected not to show it. In this way, of course, there is a danger that they will become strangers to each other and separate from each other. For wherever the cohesion of the family or small group seems to be threatened, prohibitions of thought, freedom and conflict take root. A firm mutual control is established, which sets clear limits on the mobility of the individual. One is “accustomed” to this world of norms, which determines the close cohesion of the family, and is indirectly brought up into it from an early age (Heintel 1993, p. 12). For business families, these “quasi-prohibitions” exist in two respects. On the one hand, the bourgeois-family “love code” suggests a need for harmony; on the other hand, responsibility for the common “third party” very quickly turns possible conflicts into symptoms of crisis and a threat to cohesion as a whole.

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The almost constant overlapping of the two contexts “company and family” requires a distinctive ability to deal with unclear and ambiguous relationship definitions – for the successor, the father is both a father and a boss. When does he act in which role? Which conflicts originate from which social system and which are currently superimposed on the problem level of the other (on the paradoxes inevitably associated with this, cf. Simon 2002, pp. 39 ff.; von Schlippe et al. 2017, pp. 86 ff.)? Contradictions and strong ambivalences have to be balanced. This requires a high tolerance of ambiguity, and an ability to deal with ambiguities and contradictions and to handle ambivalent situations and ambiguous relationship definitions. Whether they are sitting at the lunch table today or meeting together the next day at an important negotiation, it is all one and yet it is not. They are the same people, the same sentences are uttered, but with the slight difference that the son is a son in one moment, then an employee or designated successor the next. It needs to be known that on the one hand the one has a lot to do with the other, but that on the other hand they still have to be distinguished from one another. However, fathers are usually reluctant to follow that route because their role could be threatened. They equate “father” with “company founder” and do not want to be restricted in their freedom of movement and decision-making by discussing the different role requirements. The claim to keep these two dimensions apart always comes from the sons or daughters, never from the founding generation. The offspring are, after all, the observers. The lack of communication referred to becomes particularly noticeable in business families to the extent that the family does not succeed in dealing adequately with the dual realities. All communication in which one’s self and the intertwining of these two worlds could possibly become a topic is to be avoided. It is better to pretend that we already know how we understand each other than to risk opening Pandora’s box. Shared silence due to the subliminal ban on talking – acting almost like a taboo on certain topics – actually seems worth its weight in gold in this case. You sit together and think you are sharing the world, but at the same time you know it is not the case. Those involved in this game must now individually come to terms with the different perceptions of reality and their possibilities for thematization. In hierarchically structured companies as well as in families it can often be observed that this fiction of consensus is seen as a fiction. Everyone knows that they see something completely different, but no one needs to make an issue of it because they see themselves supported by the role they have taken on, both in the hierarchy and in the traditional family. In fact, as long as things are simply going well, continuously and predictably, there is no good reason to complicate this situation by “unnecessarily” discussing it.

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Dealing openly with contradictory or “undesirable” feelings is an extremely demanding but usually not well-developed ability, the development of which is not particularly encouraged, especially in business families. Therefore, this difficulty tends to be solved by a seemingly energy-saving negation or non-acknowledgement of these ambivalences. In fact, however, these psychological repression mechanisms consume considerable energy. The fact that the conflicts are deprived of conscious clarification but continue to exist underground also gives rise to psychological and health risks for the members of business families (Simon 2013, pp. 97 ff.). The fact that such consequential costs (repressions, taboos, health problems . . .) are borne for the preservation of individual life lies or collective myths, however, points to a need for assumable commonality that cannot be met with mere dialogues or clarifications. The consequences are not, after all, consequences of deficient communication, but basal structural constraints that produce here both fictions and the repressions that protect the fictions. (Hahn 1983, p. 227)

This fuzzy difference between business and family provides many chances for fractures to develop in relationships. This can result in a state of affairs so highly dangerous that it can break apart at any time by any chance, and individuals can lose their motivation and seek substitute motives, such as money flow, power, career, prestige through girlfriends, and so on. In many cases, however, it seems to be the safe option from the point of view of those involved, just in case, not to bring up the subject and to “keep the lid on it” and not to unnecessarily “wake sleeping dogs”. However, what is quite functional in normal everyday life, because not every action has to be explained anew, can have fatal effects, especially in the case of changes. With regard to business families, this is about the fundamental paradoxes of their form of existence. If one wants to increase the internal complexity of the family and business relation, which is almost inevitable in the course of its life cycle, and to make it workable, then it needs to overcome the communication patterns just described. The success of such learning processes, however, is unlikely. Nevertheless, there are a large number of business families operating with their long-lived family businesses who have acquired the necessary qualities of reflection, communication and decision-making over time. Understanding these relationships in detail remains a promising field of family business research.

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References Astrachan, J. H. & Shanker, M. C. (2003). Family business’ contribution to the US economy: A closer look. Family Business Review 16 (3), (pp. 211–219). Baecker, D. (2018). 4.0 oder Die Lücke die der Rechner lässt. Berlin: Merve Verlag. Beck, N. (1986). Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. Beck-Gernsheim, E. (2000). Was kommt nach der Familie? Einblicke in neue Lebensformen. München: Beck. Brunner, O. (1968). Neue Wege der Verfassungs- und Sozialgeschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Brunner, O. (1978). Vom „ganzen Haus“ zur „Familie“. In H. Rosenbaum (Ed.), Seminar: Familie und Gesellschaftsstruktur, (pp. 83–91). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag Chua, J. H., Chrisman, J. J. & Sharma, P. (1999). Defining the family business by behavior. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice 23 (4), (pp. 19–39). Danes, S. & Staford, K. (2017). The Heart of the Mother: Family Process Affect Family Business. In F. Kellermanns, F. Hoy (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Family Business, (pp. 417–431). New York: Routledge. Dyer, W. G. (2003). The Family: The Missing Variable in Organizational Research. Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice 27 (4), (pp. 401–416). Dyer, W. G. & Dyer, W. J. (2009). “Putting the family into family business research”. Family Business Review 22, (pp. 216–219). Ecker, A. & Zahradnik, M. (1986). Familie und Schule. In G. Diem-Wille & R. Wimmer (Eds.), Materialien und Texte zur politischen Bildung, (pp. 1–22). Wien: österr. Bundesverlag. Hahn, A. (1983). Konsensfiktionen in Kleingruppen. Dargestellt am Beispiel von jungen Ehen. In F. Neidhart (Ed.), Gruppensoziologie: Perspektiven und Materialien, (pp. 201–232). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Heintel, P. (1993). Managementprobleme eines Familienunternehmens. In R. Nagel (Ed.), Unternehmensberatung in Österreich, Wien. Hennerkes, B.-H. & Kirchdörfer, R. (2015). Die Familie und ihr Unternehmen, 2. Aufl. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag Jaffe, D. T. (Ed.) (2018). Resilience of 100-Year Family Enterprises. San Francisco: Create Space Independent. Klein, S. (2004). Familienunternehmen. Theoretische und empirische Grundlagen, 2. edition. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag Klein, S., Astrachan, J. H. & Smyrnios, K. (2005). The F-PEC scale of family influence: Construction, validation and further implication for theory. Entrepreneurship, Theory & Practice 29 (3), (pp. 321–339). Klett, D. (2013). Die Form des Kindes. Kind, Familie, Gesellschaftsstruktur. Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft. Kleve, H. (2020). Die Unternehmerfamilie. Wie Wachstum, Sozialisation und Beratung gelingen. Heidelberg. Carl-Auer.

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Kleve, H., Koellner, T., von Schlippe, A., & Rüsen, T. A. (2020). „The Business Family 3.0: Dynastic Business Families as Families, Organizations and Networks; Outline of a Theory Extension”. Systems Research and Behavioral Science. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/sres. 2684. Kleve, H., Boyd, B., Koellner, T. & Rüsen, T. (2022). „Überlebensgeschichten im transgenerationalen Unternehmertum: Narrative und Narrationen in Familienunternehmen und Unternehmerfamilien“. In Narrative Praxis: Ein Handbuch für Beratung, Therapie und Coaching. Edited by Jakob, P., Borcsa, M., Olthof, J. & von Schlippe, A., (pp. 347–359). Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Kocka, J. (1979). Familie, Unternehmer und Kapitalismus. An Beispielen aus der frühen deutschen Industrialisierung. Zeitschrift für Unternehmensgeschichte, 24, (pp. 99–135). Kocka, J. (2013). Geschichte des Kapitalismus. München: C. H. Beck Verlag. Koellner, T. (2022). “Family Firms and Business Families: A Field for Anthropological Research”. Anthropology Today 38 (6), (pp. 8–11). Koellner, T. (ed). (2023). Family Firms and Business Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Bringing Anthropology Back In. Edited by T. Koellner. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Koellner, T., Boyd, B., Kleve, H. & Rüsen, T. (2023). “Producing and Reproducing the Business Family across Generations: The Importance of Narratives in German Business Families.” In Family Firms and Business Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Bringing Anthropology Back In. Edited by T. Koellner, (pp. 57-80). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Lindner, T. (1974). Primäre und sekundäre Kommunikation in der gruppendynamischen Praxis. Zeitschrift für Gruppendynamik, Heft 4, (pp. 270-287). Luhmann, N. (2008). Liebe. Eine Übung. Frankfurt a. M. Suhrkamp Verlag. Luhmann, N. (2002). Einführung in die Systemtheorie. D. Baecker (Ed.) Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag. Luhmann, N. (1995). Die Form „Person“. In N. Luhmann (Ed.), Soziologische Aufklärung vol. 6, (pp. 142–154). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Luhmann, N. (1990). Sozialsystem Familie. In N. Luhmann (Ed.), Soziologische Aufklärung vol. 5, (pp. 196–217). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag. Luhmann, N. (1982). Liebe als Passion. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag. Maturana, H. & Varla, F. J. (1987). Der Baum der Erkenntnis. Bern, München, Wien: Scherz Verlag. Mitterauer, M. (2009). Sozialgeschichte der Familie. Kulturvergleiche und Entwicklungsperspektiven. Wien: Braunmüller Verlag. Mitterauer, M. (2003). Warum Europa? Mittelalterliche Grundlagen eines Sonderweges. München: C. H. Beck Verlag. Mitterauer, M. & Sieder, R. (1991). Vom Patriarchat zur Partnerschaft. Zum Strukturwandel der Familie. München: C. H. Beck Verlag. Nordquist, M. & Zellweger, T. (Eds.) (2010). Transgenerational Entrepreneurship: Exploring growth and performance in family firms across generations. Cheltenham: Elgar. Oesterdickhoff, G. W. (2008): Familie, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft in Europa. In R. P. Sieferle (Ed.), Familiengeschichte. Die europäische, chinesische und islamische Familie im historischen Vergleich. (pp. 47–142) Berlin: Lit Verlag.

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Plumpe, W. (Ed.) (2014). Unternehmer – Fakten und Fiktionen. Historisch-biographische Studien. München: C. H. Beck Verlag. Rieg, T. & Rau, S. (2014). Uncovering the “Missing Variable”: The family in Family Business Research. In F. Kellermanns & F. Hoy (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Family Business, (pp. 432–458). New York: Routledge. Rosenbaum, H. (1982). Formen der Familie. Untersuchungen zum Zusammenhang von Familienverhältnissen, Sozialstruktur und sozialem Wandel in der deutschen Gesellschaft des 19. Jhd. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. Rüsen, T. A., Kleve, H., & von Schlippe, A. (2021). Managing Business Family Dynasties. Cham: Springer. Schröder, J. (2017). Relationship Conflicts in Business Families in India and Germany. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Sharma, P., Melin, L. & Nordquist, M. (2014). Introduction: Scope, Evolution and Future of Family Business Studies. In L. Melin, M. Nordquist & P. Sharma (Eds.) The SAGE Handbook of Family Business. Los Angeles: Sage. Sharma, P., Chrisman, J. J. & Gersick, K. E. (2012). 25 Years of Family Business Review. Reflection on the Past and Perspective for the Future. Family Business Review 25 (1), (pp. 5–15). Simon, F. B. (2013). Familienunternehmen als Risikofaktor – Die Doppelbindung des potentiellen Nachfolgers. In F. B. Simon (Ed.), Wenn rechts links ist und links rechts, (pp. 97–108). Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag. Simon, F. B. (2012). Einführung in die Theorie des Familienunternehmens. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag. Simon, F. B., Wimmer, R. & Groth, T. (2012). Mehrgenerationen-Familienunternehmen, 2. Aufl. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag. Simon, F. B. (2002). Die Familie des Familienunternehmens. Ein System zwischen Gefühl und Geschäft. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag. Simon, F. B. (1999). Organisationen und Familien als soziale Systeme unterschiedlichen Typs. Soziale Systeme (5), (pp. 181–200). Simon, F. B. (1988). Unterschiede, die einen Unterschied machen. Berlin: Springer. Sirmon, D. G. & Hitt, M. A. (2003). Managing resources. Linking unique resources, management and wealth creation in family firms. Entrepreneurship, Theory & Practice 27 (4), (pp. 339–358). Stamm, J. (2013). Unternehmerfamilien. Der Einfluss des Unternehmens auf Lebenslauf, Generationenbeziehungen und soziale Identität. Opladen: Verlag Budrich. Tyrell, H. (1983). Zwischen Interaktion und Organisation: Die Familien als Gruppe. In F. Neidhart (Ed.), Gruppensoziologie: Perspektiven und Materialien, Sonderheft der KZFSS, (pp. 362–390). von Schlippe, A., Groth, T. & Rüsen, T. A. (2017). Die beiden Seiten der Unternehmerfamilie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Wiechers, R. (2006). Familienmanagement zwischen Unternehmen und Familie. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag. Wimmer, R., Domayer, E., Oswald, M. & Vater, G. (2018). Familienunternehmen – Auslaufmodell oder Erfolgstyp? 3. erweiterte Auflage. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler Verlag.

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Wimmer, R. (2014). Wie familiär sind Familienunternehmen? In O. Germanis, C. Hermann (Eds.), Organisation und Intimität, (pp. 25–40). Heidelberg: Carl Auer Verlag. Wimmer, R. (2011). Die besondere Verantwortung von Gesellschaftern in Familienunternehmen. EQUA-Festschrift, Band 10, (pp. 25–33).

Rudolf Wimmer, Prof. Dr. jur., is Adjunct Professor for Leadership and Organization at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Enterprises of the Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke. He is also founder and partner of osb international AG. Fritz B. Simon, Adjunct Prof. Dr. med., is Adjunct Professor for Leadership and Organization at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke. Managing director of Simon, Weber and Friends GmbH.

Social Plurality and Family Identity: On the Evolution of the Business Family Using the Example of Succession in Family Businesses Gabriela Leiß

Business Families in Transition: An Introduction In sociology today, scholars and institutions are researching various family forms that are differentiating themselves from previous types in the second modern age with its tendencies towards individualization and life-world pluralization (Beck 1986, 1996).1 However, despite their much-cited relevance, business families as “families of their own kind” (Hildenbrand 2011) have so far received little attention in sociological studies. Even family business research, which is still comparatively young, intertwined rather hesitantly with key disciplines such as family sociology in its early days (Heck et al. 2008). Today, however, the field is increasingly opening up to interpretative research approaches (Fletcher et al. 2016) which allow a differentiated approach to the often implicit characteristics of family-run businesses

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The concept of family used here is distinguished from other forms of life by the following characteristics: the biological-social dual function (social reproduction and socialization), the differentiation between different generations and the specific relationship of cooperation and solidarity between family members (Nave-Herz 2006). Accordingly, family is constituted “by the shaping of the fundamentally lifelong relationships of parents and children in the generational network and – oriented to this – of the relationships between parents” (Lüscher 2003, p. 539). G. Leiß (✉) Plansee Group, Reutte, Austria e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_7

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(Nordquist et al. 2009). Since business families are also part of a comprehensive social transformation process, through which hitherto valid values, rules and structures are liquefied and permanently reconstructed, the question of how the transfer and thus the continuation of family-run businesses is shaped in the twentyfirst century is gaining in importance. On the basis of empirical findings,2 this article sheds light on the evolution of the business family using the example of what is probably the most sensitive factor in the life course of a family business: succession between the generation of the incumbent and the generation of the successor.3 One of the constituent structural features of business families is the complex interconnection of the three systems of family, business and ownership (Gersick et al. 1997; Simon 2005), whereby “each of these social entities – the family(ies), the group of owners and the business as an organization [. . .] has its own characteristic dynamic, which is, however, shaped by the others without these losing their own logic” (Wimmer et al. 2009a, p. 102). In everyday life, this peculiarity of structural coupling leads to the individual family member having to live up to different roles with sometimes contradictory attributions and expectations. This results in a number of communicative paradoxes typical of business families and conflicts, such as “Be a family member and an entrepreneur at the same time!” or “Be fair in both systems at the same time!” (von Schlippe et al. 2008, pp. 24 ff.), which cannot be resolved but remain in a manageable order of magnitude due to “the successful balance of communication processes in the system” (von Schlippe 2009, p. 43). The assumption that the metachanges in basic principles, processes and institutions postulated in the context of the theory of reflexive modernization (Beck and Bonß 2001) pose complex challenges for business families in particular seems obvious, since it is necessary to negotiate sustainable solutions at all three system levels in the field of tension between maintaining continuity on the one hand

2

The empirical data derive from a qualitative study of ten individual cases conducted as part of the author’s dissertation. The primary research objective was to derive patterns of intergenerational negotiation for taking over and continuing the family business in reflexive modernity from narrative family interviews with predecessors and successors. Data collection took place between January 2011 and September 2011. All business families are based in the province of Tyrol, Austria. 3 Business succession is understood here as a dynamic process “in the course of which the roles and tasks of the main actors, i.e. the predecessor and the successor, shift, overlap and develop further with the overriding aim of passing on the business to the next family generation not only in terms of ownership shares and property (material transfer) but also in terms of leadership and values (socio-cultural transmission)” (Leiß 2014, p. 63).

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and reorientation on the other. But don’t business families, precisely because of the historically grown interrelation of production and reproduction, have a particularly pronounced individual and institutional resilience for dealing with upheaval? Could they not therefore also be seen as pioneers of an avant-garde model of self-direction and self-organization beyond social norms and imperatives? A look at the statistics shows a different picture: the survivability of family-run businesses declines from one generation change to the next, resulting in an average life expectancy of around 24 years (Haubl and Daser 2006). Even if some of the closures can be transformed into “healthy structural change” (Mandl et al. 2008, p. 78), the family seems to be of crucial importance for coping with crises and transitions and thus for the survival of the business (Wimmer et al. 2009b). Moreover, a clear trend towards succession outside the family is emerging (Schlömer and Kay 2008). Due to a normative expectation of individualization (Stamm et al. 2010), potential successors are increasingly opting for different life plans than their parents, and for many smaller companies no successor can therefore be found despite intensive efforts on the part of the transferor. The factors of success or failure of family-internal succession essentially include the motivation of the transferor to hand over the business, the motivation of the successor to take over the business, the competence of the successor, the harmony within the business family, the initial economic situation of the business and employee respect for the successor (de Massis et al. 2008; Spelsberg 2011). Against the background of the previous explanations, the central design principle for succession in business families unfolds, and this is equally characteristic of reflexive modernity: an important factor here is negotiation, which is understood as “interactive-communicative processes of point-of-view-determined interpretation, of interest-driven strategic action and of acting with/against each other and coordinating with each other” (Breuer 2009, p. 57). For a deeper understanding of the evolution of business families, the how and what of this intergenerational doing succession and thus the everyday negotiation practices with which predecessors and successors continuously establish the identity of their family should therefore be examined more closely.

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Succession in Business Families: A Theoretical Framework Company Succession as a Generational Issue In view of the generational difference that is so decisive for the constitution of families,4 the quality of familial generational relationships becomes, as it were, the “crystallization point” (Lüscher 1993, p. 29) in the succession process, because generational relationships not only establish personal identities, social systems and solidarities, but they also come to the fore above all in special life situations (such as the transfer of a business) and provoke conflicts. Family generations have always moved in a field of tension of contradictory orientations, in which the compulsion for individualization (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1993) that emerged in reflexive modernity and the acknowledged pluralization of family and non-family forms of life (Peuckert 2008) continuously increase. At its core, family members are concerned with “creating something new out of what has gone before, resulting in both commonality and diversity between parents and children at the same time” (Lüscher 2012, p. 23). Between solidarity and detachment on the personal level and between preservation and innovation on the institutional level, the intergenerational shaping of relationships takes place in a space of polar contradictions that, at least at times, seem irresolvable and therefore require the participants to be prepared to deal with ambivalence. The model of generational ambivalence developed by Kurt Lüscher (2012, pp. 24–25) describes four basic types of relationship formation that serve as interpretative patterns for the case histories examined here. Type 1 – “Solidarity”: The intergenerational relationship is strengthened by a high degree of support in traditional lifeworlds. Ambivalent topics are suppressed. Type 2 – “Emancipation”: The actors are open to innovation and act in emotional connection. This succeeds above all through the joint reflection of ambivalence. Type 3 – “Atomization”: The intergenerational relationship is characterized by distance and little cooperation. Generational differences and ambivalences are taboo. 4 In the family, “generations correspond to social roles that circumscribe the relationship between parents and children and structure it across the phases of life” (Lüscher 1993, p. 22). A specific generational identity arises from the fact that family members adopt a perspective that is relevant to their age and social context in terms of time and space, and which can at the same time be distinguished from at least one other generation (Lüscher and Liegle 2003, pp. 59–60).

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Personal dimension

Social context

Individual level

Individual level Interpersonal level

Transferor

Time dimension

-

Succession

Resources Institutional dimension

Conflicts

-

Intergenerational transfer

as

Culture

- Values

Family

Process

-

Industry context

Industry context

Agreements

Successor

Conflicts

Company

Social context

Fig. 1 Analysis dimensions for business succession. (Leiß 2014, p. 52)

Type 4 – “Captivation”: Here the generations are entangled in changing complementary relationships and traditional concepts of life. Ambivalences are not discussed despite high suffering pressure.

Analysis Dimensions of Business Succession Studies on the transfer of businesses usually examine the success factors of a positive succession and, to this end, highlight one or more of the dimensions shown in Fig. 1, which are used as analysis heuristics in the reconstructive-casecomparative evaluation of the qualitative data on the succession negotiation (Leiß 2014, pp. 52 ff.). With regard to the personal dimension, the focus is on biographical aspects, including individual characteristics and motivations, as well as the intergenerational relationship between the transferee and the transferor and the resulting ambivalences and communication patterns. On the one hand, the identity of the transferor and his/her willingness to leave the field for the next generation seem to

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be of great importance. On the other hand, the question of how the successor’s identity and suitability can be developed and established also plays a key role. At the interpersonal level, the main focus is on whether and how the generations shape the process of mutual role adjustment, what conflicts arise in the process and how they manage them. The institutional dimension examines interactions between family, business and ownership and focuses in particular on family businessspecific resources and capabilities as well as on values and culture and their influence on business performance. The third dimension deals with the temporal course, i.e. the individual phases in the succession process, and whether and how the respective priority issues and challenges are addressed and taken into account in terms of planning. What is also interesting here is how different phases in the life cycle – both individual and institutional – are coordinated with each other. The context dimension encompasses social framework as well as industry- and marketspecific framework conditions and their influence on the succession process. In addition to macro-sociological developments, this also includes culture-specific phenomena and social norms.

Succession Negotiation in Business Families: A Theoretical Construct with Cases In the circular interweaving of theory and empirical data, the case histories reconstructed from the data material could be condensed into a grounded theory (Strauss and Corbin 1996) of intergenerational succession negotiation with four types, which are summarized in Fig. 2 (Leiß 2014). Even though the typologization presented here is conclusive due to the inductively determined characteristics, the business families within a type are highly diverse in their case-specific components, which is also due to the maximum variation of the sample.5 In the following paragraphs, each type is briefly outlined on the basis of the analytical dimensions described and enriched by a case example.

5

The realized sample includes family businesses from the service, construction, energy, trade, tourism, production and craft sectors, and transfers from the founder to the second generation as well as multi-generational transfers. Three cases cover different gender constellations (father–daughter, mother–son, father–daughter–son). In most cases, the transfer had already taken place more than five years before the time of data collection.

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Intergeneraonal negoaon paerns in the succession process of entrepreneurial families

Connecvity Intergenerational relationship (personal level)

Authoritarian security

Co-evolutionary development

Protectively preserved

Interdependent mature

Atomized pin

Separately optimize

Preservaon Company / family

Change

(institutional level)

Paradox Entanglement

Independent Renewal

Autonomy Fig. 2 Construct of intergenerational succession negotiation. (Leiß 2014, p. 118)

Negotiation Pattern “Authoritarian Security”: Protective Preservation Characteristic of the pattern of authoritarian security is the cross-generational preservation of handed-down structures in the family and business with simultaneously close emotional ties between predecessor and successor. The patriarchal incumbent controls the entire transfer process according to the principles of

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primogeniture and right of inheritance6 without further negotiation and coordination with other family members. Looking at the temporal dimension, it is noticeable that the course for succession is set early here: the transferees develop a close relationship with the parental business as children, are involved as young people via basic tasks and projects and are thereby tested for their suitability. They complete a relevant training course, followed by a period of apprenticeship and travelling, during which they not only develop their practical experience but also their readiness to succeed. Like an enthronement, the predecessor officially announces the designated successor at a family gathering, setting the date for his own abdication. Accordingly, this transition is also implemented in formal legal terms. Thereafter, the senior person remains in the company, but only in the role of advisor and silent observer. At the personal level, identity concepts dominated by tradition, order and security are found; the intergenerational relationship is predominantly complementary and characterized by loyalty and solidarity, requiring little real negotiation. At the institutional level, the principle of “business before family” applies, which means that the specific interests of individual family members are considered secondary. The transferor decides on the distribution of the material inheritance, whereby the viability of the business is in any case more important than absolute fairness among the children. Regular investments in buildings and infrastructure are a matter of course.

Contractor Masonry: “Issuing orders” Max Sr. was born in 1941; his son, Max Jr., as the eldest of four children, in 1969. After graduating from a technical college of structural engineering, studying civil engineering and working for four years as a site manager for an external company, Max Jr. joined his parents’ company, which his father founded in 1975, as an authorized signatory at the age of 30. The handover took place in 2002 after three years of cohabitation. The reconstruction of the succession plan reveals as a central motif the transmission of male hegemony (Meuser 2001, pp. 13 ff.), which is carried out purposefully and silently under the clear leadership of Max Sr. The succession

6

Primogeniture gives priority to male successors, i.e. eldest son before eldest daughter, any adult son before eldest daughter, distant male relative(s) before eldest daughter, son-in-law before daughter or external male manager before eldest daughter (Haubl and Daser 2006). According to the law of inheritance, which is widespread in agriculture, the entire farm goes to a single heir to keep it united. Siblings are usually given compensation with the compulsory share.

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took place through a homosocial bond between father and son, with Max Sr. ensuring short decision-making paths and clear power relations. Neither wife nor siblings were involved in the selection of the successor, and the communication of the decision took place in the memory of the transferee “as if orders were issued” and “without argument”. For Max Sr. this strategy had definite advantages, for in this way he not only safeguarded his masculine self-image and the patriarchal family structure, but also created a monument to himself and his life’s work that would last beyond his own death. After the handover, Max Sr. remained with the company as an advisor on call, but clearly placed the management of the company in the hands of his son. In reconstruction, this form of transfer represents a long process for Max Jr., who was aware that the next succession would be different due to changing social values and norms.

Negotiation Pattern “Ambivalent Entanglement”: Being Trapped and Atomized In the pattern of Ambivalent Entanglement, the main actors are frozen in an indecisive oscillation between preservation and change on the one hand, and between connectedness and autonomy on the other. As for the temporal dimension, since the predecessors have held their role as ruling monarchs for decades, a gradual role change is almost impossible, and important milestones cannot be achieved. Conversely, the potential successors take a critical view of their parents’ life model and oscillate between succession and non-succession. The appropriate professional training of the transferees is followed by a seemingly endless phase of conflictual cohabitation without concrete planning for the status change and the formal legal transfer of the company. Serious illness, old age or separation seem to be the only viable way out of an intensifying conflict escalation in the case histories reconstructed here. On the relationship level, which is characterized by a high degree of intergenerational difference, the transferor repeatedly sends ambiguous messages such as: “Don’t do this to yourself, but make something of our customer base!” Although all those involved intensely experience the contradictory expectations and ideas, they are unable to enter into negotiation about them. Only through mediation or structural constellations do they learn to understand the subjective reality of the other family members. It is striking that the intrapersonal and interpersonal blockages also lead to a deadlock at the institutional level, which delays continuous adaptation to changing conditions: in the company, there is a lack of strategic, structural and cultural innovation, and in the family, new spouses and partners are integrated only hesitantly.

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Kornberger Bakery: “This Is a Different Universe” Karl Kornberger was 88 years old at the time of the interview; his son Klaus, second of three children, was 46. Klaus completed a baker’s apprenticeship in his parents’ business, which was founded by his grandfather, and then went to Germany for many years, where he also married and had three children. The first attempt to hand over the business failed due to an appointment with the tax advisor, after which Klaus went abroad again for seven years. In 2001, at the request of his father, he returned home with his family and took over the bakery after a general structural renovation. During the succession process, coping with transgenerational war trauma emerged as a central pattern of negotiation, expressed during the process of succession as the “unbridgeability of worlds” (Alberti 2013, p. 101). Karl’s coping strategy consisted of psychological repression and the fencing-off of any emotion, while Klaus strived for pacification and reconciliation through a language of feeling and understanding. The inability of both of Klaus’s parents to engage with their feelings resulted in a psychological closure towards the son, which the latter experienced as significant emotional damage and mortification, especially at a young age, which he tried to overcome through constellation work and kinship conversations. There is much to suggest that the emotional numbness of the war generation helps to ward off hidden feelings of guilt and fear. In Klaus’s case, however, the lack of empathy led to a years-long struggle for recognition and selfworth. In the interview, he painted a picture of an odyssey with a tragic outcome and of himself as a victim punished by fate. Considering that the destructive attachment patterns prevail in his family, it becomes understandable why Klaus repeatedly fled from home. Karl stood alone in the bakery every day until the age of 77. Only when he became too weak to continue, was he ready for the handover and asked his son to come back, who answered the call. Karl found a new field of employment in the garden, but his wife found it difficult to separate herself from the Klaus family and continued to interfere in personal matters. The cohabitation between old and young was correspondingly conflictual. While the takeover of the bakery brought about a kind of rapprochement in Karl’s family of origin, Klaus’s young family fell apart as a result: his wife moved back to Germany with their three children and refused to discuss anything. Klaus had no contact with his children for many years, which he found particularly painful. Remarkably, Klaus developed the bakery into a sustainable small business with seven employees through a very clear entrepreneurial vision of autonomy and regionalism.

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Negotiation Pattern “Independent Renewal”: Optimize Separately The negotiation type Independent Renewal is primarily characterized by generational differences, which lead to an abrupt break-off of the conflictual cohabitation between predecessor and successor. In this case, the decision-making responsibility passes entirely to the transferee, while the transferor looks for a new field of entrepreneurial activity. Regarding the temporal dimension, the case histories examined here are similar concerning the integration of the successor into the business. The intergenerational differences with regard to the management of the company and its employees are too great for a gradual and consensual handover; a reconciliation of the different perspectives and convictions seems impossible. The self-selected exit of the predecessor enables a quick and comparatively frictionless settlement of the unresolved conflicts. The successor no longer has access to the transferor, at least in operational matters, and by jumping in at the deep end becomes independent comparatively quickly. On the personal level, it is primarily a question of maximum autonomy of action for parents and children, which means that for the predecessors, a non-family transfer by leasing or sale is also an option. It is important that the heirs decide on the succession of their own free will and can make their choice of profession according to their own wishes and interests. The handover takes place under the premise of material transparency and fairness, so that not only the management but also the ownership passes to the successors. The institutional dimension here is characterized above all by a clear demarcation between the company and the family. For example, the spouses of predecessors and successors are not themselves active in the company. In line with the pronounced desire for autonomy, financial independence and the economic viability of the business are important values. With regard to the transfer of knowledge, the radical withdrawal of the founder seems to be quite risky, because his implicit know-how cannot always be brought in by external experts. This may be one of the reasons why the successors quickly introduce structural and cultural changes with the involvement of experienced employees.

Stecher Technical Company: “That’s Where You Died!” The incumbent Stanis Stecher was 59 years old at the time of the interview; his son Stefan 39. The Stecher couple was an unconventional family with two sons each from previous marriages and a son together. After graduating from a technical

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college of mechanical engineering, Stefan took on his first projects in the company that his father had founded in 1974. He discontinued his studies in business administration because the work in the company fulfilled him more. During a planned two-year stay in the USA, he accepted his father’s offer to take over the company. On his return, his father transferred 40% of the shares in the company to him, and the period of integration began. Due to increasing conflicts, Stanis decided to leave the company at the age of 50 and paved the way for his son. A few years later, another son joined the business. The central negotiation pattern of this case study can be seen in the social death of the founder as a condition for intergenerational autonomization and institutional change. Stanis paid an unexpectedly high price for his exit, namely, heavy losses of social capital (Feldmann 1998). This included, among other things, his role as an entrepreneur, long-standing friendships with employees, relationships with business partners or even functions in business associations, with which his social identity was fed. When his honorary position in a recognized sports club also came to an end, his entire previous social network was practically wiped out. During this time, Stefan was heavily involved in the further development of the market- and technology-driven family company of which he saw himself as a servant. The gap between the generations widened and communication was kept to a minimum. It was striking that in the case reconstruction, Stefan regretted the lack of empathy towards his father. Both father and son assessed the handover process as in need of improvement and expressed the wish for a rapprochement.

Negotiation Pattern “Co-evolutionary Development”: Interdependent Maturation The fourth and final type of negotiation of co-evolutionary development is based on a change in connectedness, in which the actors give high priority to coordinated change at both the personal and institutional levels. Against this background, intergenerational negotiation here becomes the sine qua non for role reversal. On the temporal dimension, succession already begins with the birth of the next generation. Through the example of the parents, the foundation of a close emotional bond to the company is already laid in childhood and adolescence. Characteristically, there is a relatively long period of grinding in and out, during which the role change takes place in many individual steps. On the personal level, biographical decisions are negotiated and can also be adjusted depending on the framework conditions. Transferor and transferee have a close relationship and appreciate each other’s different competencies. Since cooperation and communication are of central

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importance, new formats and spaces are initiated, such as regular management meetings or retreats. Difference and ambivalence are not only perceived, but also consciously addressed. Wherever possible, decisions are made by intergenerational consensus. At the institutional level, there is a pronounced capacity for innovation, which is primarily due to the respective industry context. The family, which is seen here as the company-stabilizing element, is characterized by the fact that new family members are integrated and taken into account in the negotiations. Spouses appear as equal partners who contribute significantly to the development and expansion of the business. Personnel and organizational development becomes a central task, especially for the next generation.

Energy Company Solinger: “A Cooperative and Smooth Transition” Sepp Solinger is 56 years old; his son Sebastian is 31. Sepp founded an energy company together with his wife Silvia in 1980. Like his older brother Simon, Sebastian has been working in the company since leaving school – he graduated from a technical college and later completed a part-time business degree. Since 2004, both brothers have also been managing directors. In addition to the members of the core family, Sebastian’s partner is also part of the management team. The cohabitation, which had already existed for more than ten years at the time of the interview, is indefinite, and an exact handover date has not yet been fixed. In the case analysis, the “relay race metaphor” emerges as a central negotiation motif. Sepp and Sebastian are in the so-called changeover space, in which the handover of the baton – in this case of leadership and ownership – is imminent. They make entrepreneurial decisions in close cooperation, in which the father is still granted a certain supremacy due to his seniority. Sebastian regrets not having had any professional experience outside the company. However, his expertise in the field of personnel and organizational development enables him to establish his own playing field in his parents’ company. For Sepp in particular, the primary goal is to make the generational transition smooth and harmonious. As he sees himself as an enthusiastic entrepreneur, he would like to be involved in the company for as long as possible. The constant striving for equality and consensus runs like a thread through the entire case reconstruction. The family is seen here by both generations as a cohesive unit in an extremely volatile entrepreneurial environment. They cite togetherness, solidarity and flexibility as central values. It is striking that the financial aspect of the handover, especially on the part of the transferor, has an extremely negative connotation and is thus not discussed further. The question of

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how and when the transferor will withdraw from the changeover area so that the succession can also be realized in formal legal terms is still open in 2011.7

Business Families in Reflexive Modernity: Conclusions The case histories, condensed into four types of intergenerational succession action, can be seen as an indication that the fundamental change heralded by reflexive modernity, with its simultaneity of the traditional and the new (Bonß and Lau 2004), is part of the “everyday business” for business families at all levels. Against the background of structural complexity on the one hand, and intergenerational ambivalence on the other, alternative varieties of work and life more or less automatically survive or emerge here in addition to the basic principle of individuality that was decisive in the first modernity, as well as to the corresponding basic institutions of the bourgeois nuclear family or gainful employment as a normal working relationship. Since the company assumes the role of a family member in its own right, whose continued existence is inextricably linked to the life biographies of the other members (Stamm 2013), it is necessary to continually weigh individual perspectives against entrepreneurial necessities. Thus, in the case studies, we find both collectivist as well as individualistic relationship concepts, both multigenerational families as well as small family structures. Particularly with regard to the temporal dimension of business succession, oscillating between contradictory poles is of special importance, because on the one hand the transfer of the socio-cultural heritage over several years requires a mature form of individualization with alternating phases of intergenerational connectedness and autonomy, but on the other hand a contextualized balancing of preservation and renewal is also imperative for the continuation of family and business. For a conscious handling of paradoxes and the resulting conflicts, those involved need above all reflexive competence. The following conclusion can be drawn from the case studies outlined in this paper: the survivability of family businesses in the second modern age is likely to 7

Through regular professional contacts with the Solinger family, the further course of the handover process can be supplemented at this point: due to cuts in state subsidies for renewable energies, the company has been in serious crisis over the last few years, which led to Sebastian giving his father the choice of either taking over sole management or leaving the company. Sepp then transferred 100% of the decision-making authority to Sebastian, who was able to bring about a significant turnaround in the very first year through a radical strategic repositioning.

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depend significantly on the extent to which the business family succeeds in negotiating multidimensional succession issues between generations and reflecting on their effects in the relevant (relational) environments. Against this background, the negotiation pattern of co-evolutionary development will be postulated as a basic principle, without which a transformation of basic institutions of the first modernity such as the nuclear family and traditional gainful employment will hardly be possible. The result could be business families that consciously make use of the plurality of familial and entrepreneurial structures in order to develop innovative approaches to solutions for their continued existence.

References Alberti, B. (2013). Seelische Trümmer. Geboren in den 50-er und 60-er Jahren: Die Nachkriegsgeneration im Schatten des Kriegstraumas, (5. edition). München: Kösel. Beck, U. (1986). Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. Beck, U. (1996). Das Zeitalter der Nebenfolgen und die Politisierung der Moderne. In U. Beck, A. Giddens & S. Lash, Reflexive Modernisierung. Eine Kontroverse (pp. 19–112). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. Beck, U. & Bonß, W. (2001). Theorie reflexiver Modernisierung – Fragestellungen, Hypothesen, Forschungsprogramme. In U. Beck & W. Bonß (Eds.), Die Modernisierung der Moderne (1. edition, pp. 11–59). Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. Beck, U. & Beck-Gernsheim, E. (1993). Nicht Autonomie, sondern Bastelbiographie. Anmerkungen zur Individualisierungsdiskussion am Beispiel des Aufsatzes von Günter Burkart. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, (pp. 178–187). Bonß, W. & Lau, C. (2004). Reflexive Modernisierung – Theorie und Forschungsprogramm. In A. Poferl & N, Sznaider (Eds.), Ulrich Becks kosmopolitisches Projekt (pp. 35–53). Baden-Baden: Nomos. Breuer, F. (2009). Vorgänger und Nachfolger. Weitergabe in institutionellen und persönlichen Bezügen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Feldmann, K. (1998). Physisches und soziales Sterben. In U. Becker, K. Feldmann & F. Johannsen (Eds.), Sterben und Tod in Europa (pp. 94–107). Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag. Fletcher, D., De Massis, A. & Nordqvist, M. (2016). Qualitative Research Practices and Family Business Scholarship: A Review and Future Research Agenda. Journal of Family Business Strategy, 7 (1), (pp. 8–25). Gersick, K. E., Davis, J. A., McCollom Hampton M. & Lansberg, I. (1997). Generation to Generation. Life Cycles of the Family Business. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business School Press. Haubl, R. & Daser, B. (2006). Familiendynamik in Familienunternehmen: Warum sollten Töchter nicht erste Wahl sein? Abschlussbericht des ersten Projektabschnitts. Frankfurt a. M.: Siegmund Freud-Institut.

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Heck, R. K. Z., Hoy, F., Poutziouris, P. & Steier, L. P. (2008). Emerging Paths of Family Entrepreneurship Research. Journal of Small Business Management 46 (3), (pp. 317–330). Hildenbrand, B. (2011). Familienbetriebe als „Familien eigener Art“. In F. B. Simon (Ed.), Die Familie des Familienunternehmens. Ein System zwischen Gefühl und Geschäft, 3. edition, (pp. 115–144). Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag. Leiß, G. (2014). „Ich seh das Ganze als Staffellauf“. Intergenerative Aushandlung im Nachfolgeprozess von Unternehmerfamilien. Heidelberg: Carl-Auer-Systeme. Lüscher, K. (1993). Generationenbeziehungen. Neue Zugänge zu einem alten Thema. In K. Lüscher & F. Schultheis (Eds.), Generationenbeziehungen in „postmodernen“ Gesellschaften. Analysen zum Verhältnis von Individuum, Familie, Staat und Gesellschaft, (pp. 17–47). Konstanz: Univ.-Verlag. Lüscher, K. (2003). Familie pragmatisch definieren. Erwägen – Wissen – Ethik 14 (3), (pp. 539–543). Lüscher, K. (2012). Menschen als „homines ambivalentes“. In D. Korczak (Ed.), Ambivalenzerfahrungen, (pp. 11–32). Kröning: Asanger. Lüscher, K. & Liegle, L. (2003). Generationenbeziehungen in Familie und Gesellschaft. Konstanz: UVK Verlag-Ges. Mandl, I., Dörflinger, C. & Gavac, K. (2008). Unternehmensübergaben und -nachfolgen in Kleinen und Mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) der gewerblichen Wirtschaft Österreichs. Endbericht. Wien: KMU Forschung Austria. Massis, A. de, Chua, J. H. & Chrisman, J. J. (2008). Factors Preventing Intra-Family Succession. Family Business Review 21 (2), (pp. 183–199). Meuser, M. (2001). Männerwelten. Zur kollektiven Konstruktion hegemonialer Männlichkeit. In D. Janshen & M. Meuser (Eds.), Schriften des Essener Kollegs für Geschlechterforschung Heft II, digitale Publikation, (pp. 4–32). Nave-Herz, R. (2006). Ehe- und Familiensoziologie. Eine Einführung in Geschichte, theoretische Ansätze und empirische Befunde (2. edition). Weinheim: Juventa Verlag. Nordquist, M., Hall, A. & Melin, L. (2009). Qualitative Research on Family Businesses: The Relevance and Usefulness of the Interpretive Approach. Journal of Management and Organization 15 (3), (pp. 294–308). Peuckert, R. (2008). Familienformen im sozialen Wandel (7. edition). Wiesbaden: VS, Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. von Schlippe, A., Nischak, A. & El Hachimi, M. (2008). Familienunternehmen verstehen. In A. von Schlippe, A. Nischak & M. El Hachimi (Eds.), Familienunternehmen verstehen. Gründer, Gesellschafter und Generationen, (pp. 19–29). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. von Schlippe, A. (2009). Psychologie der familieninternen Nachfolge in Familienunternehmen. In R. Kirchdörfer, R. Lorz, A. Wiedemann, R. Kögel & T. Frohnmayer (Eds.), Familienunternehmen in Recht, Wirtschaft, Politik und Gesellschaft. Festschrift für Brun-Hagen Hennerkes zum 70. Geburtstag (pp. 39–55). München: Beck. Schlömer, N. & Kay, R. (2008). Familienexterne Nachfolge – Das Zusammenfinden von Übergebern und Übernehmern. Institut für Mittelstandsforschung Bonn (Ed.), IfMMaterialien, Nr. 182, Bonn.

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Simon, F. B. (2005). Einleitung. Zwischen Gefühl und Geschäft –Familien und ihre Unternehmen. In F. B. Simon (Ed.), Die Familie des Familienunternehmens. Ein System zwischen Gefühl und Geschäft, 2. edition, (pp. 7–16). Heidelberg: Carl-Auer Verlag. Spelsberg, H. (2011). Die Erfolgsfaktoren familieninterner Unternehmensnachfolgen. Eine empirische Untersuchung anhand deutscher Familienunternehmen. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag. Stamm, I. (2013). Unternehmerfamilien. Über den Einfluss des Unternehmens auf Lebenslauf, Generationenbeziehungen und soziale Identität. Leverkusen: Budrich. Stamm, I., Schmiade, N. & Kohli, M. (2010). Familienunternehmer als Pioniere biografischer Selbstbestimmung. In H.-G. Soeffner (Ed.), Unsichere Zeiten: Herausforderungen gesellschaftlicher Transformationen. Verhandlungen des 34. Kongresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Jena 2008 (pp. 1–12). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Strauss, A. L. & Corbin, J. M. (1996). Grounded Theory. Grundlagen qualitativer Sozialforschung. Weinheim: Beltz, PsychologieVerlags Union. Wimmer, R., Groth, T. & Simon, F. B. (2009a). Erfolgsmuster von MehrgenerationenFamilienunternehmen. In A. von Schlippe (Ed.), Beiträge zur Theorie des Familienunternehmens (pp. 95–171). Lohmar: Eul Verlag. Wimmer, R., Kolbeck, C., Rüsen, T. & Bauer, T. (2009b). Familienunternehmen und die aktuelle Wirtschaftskrise. Eine empirische Bestandsaufnahme. Stiftung Familienunternehmen (Ed.). München.

Gabriela Leiß Dr. phil., MBA, is social scientist, university lecturer, consultant & coach, Plansee Group.

The Business Family as a Family of Its Own Kind in the Process of Social Change: Challenges and Opportunities Using the Example of Female Succession Daniela Jäkel-Wurzer

Introduction According to the definition given by the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU), a business family is a definable group of people who are related to each other (in relation to a specific original couple) and whose development is shaped by a company owned by one, several or all family members. Living together in one residence is not a condition, but direct descent from the original couple (the founding couple) certainly is. The organization of the ownership can vary. However, the fundamental factor is always a recognizable will to pass ownership on to the next generation (von Schlippe et al. 2017). The family is thus the core of a form of enterprise that is predominant in Germany and many other countries and which is often maintained and developed over generations (Wiechers 2006).1 The basis of this special connection are traditions, role patterns and rituals that have grown over generations – some of them family-specific, some of them overarching.

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According to the Stiftung Familienunternehmen (Family Business Foundation), just under 90% of German businesses are controlled by (business) families. The exact figure depends on the definition used (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2014).

D. Jäkel-Wurzer (✉) DJW Coaching & Consulting, Nuremberg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_8

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In view of current social changes and their effects on the family and the individual, the question inevitably arises as to what influence these developments have on the business family. Is there a kind of immunity by which it distinguishes itself in a special way from social developments? After all, concepts such as the decline in the birth rate, the institution of marriage in crisis, non-marital cohabitation, the pluralization of life forms, individualization, equality in the couple relationship and the de-differentiation of father and mother roles seem like countermodels to the more traditionally oriented structures previously attributed to the business family. If immunity in the sense of demarcation does not exist, how then do business families meet these challenges? Can these changes, which after all directly affect the core of the research subject, be taken up as an important opportunity for development and structural change? What new structural models of the interaction between family and business will exist in the future? A central object of structural change is the participation of women as owners of or in positions in the company itself. Therefore, using the example of female succession or the female role in the business family as one of the aspects most marked by change, the limits and opportunities of this structural change will be considered below.

The Concept of Family in a Changing Society Before we turn to the new role of women, we will first take a closer look at the concept of the modern nuclear family. These preliminary considerations serve in particular for the following comparison with the concept of a family of its own kind, which describes the special features of the business family (Hildenbrand 2011; in more detail Jäkel-Wurzer 2010, pp. 45 ff.). In the Introduction, the family was already described as an entity that gives the family business its shape, both conceptually and in terms of the specific system logic. The family of the modern age is confronted with social developments through which structural differences between family and society become particularly relevant. The effects of pluralization as well as de-institutionalization also repeatedly stoke the academic debate about the constitutive characteristics of family. Thus, social changes in modernity are also (and precisely) reflected in the practice of family forms of life. Whereas in the 1950s and 1960s the normal bourgeois family was still dominant in society (Parsons 2005), today we find an increasing diversity of family types. This structural crisis, which particularly affects marriage, is captured in the term de-institutionalization (Siebel 1984, p. 29). This is accompanied by

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a dismantling of social control, which has hitherto ensured the sanctioning of deviations from the norm. In its place is an increasing indifference to individually designed forms of life: as marriage, children, love and sexuality have become accessible and combinable as individual elements on their own, binding contexts of reference lose relevance for the individual (Tyrell 1990). This structural change is also reflected within family sociological theories. Thus, the structural significance of the triad in the socialization process is increasingly questioned (Funcke 2009, pp. 169–170). However, studies from the field of structural socialization research show “that there is no reason to abandon the structural theoretical approach and [. . .] to regard parenthood and partnership as decoupled from each other, as different subsystems” (Funcke 2009, p. 170; see also Funcke 2007; Gehres and Hildenbrand 2008). Approaches that do not fit into the triadic structure are often subject to a blind spot in that they dispense with empirical material in the form of analyses of socializational interaction. The result is the confusion of structural model and empirical manifestation, as a consequence of which they allow themselves to be influenced by the general crisis interpretation of the subject matter (Tyrell 1983; Gehres and Hildenbrand 2008). Concepts of sociological socialization research as well as psychoanalytic and developmental psychological studies provide further sustained evidence for the triadic structure of primary socializing interaction (Fivaz-Depeursinge and Corboz-Warnery 2001; Peisker 1991; Happel 1996; Benjamin 1996). The project of providing empirical evidence of family change requires a clear distinction between structural and factual levels (Gehres and Hildenbrand 2008). Even if step-parent and single-parent situations do occur, the nuclear family cannot be structurally replaced as a system of social interaction.

The Family as a System of Social Interaction On the basis of these preliminary considerations, the concept of the triad as a system of social interaction will be used to create a comparative framework for the consideration of the family of its own kind. On the basis of this, essential differences can be made visible. In the internal space of the family, both the self-reproduction of society and the individuation of the subjects are realized through socializing interaction processes (Allert 1998). The structural specificity of the socializational interaction system is conceived primarily from the distinction between the parentchild relationship and the spousal relationship. While the former can be characterized as asymmetrical, the spouse relationship takes place between two

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autonomous subjects (Gehres and Hildenbrand 2008). The triad as a socializational interaction system is essentially characterized by the following features (JäkelWurzer 2010): • Unlimitedness in the duration of their relationships: The togetherness of the members is characterized by the “solidarity of the common life course” (Gehres and Hildenbrand 2008, p. 22). However, the family is a “self-dissolving group” (Parsons 2005, p. 78) in that children detach themselves when they reach a certain level of maturity, form a procreative family and are thus no longer members of their family of origin to the full extent. • Non-substitutability of personnel: Due to the close linkage of biological and social functions, there is no possibility of termination, at least vertically through generational lines (membership alternative). At the couple level, the foundation of a relationship categorically excludes the idea of a temporal limit. “The family, then, is a group that is quite peculiarly sensitive to the selectivity of its personnel composition” (Tyrell 1983, p. 41). • Affective solidarity: The relationships between the members of the triad “are based on extremely resilient, reciprocal affective ties” (Oevermann 1979, p. 162) and imply a high degree of diffuse affectivity. • Unconditional solidarity: The relationships between family members are based on the formation of trust “on the basis of unconditionality through practical accomplishment” (Oevermann 2001, p. 86). • Erotic solidarity: The sexual relationship between the spouses is given an “institutionalized place” (Parsons 2005, p. 78) within the family. Generational barrier and incest taboo further regulate the exclusion of the child from this relationship. While in the parent-child relationship “the bodily basis of the relationship may not be erotic in form” (Gehres and Hildenbrand 2008, p. 22), the realization of an erotic relationship is a fundamental condition for the parent couple. “Accordingly, there are at least three dyadic social relationships in the nuclear family in which the relationship partners have an undivided claim on each other” (Gehres and Hildenbrand 2008, p. 22). From this “claim to exclusivity” (Oevermann 2001, p. 89), which the individual members exercise, and the subsequent exclusion of the third party, contradictions inevitably arise. The fundamental impulses of detachment and development of autonomy are founded here in the exclusion of the child from the dyad of the spousal relationship. The incest taboo acts as a kind of structural insurance that there will be a time when the offspring will leave the family in order to realize

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independent erotic relationships (outside the family of origin). The functional shape of the family as a primary instance of socialization is thus based on the contradictory dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. Oevermann (1979) also points out that social relations with the logic of non-substitutability of the personnel cannot be subordinated to the model of role action. Thus family relationships can be characterized as diffuse. Within them, members encounter each other as whole people. Excluding a subject automatically entails an explicit obligation to justify (Oevermann 2001).

The Family of Its Own Kind: Structural Features of a System “Family and business don’t actually go together!” (von Schlippe et al. 2017, p. 72). Under this heading, the Witten Institute for Family Business summarizes the different types of logic that the two systems follow and the various paradoxes that arise. While family relationships focus on diffuse relationships and the individual as a whole person, businesses are concerned with rational decision-making to ensure economic viability. Despite this important difference, in family businesses the two systems are inextricably linked. The business family is detached from its original family responsibilities and is confronted with entrepreneurial goals and tasks. In order to meet the responsibility for its business, it has to organize itself in a certain way by giving itself rules and tasks that are independent of people (von Schlippe et al. 2017). As a logical consequence, the business family necessarily differs in its structural shape from the model of the modern nuclear family. Here, the need for a conceptual delimitation arises first. For a more precise definition of the business family type, we will use the term “family of one’s own” in the following paragraphs.2 The first essential distinction from typical families arises from the fact that the business family cannot support the impulses for autonomy of its descendants without restriction. The preservation over generations requires a special form of attachment to the family of origin and, as it were, limits individuation processes of the young people. The second essential difference arises in view of the differentiation of diffuse social relations from role relations and their relevance for the

Hildenbrand uses the term to outline the thesis “that the family business is to be regarded as a unit in which, from the logic of the matter, structural features of the ‘whole house’ are necessarily paired in conflict with those of the differentiated nuclear family, and that this combination constitutes the autonomy of the family business” (Hildenbrand 2011, p. 118). 2

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formation of the central characteristics of the family (comprehensive solidarity). In the already-described combination of two antagonistic systems, this form of differentiation cannot be comprehensively implemented. Family members meet in the business, and business issues operate in the private sphere. In comparison with the characteristics of the family as a system of social interaction already described, specific features of the family of its own kind are elaborated below. The comparison is obvious in that it is the (historically differentiated) expectations of the modern nuclear family that make the deviations visible in the first place and to which the family of its own kind must constantly position itself (Jäkel-Wurzer 2010). These expectations are: • Non-substitutability of personnel vs. specific needs: While the members of a family are not interchangeable or replaceable, in organizations it is part of everyday practice to regroup or renew personnel according to performance and needs. In the family of its own kind, contradictions of inclusion and exclusion arise here. In particular, the family faces the challenge of reliably defining its boundaries (who belongs?) without excluding the necessary resources from the organization. The dynamics of inclusion and exclusion are thereby balanced again and again according to the situation. The membership of the individual (offspring) is thus, beyond the social and biological aspects, always also related to a function (role), which essentially co-determines the shape of family boundaries.3 • Self-dissolving group vs. attachment oriented to the corporate cycle: The solidarity between the members of a family is unlimited in its duration. Nevertheless, the family can be considered as a “self-dissolving group” (Parsons 2005, p. 78) whose structure supports the offspring in the process of individuation. This temporal limitation gives rise to a particular need for the family of its own kind to provide a constant supply of new familial personnel (transgenerational). Thus, for example, the practice of family-internal succession must necessarily have a restrictive effect on the development of autonomy. Due to the rule of

3

Bohler and Hildenbrand (1997), following previous publications by Hagedorn, point out that the family business is not subject to any separate regulatory mechanisms due to the mutual interpenetration of family and business, but can rather be regarded as part of an integrative system. Derived from this, reference is often made to transaction cost efficiency, which arises primarily from the use of solidary diffuse relationships for the farm. Conversely, however, this also means that the family is confronted with specific aspects outside of a protected private sphere, which result from the economic needs of the business. These shape the special form of the family of its own kind in the most diverse ways.

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non-substitutability, the number of available persons is clearly limited here. The unlimited duration of familial relationships in the family of one’s own kind takes on a special quality here. If continuity can be assured exclusively by family members, the family cannot fully permit the development of autonomy of the young people. It must overemphasize the binding force between generations in the sense of family coherence. If the family life cycle adapts to that of the company, the moment of detachment in the sense of self-dissolution can be delayed – and in extreme cases even blocked. • Affective solidarity vs. role logic: Family relationships can be characterized as diffuse. In contrast, actors in organizations interact in specific role relations. Members of the family’s own kind are related to both system logics via entanglement. In the encounter as role-bearers, claims grounded in affective solidarity are inevitably rejected. Conversely, family members disregard the boundaries of specific role relationships when interacting as whole people in the enterprise. Through the unreflected shifting of issues and action orientations to the respective other system, contradictions can be established at the (familial) relationship level, which can have a particular impact on the premise of the solidarity of affective ties. • Unconditional solidarity vs. underdetermined solidarity: Trust-building that is not conditional presupposes the primacy of internal orientation. Within the family of its own kind, the orientation towards the company as a third party leads to specific expectations among the members (delegations). Unconditional solidarity is thus opposed to the performance principle. The company becomes an additional reference of family recognition.

The Female Role and Its Development The female role in the business family, and in particular the opportunity for daughters to participate in the generational transition, has seen considerable development over the last 20 years (Jäkel-Wurzer and Otten-Pappas 2017). Scholars first addressed the issue of female offspring in the context of succession in the 1960s. Since then, a comparison between publications and studies devoted to the topic of female and male succession persistently shows a clear discrepancy (Haubl and Daser 2006; Ebbers 2006; Abraham 2006; Welter-Enderlin 2005; Isfan 2002; Keese 2002; Siefer 1996; Jäkel-Wurzer 2010; Otten-Pappas 2015). Just ten years ago, only one in ten family businesses was taken over and managed by a daughter. And this not infrequently against the background of a lack of male family members

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or a crisis scenario (Jäkel-Wurzer 2010; ifm institute Mannheim 2003). The framework of possibilities that daughters encounter with regard to an aspired takeover is conceived via a complex composition of family position, family expectations, identity ascriptions and the family system of norms and values aligned to it. In a milieu that has internalized male succession as the normal model, daughters were already disadvantaged here through the acquisition of relevant (socio-cultural) status elements. The inequality of the sexes is also reflected in the social view. Until 1958, the husband had the final decision-making right in all marital matters. A clear division of roles was practised in the family. While the man took over the economic and political management of the household, the home and education were the woman’s responsibilities (Lefaucher 1995, pp. 468–469). Until 1977, a woman could not engage in any professional activity without her husband’s permission. It was only in the same year that the legally prescribed division of tasks in marriage was at least formally abolished. However, these traditional role conventions continue to have an effect through the socialization of children. Within the family of its own kind, the classical division of tasks also had a special functional significance. In the founding and development phase of the company – and beyond – it ensured a certain order and an efficient distribution of the burden of tasks. The often unbounded commitment of the company manager to the business was only made possible at all by the fact that his wife supported him. This functional model alone excluded the majority of daughters from succession. For many transferors, it was simply inconceivable that starting a family – as a condition for continuity – could be reconciled with running the family business. The prevailing norm of the classical division of roles in society further supported this image. In the limitation of female succession, two further specific features of the family of its own kind became apparent. In the context of succession, the aspect of inheritance in the sense of the transfer of property is always included. Here, the principle of egalitarianism applies in modern families (Simon 2005). In the family of one’s own kind, the logic of equality becomes entangled with the organization’s underlying perception of distribution according to the principle of merit. In the context of this entanglement, existing expectations of equality are violated. “The inequality conditions of the company become [. . .] the object of a family’s expectation of equality. For them, the company is a place outside the family where their family members appear differently, and this observation takes place within the family” (Klett 2005, p. 133). The exclusion from relevant positions in the company and the resulting humiliation were felt by the daughters and resulted in a perceived (de)valuation of family relationships. The social self-image, derived from the family

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ideal, suggested equality to the daughters, but in fact could not take place in the family system of its own kind. Another specific feature emerged in view of the interaction between solidarity and the performance principle. Within the family of its own kind, the orientation towards the company as a third party led to specific expectations among the members. The enterprise became an additional reference of familial recognition. Given this dynamic, the exclusion or position of the daughters as substitutes for men had a direct impact on their own self-image. Whenever the experience of unconditional recognition of one’s identity is limited, self-worth and self-esteem are directly affected (Wagner 2004, p. 137). Social developments have also influenced the role of women in the family of its own kind in specific ways. The topic of generational transition in particular is becoming a stage for structural change and transformation. According to the most recent study “Female Succession: The Exception rather than the Rule”, more than 40% of successors are currently female (Jäkel-Wurzer and Otten-Pappas 2017). The consequences of this development are considered below.

Succession in the Context of Current Social Developments The fact that daughters today are given the opportunity to succeed is essentially due to an interplay of social developments that influence the structure of the family of its own kind, the decision-making patterns of succession and succession itself. Family businesses today face the problem of a lack of successors. Reliable patterns, such as that of primogeniture, are losing relevance and the role of women in work and family is changing significantly. Klein (2014) argues that the coupling of the family and work systems, as is specific to the family of its own kind, is the basis of the existence of the family business. It ensures the continuity of the family business. Individualization, as it appears in the current social trends, must consequently lead to the failure of the family-internal generation change. In practice, studies show that the takeover of family businesses by intra-family successors has declined significantly in recent years (Gottschalk et al. 2011; Hüwer et al. 2011; Dostmann and Vollmar 2014). This particularly affects sons. Well educated, they have a broad network and diverse career prospects in an international environment. Setting up a business or taking external career paths become alternatives for shaping one’s biography, against which the family-owned business must assert itself. If there are also challenges on

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the relationship level between the transferor and the transferee, sons increasingly choose the way out of the family business. This development is additionally supported by dissolving traditional patterns such as that of primogeniture (Jäkel-Wurzer and Otten-Pappas 2017). Intra-family delegations are less clearly placed or more clearly rejected by sons. The commitment to succession in the sense of ensuring continuity contrasts with societal trends such as individualization, globalization and diversity of options. Generation Y, with its changed understanding of values, is symbolic of this (Jäkel-Wurzer and OttenPappas 2017). Business families are reacting to this development by professionalizing their structures, among other things. “Family management”, “business family as a controlling body without operational management” and “shareholder competence” are just a few terms that describe the new culture in family businesses. This also opens up the system of affiliation, and a new understanding of shareholder roles and functions is defined. The interplay between the lack of successors and changing gender roles creates the unique area of opportunity that daughters currently encounter in family businesses. Women have comparably as good an education as men. The compatibility of family and career is becoming more of a focus for society as a whole. Thus, it is increasingly becoming a matter of course for transferors to decide on succession according to willingness and competence (Jäkel-Wurzer and Otten-Pappas 2017). Previously preferred criteria such as birth order and gender are receding into the background. The non-substitutability of personnel, as described as a challenge for the family of its own kind, experiences a clear relief here or gains leeway in the face of changed conditions. With daughters, the number of possible internal family candidates is at least potentially increased by half. At this point, female succession makes a decisive contribution to securing the future of the family business form of enterprise. The fact that daughters do not follow alternative career paths to the same extent as sons is due to the only partially advanced developments in professional equality in Germany. The situation of women in management positions is a significant issue throughout Germany. There is a comparatively slow development of career opportunities for women, especially for top management positions. Reasons for this include a number of gender-specific career restrictions.4 The term “Think Patterns such as the “glass ceiling” – an invisible barrier that prevents women from making the transition to the top management levels – and the “token approach”, which describes the overemphasis of female characteristics in women in top management positions triggered by their minority position, are examples of attempts to explain the existing imbalance. Wippermann (2010, p. 8) speaks of “bulwarks” against women.

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Manager – Think Male” is used to describe the phenomenon by which women are continuously excluded from the upper career levels, especially in larger companies (Dostmann and Vollmar 2014, p. 19). In family businesses, these barriers to female career development are not as pronounced. In particular, the entry of family members into top positions in the context of succession and the opportunities for leadership, influence and shape a large number of these gender-specific career restrictions. Thus, while succession sometimes limits the professional scope of sons, it offers daughters greater scope for professional development in view of the conditions described above. The familyowned company offers opportunities for women to exert influence that do not currently exist in other business enterprises. This provides a possible explanation for the continuously increasing number of female takeovers.

Opportunities and Challenges of the Change Process Using the Example of Female Succession Establishing female succession as the normal model or the self-image of deciding succession outside traditional patterns according to competence and willingness was highlighted as an opportunity for the family of its own kind. Family businesses thus increase the possibility of realizing a handover within the family. If daughters take over in the context of a long-standing tradition of male economic activity, they also initiate a break within the patterns and structures, so to speak. Female succession thus opens up a special scope for innovation and development. Changed corporate strategies and cultures can thus be implemented more easily. Since female successors are less expected to adopt patterns without being asked, due to the lack of gender comparability, changes are less likely to be blocked. Moreover, because daughters were not the first choice for succession until recently, they are less bound by familial obligations (Stierlin 1982). They have often gone through the individuation phase much more independently of obligations of loyalty and have made the decision to take over consciously and reflectively. This too has an effect on the extended scope for change. However, the takeover by daughters also brings its own kind of challenges for the family. The greatest task emerges in view of the dual role of motherhood and business management. The functional significance for the hitherto traditional model of task-sharing in marriage has already been described. This role logic cannot simply be reversed if women take over the top management of the company. Roles and tasks would have to be redistributed within the partnership. At this

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point, the capacity for change is still limited and presents the business family system with new challenges. A recent study by the Witten Institute for Family Business shows that traditional roles are retained to an above-average extent in the nuclear family (Jäkel-Wurzer and Otten-Pappas 2017). For example, when asked what percentage of family tasks (i.e. related to household and/or children) they take on, the female successors surveyed answered with 63% (on average). Male successors indicated their share of family tasks to be at 32%. Nave-Herz (2015) describes the only partial change of family roles in society as the core of the problem. Although there is a clear process of de-differentiation between the mother’s and father’s roles, the link between the role of being a father or a CEO remains predominantly intact. The mother’s role in the home has priority over occupation. The dilemma of the resulting double orientation is an integral part of women’s life plans. Even when women run family businesses, they are still primarily responsible for organizing family tasks in view of the existing role attributions. The dual task is also evident when looking at the distribution of weekly time between family and business (Jäkel-Wurzer and Otten-Pappas 2017). According to their own statements, female successors without children invest an average of 47 h per week in the family business, while male successors invest only slightly more at 51 h. If female successors have children, the time spent on family tasks more than doubles from an average of 9–22 h per week. The time invested in the business, on the other hand, remains almost the same at 45–47 h. This effect is reversed among the successors surveyed. Although the time spent on family tasks also increases (though by just 6 h per week) after becoming parents, the time invested in the company also increases, from 51–57 h per week. Accordingly, female successors are confronted with a clear role ambiguity. Family and social expectations are difficult to reconcile. On the other hand, the dual role in an environment of unchanging role patterns makes reconciliation more difficult. At the present time, it is the female successors themselves who pay the price. The high burden is also the weak point of the equality of opportunity that has been achieved. This can only be maintained and further developed if the existing understanding of roles within the family of one’s own kind changes in fact in the same way. This is all the more difficult because there is currently a clear ambiguity between the organizational needs of the family of one’s own kind and the demands of widespread norms and values of the social environment. In the latter, women may be at the helm, but men may not have equal responsibility or even primary responsibility for family tasks. A viable model of functional distribution within the family – even in the face of flexible role allocation – still needs to be found and

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tested in the future. This must also include the viewpoint of the socialization system as a triad.

Conclusion and Outlook It was shown earlier that processes of social change have a clear influence on the family of its own kind. This becomes particularly visible at the moment of generational transition. Female succession as a new development could be an answer both for equal opportunities for women in society and for the challenge of the emerging lack of successors. More and more successful female business leaders, given their visibility, will serve as role models for daughters, sons and fathers, thus further establishing the female succession movement. It has been shown that the family of one’s own kind has to face its own challenge to change patterns and structures also in the face of existing stereotypes and roles concerning couple relationships and motherhood. Conflicting expectations need to be resolved. The role of the partner needs to be looked at more closely here. How will his or her membership in the system be defined in the future? If traditional roles dissolve, how will the continuing inequality in the course of limited memberships be dealt with? Which new roles that are compatible with society can be conceived and actually fulfilled? With the takeover by daughters, a completely new field of research will likely be founded in a few years: the handover from mothers to children. So far, there has been a lack of case studies of this kind, therefore it is difficult to make reliable statements. If female successors become transferors in the foreseeable future, hypotheses can be substantiated and new insights gained. These results will complement and enrich the overall picture of succession research. The following is clearly evident: the variable gender as well as the patterns associated with it are losing importance as influencing factors in the context of succession. Successors encounter roles, stereotypes and structures that are shaped by society and reproduced through expectations. They do not practise succession differently according to gender and are increasingly rarely determined and placed according to gender. Differences are perceptible when male and female successors position themselves in different ways to the existing structures they encounter (Jäkel-Wurzer and Otten-Pappas 2017). For the family of one’s own kind, these changes mean both opportunities and challenges. In any case, however, a new, expanded scope in which succession and change make the future possible in family businesses and business families is emerging.

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Tyrell, H. (1990). Ehe und Familie – Institutionalisierung und Deinstitutionalisierung. In K. Lüscher (Ed.). Die „postmoderne“ Familie. Familiale Strategien und Familienpolitik in einer Übergangszeit. 2. edition., (pp. 145–156). Konstanz: Univ.-Verl. Wagner, G. (2004). Anerkennung und Individualisierung. Konstanz: UVK- Verl.-Ges. Welter-Enderlin, R. (2005). Was steht auf Ihrer Bürotür, Frau Faust. Frauen in Geschäftsfamilien. In F. B. Simon (Ed.), Die Familie des Familienunternehmens. Ein System zwischen Gefühl und Geschäft. 2. edition., (pp. 146–186). Heidelberg: Carl-AuerSysteme. Wippermann, C. (2010). Frauen in Führungspositionen: Barrieren und Brücken. Wirtschaft und Statistik, Vol. 43. Heidelberg: Sinus Sociovision. Wiechers, R. (2006). Familienmanagement zwischen Unternehmen und Familie. Zur Handhabung typischer Eigenarten von Unternehmensfamilien und Familienunternehmen. Heidelberg: Verl. für Systemische Forschung im Carl-Auer-Verl.

Daniela Jäkel-Wurzer Dr. phil., is sociologist and systemic coach, owner of d.jw Coaching & Beratung, founder of the initiative Generation Töchter.

Socialization and Parenting Processes in Business Families Elke Schröder

Introduction The central concern of the parent generation in business families is to pass on values such as commitment to family and business, cohesion and social responsibility to the next generation (Schröder 2011). How similar the values between parents and children actually are, and which approaches parents and children choose to transmit values, are presented in Study 1 of this chapter. Study 2 sheds light on the socialization and parenting processes through which entrepreneurial parents can support their offspring in successfully coping with the developmental task of “career choice and succession planning”. The satisfaction of basic psychological needs such as perceived competence, autonomy and relatedness are seen as driving forces for the development of intrinsic succession motivation in the children’s generation. The study findings presented here provide practical guidance for parents on how to foster children’s career development and succession motivations from an early age and how to contribute to the sustainability of the family business.

Socialization Requirements in Business Families Family is regarded as the primary socialization context and is of central importance for the development of children and adolescents. Even with increasing age, when other developmental environments gain in influence for the offspring, the family generally assumes a supporting position as a point of reference for the formation of E. Schröder (✉) Ludwigsburg University of Education, Ludwigsburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_9

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their identity and as a social support system. In this respect, the nuclear family is of particular importance as an instance of socialization as it represents the central place for development across the entire lifespan (Hurrelmann et al. 2015a, b). With regard to the socialization and parenting effects of the family, the following definitional distinction can be made: parenting represents an intention by which parents aim to bring about a lasting psychological change in their children in the sense of certain behaviour, experience and thinking. In contrast, socialization can be described as a latent process of living together, in which individuals internalize the social norms, roles and values of their social and cultural environment through social interactions, and which, unlike parenting, does not necessarily have to be intentional (Hurrelmann et al. 2015a, b, p. 16; Reichle 2013, p. 150). If, for example, children from a business family observe their parents in conversation looking for a way to relieve a sick employee in the family business of their duties, social responsibility becomes clear to the children via socialization processes. If parents consciously praise their child for having passed on homework and notes to a fellow pupil who is ill, this is parenting aimed at teaching social responsibility. In modern socialization theories, socialization is conceived as a dynamic personenvironment interaction (Hurrelmann 2012), in which the individual actively deals with the demands placed on him or her by his or her social and material environment. For the operationalization of these socialization demands, the concept of developmental tasks can be useful (Quenzel 2015). From a sociological perspective, developmental tasks serve to prepare one to assume social responsibility, and from a psychological perspective, they serve to develop and consolidate one’s own personality (Krappmann 1979). They involve age-typical social expectations placed on individuals or set as goals by individuals themselves, for example, through the internalization of norms (Quenzel 2015). Successfully coping with developmental tasks leads to satisfaction and growth, whereas failures in coping are associated with dissatisfaction and possibly social disapproval. Following Havighurst (1953), the following age-specific socialization requirements have been defined for adolescence: (a) establishment of social friendships and relationships with peers; (b) acquisition of educational or vocational qualifications; (c) development of independent patterns of action for the confident use of the diverse range of leisure and consumption opportunities; and (d) development of one’s own value orientation and ethical and political awareness (e.g. Dreher and Dreher 1985; Quenzel 2015). The aforementioned developmental tasks can be further specified for business families (see Table 1) in that, for example, for children from family businesses, the question of succeeding (operationally or non-operationally) in the family business is inevitably linked to professional qualifications. With regard to the development of their own value orientation, it is a central concern of the parent generation that

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Table 1 Developmental tasks of adolescents in the context of the business family Developmental tasks in adolescence Building social bonds such as friendships and partnerships with peers, with the aim of gradually breaking away from childhood bonds with parents and other adults.

Acquiring educational and vocational qualifications in order to enter the workforce and thereby become financially independent of others. Development of strategies for relaxation and, closely related to this, for a financially and emotionally independent handling of the manifold leisure and consumer offers. Development of one’s own value orientation in order to be able to participate in relevant decisions in the social sphere, in civil society and in political institutions.

In the context of the business family In many business families, it is a tradition for offspring to attend boarding school. The development of social bonds with peers as well as social interactions with peers and teachers are essential prerequisites for living together on a daily basis. For children from family businesses, the question of succeeding (operationally or non-operationally) in the family business is inevitably linked to professional qualifications (see Study 2). Responsible use of family assets versus diverse recreational and consumer opportunities; balance between recreation and commitment to school and social needs. Due to the increasing fragmentation of family businesses, values such as commitment to family and business, sustainability, cohesion and social responsibility should be internalized (see Study 1).

On the developmental tasks of adolescents, see also Quenzel (2015, p. 238)

entrepreneurial children internalize values such as commitment to family and business, sustainability, cohesion and social responsibility. The existing family also demands that young people learn to handle the family assets responsibly in relation to the wide range of other opportunities in leisure and for recreation. In addition, in many business families the offspring attend boarding school in accordance with family tradition. The development of sustainable social ties with peers is seen here as an essential prerequisite for constructive interaction in daily life. Based on the aforementioned socialization requirements, the question arises as to what tasks and functions are assigned to the business family as the central place of socialization in this context. As primary agents of socialization, entrepreneurial parents assume an essential transmitting function by passing on the values, norms and attitudes that are firmly anchored in the business family. In addition, the role of parents is genuinely linked to the task of responding to the individual needs of the children, providing impulses for their personal development and, in particular, helping them to deal constructively with the socialization demands resulting, for example, from school, family and the business. How support can be provided in

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successfully coping with developmental tasks in business families is empirically illustrated in the following sections using the example of the transmission of values (Study 1) as well as career orientation and succession planning (Study 2).

Transmission of Values Between Parents and Children in Business Families (Study 1) Theoretical Background Family businesses are characterized by values such as tradition, sustainability and social responsibility, and, with their corporate culture characterized by closeness and the creation of jobs, make a significant contribution to the economic strength of a region. However, as the size of family businesses increases, so does the challenge of counteracting fragmentation and alienation of the next generations from the family business (cf. Kleve et al. in this volume). Against this background, it is important for the parent generation in family businesses to ensure a close bond exists between the younger generation, the family and the business, so that values such as cohesion and social responsibility are passed on to their children, thus contributing to the sustainability of the business. Values are generally defined as desirable, abstract goals that extend to various situations and provide guidelines for one’s actions (Schwartz 1994). They express what is fundamentally important to a person and represent an essential component of personal identity. With regard to socialization and parenting in families, the transmission of intergenerational patterns of action takes on a central role. While in childhood the transmission of values is still strongly influenced by the parents, the hierarchical downward functioning transmission process gives way to a mutual exchange of family and culture-related values between the generations as the children grow older (Pinquart and Silbereisen 2004). In family businesses, for example, digitalization is considered particularly important by the younger generation and is implemented accordingly (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2017). Comparing values between parents and children, a high similarity of values within a family is considered an indicator of intensive value transmission between generations. A content categorization of values is provided by Schwartz’s (1992, 1994) universal value model, which is based on a value structure with ten value types. The different value types are arranged into two main dimensions and two further categories: Self-Enhancement vs. Self-Transcendence as well as Openness to

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Change vs. Conservation (see Table 2). While power and achievement represent values of “Self-Enhancement” according to Schwartz, these are contrasted by universalism and benevolence as values of “Self-Transcendence”, where the focus is not on the self but on the well-being of others. Similarly, hedonism, stimulation and self-direction as values of “Openness to Change” are contrasted with the tradition, conformity and security value types of the “Conservation” dimension. Extensive research could show the validity of this value model in different cultures, which is why Schwartz also speaks of a universal model (Schwartz 1992, 1994). Cultures, for example business cultures, can however differ in their value priorities. Even among the members of a family business, the importance of the various values – and thus the individual goals – may vary in their ranking. Schwartz’s (1992) value model provides the theoretical framework for the study presented below, in which the values of parents and children in business families were compared and ways of communicating values were examined.

Study Results Seven family businesses that had already dealt extensively with the sustainability and commitment of the next generation to the family business were included in the interview study. The views and experiences of the 17 interview participants provide detailed insights into the transmission of values in family businesses and offer suggestions on how to deal with values for other business families. On the part of the parents’ generation, the mothers of the families aged between 55 and 63 were interviewed by telephone, since they play a decisive role in the socialization process of business families as mediators between family and business. The views of the children are based on interviews with ten representatives of the successor generation (five daughters and five sons) aged between 24 and 37, who were either still in education (studying) or in the early years of their working lives. The families interviewed each had between three and five children, and all interview participants had grown up with siblings. Three children of the younger generation already had offspring of their own, so that for some of the children the question of which values they would like to pass on to their offspring had already arisen in concrete terms. The results of the study are presented below as the outcome of various guiding questions from the interviews.

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Table 2 Value types according to Schwartz (1992, 1994) “Self-Enhancement” Power: social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources. (Social power, authority, wealth, maintaining a public image.)

Achievement: personal success through the demonstration of competence in terms of social standards. (Successful, capable, ambitious, influential.) “Openness to Change” Hedonism: pleasure and sensual rewards for oneself. (Pleasure, enjoying life.)

Stimulation: excitement, novelty and challenges in life. (Daring, a varied life, an exciting life.)

Self-direction: thinking and acting independently, being creative, exploring. (Creativity, freedom, independent, curious, choosing one’s own goals.)

“Self-Transcendence” Universalism: understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection of the well-being of all people and nature. (Tolerant, wisdom, social justice, equality, a world at peace, a world full of beauty, unity with nature, protecting the environment.) Benevolence: preserving and enhancing the welfare of people with whom one has frequent contact. (Helpful, honest, forgiving, faithful, responsible.) “Conservation” Tradition: respect for, attachment to and acceptance of customs and ideas that traditional cultures and religions have developed for their members. (Pious, accepting my position in life, humble, respect for tradition, moderate.) Conformity: restraint of actions, inclinations and impulses that might offend or hurt others or violate social expectations and norms. (Politeness, obedience, selfdiscipline, deferential to parents and elders.) Security: safety, harmony and stability of society, relationships and self. (Family security, national security, social order, clean, not owing anyone anything.)

What Values Are Most Important for Business Families? The open statements of the mothers and children show that for both groups values such as benevolence (e.g. “honesty”, “reliability” and “loyalty”), tradition (e.g. “not losing one’s roots”, “modesty” and “faith”) and conformity (e.g. “decency”, “good manners” and “respect”) are particularly important and thus comprise values which, according to Schwartz (1992), can be located on the main dimensions of SelfTranscendence and Conservation. Value types such as power (e.g. status, prestige) and hedonism (e.g. pleasure, enjoying life), which can be attributed to the main dimensions of Self-Enhancement and Openness to Change, are interestingly not mentioned at all in either group.

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Based on these results, a further methodological approach was chosen, in which the interviewees completed a questionnaire on the personal significance of the ten value types according to Schwartz (1992, 1994) after the interview study. Here, too, it was found that mothers and children from business families consider benevolence, as the well-being of people with whom one has frequent contact, to be the most important. While values such as power, achievement and hedonism continued to play a minor role for mothers in the questionnaire version, these were more important for the children interviewed than in the open interview statements. Considering that the younger generation was in education or in their first years of work, i.e. in a stage of life in which comparison with others and the goal of wanting to achieve something is particularly salient, differences in value priorities between mothers and children in the areas of power and achievement can possibly be attributed to different phases of life.

How Similar Are Children and Parents in Their Value Priorities? The families’ statements on value priorities according to Schwartz (1992, 1994) already illustrate a high similarity of values between the family members. However, indications of a strong intra-family transfer of values can also be found in further interview statements by the mothers and children. For example, both generations of a family independently described the family business as a “precious treasure”. The proverb “more being than appearing” as an expression of modest appearance was mentioned separately by the mother and child of one family as a guideline for their own actions. Regarding the importance of the family business in everyday life, one mother mentioned that the “business sat at the table as an older sibling”. In parallel, her child explained that the “company always sat at the table”. The transmission idea also comes through clearly in the values that the younger generation in turn wants to pass on to their offspring. The upcoming generation would also like to pass on their own values, such as benevolence, to their children and, in doing so, continue in the majority of cases what the parents’ generation has exemplified.

What Approaches Do Parents Choose to Transmit Meaningful Values? The interview participants mentioned a variety of ways to promote their offspring’s responsible handling of family assets and commitment to the family business at an early stage.

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It was particularly important for the families to create a variety of opportunities for “early introduction, bringing together and informing”, ranging, for example, from a WhatsApp group for the offspring, internships and brochures for children, to network meetings, family seminars and company celebrations (cf. Kleve et al. in this volume). The families see further opportunities for the transmission of values in “setting an example that the job is attractive and that one can make a living from the job” without exerting “pressure or coercion”. In summary, the interviews make it clear that the well-being of other people, whether within the family or in “fair dealings with employees”, as well as the conservation of what already exists, are particularly important values for the business families surveyed. Cohesion and the responsible handling of family assets are perceived as the “culture” of business families, which should also be imparted to the younger generation at an early stage (see also Schröder 2011).

Career Orientation and Succession Planning in Business Families (Study 2) Theoretical Background In adolescence, vocational qualifications and the search for something new represent important developmental tasks (cf. Table 1). This includes the examination of one’s own abilities, strengths and interests, guided by questions such as “What can I do? What do I want? Who am I?” as well as the exploration of different vocational environments; these two factors are part of the formation of a vocational identity (Schröder 2018). For children from business families, the career choice process turns out to be a complex task, as not only do their own interests and abilities have to be explored, but also the wishes and ideas of other family members have to be taken into account. Thus, children in business families are faced with the challenge of choosing a career path in a self-determined manner on the one hand and not disappointing their parents’ wishes on the other. Furthermore, in the course of career planning, they inevitably have to deal with the question of whether the family business is a career option – be it operationally or non-operationally, be it in the near or distant future. For parents from business families, the career choice process of their offspring is also a complex undertaking and often associated with the dilemma of, on the one hand, granting their children unrestricted freedom of career choice and, on the other hand, pursuing the heartfelt desire of a family-internal business succession (von

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Schlippe and Groth 2006). Parents are the most important advisors for their children on aspects of career choice. Against the background of the family business, however, the question arises for parents as to how much they should be involved in their children’s career choice process and how to balance their own interests and those of their offspring. The empirical basis of socialization and parenting processes related to the career development of offspring in business families has been limited so far. Based on the self-determination theory according to Ryan and Deci (2000), we therefore investigated how adolescents from business families perceive parental behaviour in relation to their career choice process and what relevance parental patterns of action have for the career plans, especially succession motivation, of the younger generation. The self-determination theory according to Ryan and Deci (2000) describes motivational processes and deals with the motives for choosing a certain profession. On the one hand, action can be intrinsically motivated, i.e. I do something because I enjoy the activity itself, it brings me pleasure and satisfaction, I am absorbed in the activity and feel inner fulfilment. Children’s play is the prototype of intrinsic motivation and is instrumental to learning. Intrinsic motivation, however, exists throughout one’s lifespan and is the essential driving force for personal success, development and well-being. On the other hand, the “motor” for our actions can be external to the task (extrinsic motivation); we want our behaviour to achieve something positive or avoid something negative. For example, I do something so that I can avoid a problem or achieve a certain goal. An important differentiation of Ryan and Deci’s (2000) theory concerns the distinction between different internalization stages of extrinsic motivation, which range from external regulation (“I have to” do something), via introjected control (“I should” do something), to more self-determined behaviours with an identified significance (“It is important to me”) and integrated regulation (“I want to” do something). By increasing internalization, the goals brought to the person from outside are reinforced and integrated into the self. The transition from integrated regulation to intrinsic motivation is fluid, but in the case of intrinsic motivation, action-immanent incentives (e.g. pleasure, fulfilment) that result from the activity as such predominate over forms of self-determined extrinsic motivation. Introjection (“I should”) plays a significant role for business families. This comes into play when children are motivated to act out of the dilemma of not wanting to disappoint the wishes of their parents, grandparents, and so on, on the one hand, but knowing on the other hand that they cannot or do not want to carry out a desired task accordingly. If the choice of a certain profession or the assumption of responsibility in the family business is primarily motivated by the avoidance of

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Table 3 Different motives for succession in family businesses. “I could imagine succeeding in the family business, . . .” Subscale Intrinsic/integrated

Identified Introjected External

Reply . . . because I can use my strengths there in the best possible way . . . because it would be great fun for me . . . because I am very interested . . . because the family business is very important to me . . . to be able to achieve my goals . . . because if I didn’t, I’d feel guilty . . . because I don’t want to disappoint my parents . . . because it’s comfortable for me . . . because I’d make less money somewhere else

feelings of guilt, this expresses introjected behaviour which, according to Ryan and Deci (2000), is associated with lower subjective well-being and success than intrinsically motivated behaviour. Table 3 lists different behavioural regulations in relation to succession planning in family businesses, as examined in this study. In addition to the differentiation of various forms of motivation, selfdetermination theory outlines detailed antecedents and consequences of different forms of motivation, which contain important implications for parental behaviour in relation to the career choice process of children. According to Ryan and Deci (2000), the satisfaction of basic psychological needs such as perceived competence, autonomy and relatedness is central for the emergence of intrinsic motivation, which in turn fosters positive development in terms of personal success, learning and well-being (see Fig. 1). Consequently, if parents in business families succeed in creating an environment in which their children’s needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness are satisfied, this should foster their offspring’s intrinsic succession motivation. The following section comprises empirical findings regarding the relationship between parental behaviours and adolescents’ different succession motivations in business families.

Study Results The surveyed children from business families were on average 16.4 years old, 40% female and 60% male. The majority of respondents were pupils (80%), most of whom went to secondary school (48%) or attended middle school (20%). Vocational education took up a smaller proportion in this survey (20%), with these young people predominantly learning outside the family business (outside 16%/inside

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Tasks/Activities

Selfdeterminaon

Experience of competence

Intrinsic movaon

-successful Implementaon -long-term anchored Behavior -deep learning -Vitality/Energy -well-being

Social inclusion

Antecedents

Consequences

Fig. 1 Antecedents and consequences of intrinsic motivation

4%). A total of 255 adolescents from 155 families across Germany were interviewed with standardized and open questions. The interviews with the children lasted an average of 86 minutes and took place at the families’ homes or at the companies. The interviews with parents and children were conducted separately. Over half of all businesses in the sample (53%) have been in family hands for several generations, therefore, more than half of the parents have experienced business succession themselves. Depending on how the parents’ generation perceived the succession, this can serve as a guide for the future or as a reason for specifically shaping the succession process in a different way. The following section details the main findings from the surveys.

What Motivations Do Adolescents Report for a Potential Succession in the Family Business? Adolescents in the study increasingly named intrinsic and integrated/identified motivations for business succession (cf. Table 3), i.e. they could imagine succeeding in the family business because they can use their strengths there in the best possible way, it would be fun for them and it interests them. The second most frequent reason cited by adolescents was external, e.g. having a secure job. Interestingly, introjection also plays a role for adolescents as they could imagine

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succeeding the family business because they do not want to disappoint their parents or would like to avoid feelings of guilt towards their parents.

What Is the Significance of Parenting Behaviour in the Expression of Different Succession Motivations of Children? Structural equation models were used to examine the correlations between parental behaviour from the children’s perspective and the various succession motivations of adolescents from family businesses. Children who experienced little autonomy and, for example, stated that their parents interfered too much in their career plans showed a high degree of introjection, i.e. they perceived business succession as the fulfilment of an internal duty or as a way of avoiding feelings of guilt towards their parents. Children who felt a high degree of autonomy due to the fact that their parents supported them in their own career plans and discussed various career options with them without influencing them, indicated an intrinsic and integrated/identified succession motivation, i.e. taking on the responsibility of the family business would be great fun and very interesting to them. Finally, children who perceived themselves as competent in entrepreneurial tasks and who, for example, were good at leading others or convincing them of their ideas, showed high levels of identification/integration, i.e. they had the impression that they could make the best possible use of their strengths in the family business and that business tasks provided a great deal of interest and fulfilment for them (see also Schröder and Schmitt-Rodermund 2013). The study results support the postulated relations of the self-determination theory and show the importance of parental behaviour for developing different succession motivations in adolescents. Moreover, the findings provide valuable guidance for parents in family firms of how to foster children’s career development and succession planning at an early stage, as summarized in the following section.

Conclusion and Outlook The aim of this chapter was to illustrate socialization and parenting processes in business families on the basis of empirical examples. It became clear that parents have an important function in the transmission of values in business families and

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can contribute to their offspring’s career development and succession motivations by promoting the satisfaction of children’s basic psychological needs. The studies presented here provide empirical findings on key parent-child interactions in business families. However, the empirical basis of the significance of socialization and parenting processes in business families is limited overall. There is a need for further developmental and methodological approaches that, for example, empirically analyze the mastery of developmental tasks in social interaction with peers or in relation to the consumption and leisure behaviour of adolescents from family businesses, as well as the interaction of different developmental tasks with each other. Moreover, studies to date have mainly examined the influence of parents on the development of offspring. However, the importance of other socialization agents in the family system, especially grandparents and siblings, should not be forgotten. In many business families, grandparents temporarily take over childcare, which calls for empirical studies on the value transmission also between grandparents and their grandchildren at an early age. Concerning the influence of sibling relationships on children’s commitment and perceived responsibility for the family business, empirical sibling research provides valuable approaches. The so-called preference hypothesis (Boer et al. 1992), for example, assumes that parents contribute to strains on the sibling relationship through the (perceived to be unfair) unequal treatment of siblings, which can have far-reaching consequences in the context of family businesses. Methodologically, longitudinal studies seem very promising for the investigation of socialization processes in business families as they also allow the highlighting of antecedents and consequences of various family dynamics. Furthermore, experimental studies and dyadic analyses of parent-child or sibling interactions can provide valuable empirical insights into the socialization and parenting effects in business families. The goal of empirical family research should be to derive practical guidance for socialization agents and for the fostering of a supportive environment from the findings. Therefore, the chapter concludes with some motivational psychological recommendations on how parents can create an environment in which children’s psychological needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness can be satisfied within the family business context. Autonomy can be promoted by parents stimulating their children’s curiosity and self-reflection (Who am I? What can I do? What do I want?). This includes supporting the children’s initiatives and allowing them to experiment with possible solutions. Furthermore, parents should show their children options, but without judging them, as well as give explanations for desired behaviour and rules. With

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regard to the family business, this means creating opportunities for the offspring to create something on their own and to experience pride in their own successes, for example, by independently organizing a sports event (football tournament or similar) for children of employees, their own sales stand or a company rally for new trainees. For the promotion of children’s experience of competence, it is essential to set tasks in such a way that mastery and success is the predominant experience (“optimal” challenge). This is especially possible when children are given the necessary structure to build their competencies step by step. Reward and feedback for specific behaviours and efforts help to gradually increase competencies; sweeping judgements and parental evaluations of their children in comparison to others, for example in comparison to siblings, on the other hand, can be rather detrimental to the individual perception of competence. With regard to the family business, it is also important to find the “optimal” challenge for children. The offspring should be given age-appropriate opportunities to experience success and competence in entrepreneurial activities. This can be realized, for example, by assigning small projects for the family business in areas in which the children are particularly competent (computer, website, photography, etc.). Finally, creating a climate of mutual respect, acceptance and warmth is critical to fostering relatedness. This includes caring for the well-being of others and supporting them when problems arise. If we succeed in creating opportunities in which the other person can “give”, this also contributes decisively to building a sense of belonging. For business families, this means introducing children to the family business at an early age, taking their offspring to events (e.g. trade fairs, seminars), introducing them to customers and establishing appreciative contact with other members of the family business, like employees. All in all, it can be said that the more autonomy, competence and relatedness the next generation experiences in connection with the family business, the stronger their long-term commitment and sense of responsibility for the sustainable development of the family business will be.

References Boer, F., Goedhart, A. W. & Treffers, P. D. A. (1992). Siblings and their parents. In F. Boer & J. Dunn (Eds.), Children’s sibling relationships. Developmental and clinical issues (pp. 41–54). Hillsdale, N. J.: Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Dreher, E. & Dreher, M. (1985). Entwicklungsaufgaben im Jugendalter. Bedeutsamkeit und Bewältigungskonzepte. In D. Liepmann & A. Stiksrud (Eds.), Entwicklungsaufgaben und Bewältigungsprobleme in der Adoleszenz (pp. 56–70). Göttingen: Hogrefe. Havighurst, R. J. (1953). Human development and education. New York: David McKay. Hurrelmann, K. (2012). Bachelor / Master: Sozialisation. Weinheim: Beltz Verlagsgruppe. Hurrelmann, K., Grundmann, M., Walper, S. & Bauer, U. (Eds.). (2015a). Handbuch Sozialisationsforschung. Weinheim: Beltz Verlagsgruppe. Hurrelmann, K., Grundmann, M. & Walper, S. (2015b). Zum Stand der Sozialisationsforschung. In K. Hurrelmann, M. Grundmann, S. Walper & U. Bauer (Eds.), Handbuch Sozialisationsforschung (pp. 14–31). Weinheim: Beltz Verlagsgruppe. Krappmann, L. (1979). Soziologische Dimension der Identität. Stuttgart: Klett. Pinquart, M. & Silbereisen, R. K. (2004). Transmission of values from adolescents to their parents: The role of value content and authoritative parenting. Adolescence 39, (pp. 83–100). Quenzel, G. (2015). Das Konzept der Entwicklungsaufgaben. In K. Hurrelmann, M. Grundmann, S. Walper & U. Bauer (Eds.), Handbuch Sozialisationsforschung (pp. 233–250). Weinheim: Beltz Verlagsgruppe. Reichle, B. (2013). Soziale Kompetenz. In S. Andresen, C. Hunner-Kreisel, S. Fries (Eds.), Erziehung. Ein interdisziplinäres Handbuch (pp. 147–154). Stuttgart: J. B. Metzler. Ryan, R. M. & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist 55, (pp. 68–78). Schröder, E. (2018). Berufliche Entwicklung im Jugendalter. In B. Gniewosz & P. F. Titzmann (Eds.), Handbuch Jugend. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer Verlag. Schröder, E. & Schmitt-Rodermund, E. (2013). Antecedents and consequences of adolescents’ motivations to join the family business. Journal of Vocational Behavior 83, (pp. 476–485). Schröder, E. (2011). Wertetransmission von Eltern und Kindern in Familienunternehmen. EQUA-Schriftenreihe, Heft 12, Bonn: Unternehmer Medien. Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and tests in 20 countries. In M. P. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 25 (pp. 1–65). New York: Academic Press. Schwartz, S. H. (1994). Are there universal aspects in the content and structure of values? Journal of Social Issues 50, (pp. 1–46). Stiftung Familienunternehmen (Ed.). (2017). Deutschlands nächste Unternehmergeneration: Eine empirische Untersuchung der Einstellungen, Werte und Zukunftspläne, 4. Auflage und Schwerpunkt „Digitalisierung“. München: Stiftung Familienunternehmen. von Schlippe, A. & Groth, T. (2006). Familienunternehmen und Beratung: Paradoxien und Dilemmata. In K. G. Deissler (Ed.), Familienunternehmen beraten. Positionen und Praxisbeispiele (pp. 109–128). Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.

Elke Schröder Dr. phil., is Developmental Psychologist, Academic Councillor and Head of the Competence Centre for Educational Guidance (KomBi), Institute of Psychology, Ludwigsburg University of Education.

Part III Future Perspectives

The Dynastic Extended Family: A Sketch of a Specific Type of Business Family Tom A. Rüsen, Arist von Schlippe, and Heiko Kleve

Introduction Transgenerational cohesion is especially true when a family has made the fundamental decision not to carry out its transgenerational reproduction permanently through a nuclear family structure. Concentrating the number of shareholders or approaches to minimize the number of shareholders again and again usually means passing on as many shares as possible to one family member – usually the one who is most active in management (Lambrecht and Lievens 2008; Simon et al. 2005). Such an approach is accompanied by the need to make payouts to other heirs. Although this reduces complexity, such a policy also places a heavy burden on the sole heir and on the business, too. This is particularly the case when the business reaches a certain size and the payouts to siblings and/or cousins are beyond the financial means of any one individual. Above a certain size of company and family, it is therefore usually decided to distribute an equal inheritance of the shares within the family and to choose an “extended family organization” (Simon et al. 2005). Sometimes this also takes the form of a tribal organization, usually in which the subfamilies of the founder’s children are grouped by a certain branch structure under company law (on the special conditions of this type of organization, see Ammer 2017). Due to a general societal tendency to treat descendants equally and to administer inheritance in an egalitarian manner, in business families the shares of the previous generation are inherited by all descendants equally – regardless of whether they work in the company or not. Models followed in the past – such as primogeniture, gender or T. A. Rüsen (✉) · A. von Schlippe · H. Kleve Witten Institute for Family Business, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_10

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the preference to consider only descendants who are involved in the management of the company – are clearly on the retreat.1 In the literature, business families above a certain level of transgenerationality are referred to as “dynastic families”: “We call these multigenerational families, with several branches and successful business portfolios, dynasties” (Jaffe and Lane 2004, p. 82). It is easy to see that the business family faces special challenges in this case. Once the basic decision has been made not to keep a small number of shareholders in the long term (i.e. not to choose the so-called “crown prince arrangement”), business families are confronted with an increasingly larger family, which is often accompanied by corresponding growth of the company. Continuously, complexity increases at different levels of social organization (Gimeno et al. 2010), and numerous requirements arise for the development of governance structures that relate to the family in addition to the company’s management and ownership (Felden and Hack 2014; Hack and Meyer 2012; Koeberle-Schmid et al. 2012; Kormann 2017; May and Bartels 2017; von Schlippe et al. 2017; Suess 2014): the family learns to manage itself, to give itself rules and to create responsibilities for family members who are active in management or on committees, and to submit to democratic structures. All this challenges the family as a family, for it must continually do something that is not really appropriate for a family: it must introduce formal structures and become an organization; that is, it must at the same time be both a family and a business family. We could say that it has to “double up”, so to speak, in order to accomplish this task (von Schlippe et al. 2017, 2021; Rüsen et al. 2021). In this context, the fact that the ownership role is based on the transmission of this very role from the ancestors to the descendants is a central condition for the persistence of this type of “dynastic family”. Many internal processes have been the particular focus of family business research for years (Kellermanns and Hoy 2017; Melin et al. 2014; see also Sharma 2004). However, one particular type of family has so far been analyzed only rarely in the literature. These are families in which the circles of shareholders have reached a size that makes it impossible to still make decisions jointly (thus, in the aforementioned study by Jaffe and Lane (2004), there are no references to differentiated issues of dynastic families according to size). These particular families, the so-called “dynastic extended families”, will be dealt with in detail here.

1 In a study by the WIFU on current succession trends, this phenomenon became clear (OttenPappas and Jäkel-Wurzer 2017; see also Otten-Pappas, 2013).

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Dynastic Extended Families The business family type “dynastic extended family” is understood to be the shareholders of a multigenerational family business with 50 or more members who are related by blood. The kinship relation can either be traced back to the company founder(s) through direct descent or through marital or adoption relationships with the company founder(s) or their descendants. In addition to the kinship connection, this type of family is characterized by the common will to pass on the company to the following generations. As in other business families, in dynastic extended families their own understanding of their role is defined by membership in a community of owners that can be traced back to common ancestors and that is linked by the goal of passing on this same property to subsequent generations. The actual quantitative distinguishing feature, however, which justifies the label of “dynastic extended family”, is the potential unmanageability of its members. Once the inheritance of shares to all heirs has become the decision-making premise, constant intra-family growth of the individual nuclear families leads to a potential tripling of the number of shareholders in each generation. Therefore, the emergence of a dynastic extended family – assuming entrepreneurial success – is often only a matter of time.2 A first preliminary overview within the framework of our ongoing research project at the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU) currently deals with at least 30 German companies with 50 or more family shareholders. However, our analysis suggests that the number of these dynastic extended families will increase significantly in the coming years. The issues discussed here will therefore change from being a “fringe phenomenon” to a core issue for a large number of business families, at least in German-speaking countries. Family groups of this size are rarely dealt with explicitly in the literature. One of the most important questions seems to be how to regulate the division between the controlling family, i.e. the family members who occupy the key positions in the governance structures, and the other family stakeholders, who often hold only a small number of shares. This also includes how to counteract mistrust and disinterest among the non-active owners (Morck and Yeung 2003). It is precisely through regular participation in decision-making processes that the family members involved here feel more strongly connected to the family business, both emotionally and in terms of possession of information. Accordingly, they are more willing to

These figures are preliminary. They reflect our work with corresponding multigenerational business families. An empirical survey on this would be a worthwhile research project.

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make time available for decision-making or to subordinate themselves to the company’s expectations. While principal–agent conflicts are more likely in younger family businesses, this type of business, in combination with dynastic extended families as owners, is more likely to experience so-called “principal–principal conflicts” (Renders and Gaeremynck 2012). The typical family conflicts here therefore take place less in the company and more in the further supervisory and control bodies. What should thus be examined in more detail is what distinguishes this type of family from other business families and what questions arise with regard to shareholder groups that still have a manageable size of 15, 25 or 35 members (see Kleve et al. 2020). In particular, the question arises as to how shareholder groups, some of which have several hundred members, can be controlled and managed.

Specific Challenges in Dynastic Extended Families Preliminary findings were collected from the ongoing research project on specific problems and issues of dynastic extended families. In the context of this project, WIFU researchers have been meeting since 2017 with the family representatives of six business families from German-speaking countries whose shareholder groups comprise between 80 and 700 people or whose business families comprise between 130 and 1000 people.3 In action research (Burns 2007; Lück 1996), the specific issues dynastic extended families have and possible approaches to solutions are discussed here within the framework of a joint learning journey of the investigated and the investigators. So far, it has been possible to identify six thematic areas that are relevant to dynastic extended families when viewed from the perspective of the family representatives. They are the inevitable result of the large number of members and their often-global distribution. Even if the issues behind these topics can also be observed in principle in other types of business families, specific factors can be identified here that act as amplifiers of intra-family dynamics. For example, widespread degrees of kinship, decentralized living situations that are often scattered across time zones and continents and different mother tongues between the

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The business family is larger than the group of shareholders, because we also include family members who are no longer shareholders or – as retired seniors or children and young people – are not yet in possession of shares.

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Communication within the dyn. extended family

Dealing with impulses from society

Committee structure / Involvement of members

Dealing with dissent and conflict management

Qualification / further training of the members

Distribution Policy & "ValueDifferences

Fig. 1 Specific challenges of dynastic extended families

individual nuclear families lead to special challenges in maintaining and cohering the ownership and family community. The relevant issues are summarized in Fig. 1 (see below). Fundamentally, all of the issues serve the central task of family governance of dynastic extended families, namely, to ensure cohesion in the face of rather centrifugally diverging family structures: “The key question for the dynasty is: ‘Why stay together?’” (Jaffe and Lane 2004, p. 89). This overarching question highlights the challenges, the tendencies towards disintegration and the acute problems that pose a particular threat to the continued existence of this type of family.

Communication within the Circle of Shareholders A central task is the organization of communication within the dynastic extended family. In our discussions with family representatives, it became clear that the established communication models often follow a top-down approach. Although

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the company or family committees provide regular information about company developments, there is no channel to communicate the individual concerns of the family members. Systematic feedback loops seem to be either barely established or quickly fall apart. Requests for feedback from family members, in which – similar to an employee survey in a company – the communicative needs and the satisfaction with the information offered are solicited, are carried out in only very few cases. There is also hardly any knowledge about the actual use of established information media. At the same time, the family representatives report sometimes worrying signs of declining interest on the part of individuals or – particularly concerningly – even entire branches of the family. Once interest has been lost, it is apparently difficult to retrieve, and if at all, then ultimately only through personal effort and contact. Additional information about what is happening in the company is rarely requested, and interest seems to be declining in general. A change in long-established forms of information and communication (e.g. through shareholder letters) in favour of modern information technologies (e.g. through the introduction of closed family intranet solutions) is apparently increasingly seen as necessary by the family members. The problem here is that the expectations of younger and older shareholders with regard to formats are often diametrically opposed. Attempts to re-energize communication via specially created family intranet solutions do indeed promote opportunities to find out about developments in the company and the family by clicking and downloading. However, a lasting increase in cohesion efforts via “family chats” usually does not succeed. Families with larger family branches living abroad also have to cope with the challenges of emerging multilingualism. As we have observed, however, family management is not exhausted by concerns or complaints about the status quo. In all the dynastic extended families we work with, a variety of structures have been developed for family members to get to know and meet each other. Regular contact interfaces are provided that make communication possible and likely. These range from family meetings to informal conversations among individual family members in the context of shareholder meetings. Nevertheless, it remains a particularly challenging task to motivate and stimulate precisely those members who do not accept such offers anyway (according to the motto: “The same people keep coming”). In principle, the task in these families is to initiate, establish and maintain reciprocal network structures that ensure give and take between family members within the extended family (see Kleve 2018; Kleve et al. 2018). A further problem arises with family businesses, some of whose shares are traded on the stock exchange. In this case, the family management is in the difficult position of, on the one hand, meeting the family owners’ demands for special

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treatment and, on the other hand, not disclosing any information that other shareholders do not also receive, in order to avoid the accusation of passing on insider knowledge. The specific issues relating to family governance in terms of communication within the shareholder group can be summarized in the following questions: • How can it be ensured that as many shareholders as possible get to know each other so that they develop an awareness of the extended family network (Kleve 2018; Kleve et al. 2018) and increase the chance of identification with the company as a family business (and not just as an investment)? • How can the level of communication and exchange within the shareholder group be increased? • How can information be prepared attractively and in line with the target group in such a way that it is accepted and used intensively by the members of the shareholder group? • How can structures be developed that enable lasting mutual communication and reciprocal obligations between the shareholders? • What can intelligent exchange formats look like for face-to-face meetings with large numbers of participants? • How can multilingualism, time-zone differences and different communication preferences within the family be dealt with intelligently? • How can passive family members be recovered or (re)activated?

Committee Structure and (Non)commitment of Members This complex of topics encompasses issues that pose a consistent paradoxical challenge to family governance: on the one hand, it is a matter of promoting active and interested participation of the shareholders in the company’s events; on the other hand, this involvement must not be expressed in forms of undifferentiated interference, i.e. the existing family and corporate governance structures must be taken into account. This paradox is often easily resolved for dynastic extended families. The struggles of a growing business family to find effective methods of participation in decision-making processes have already been outlined here with reference to the tension that business families can be described and explained simultaneously as families and as formal organizations. The necessity for the family to also see itself as a business family and thus “double up”, so to speak (von Schlippe et al. 2017, 2021; Rüsen et al. 2021), is often not understood by many members at first and can be experienced as painful. The

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organization as a family is then experienced as a “non-family implant”. For the dynastic extended family, this is usually no longer an issue; here, it is rather the lack of familiality due to the high levels of organization that can be a problem. All the extended families we interviewed have established complex governance structures. Committees are appointed (often separately for advisory board and family council, if necessary with substructures, working and meeting groups, etc.) according to well-established election procedures on the basis of clearly formulated quality requirements, which are often confirmed by external assessments. Ways in which family members can be elected to committees are transparent. Family officials are appropriately legitimized and ensure that the family’s voice is heard, at least indirectly, through the delegation of decision-making rights. Depending on the family, there are governance structures within which the voting family shareholders elect one or more committees. Rarely do these consist of more than five to ten percent of the family members. These bodies are given the main information and/or decision-making rights. In the case of a “two-tier structure”, a smaller sub-body is elected from the middle of one body to take on specific tasks. This representative model, which is based on political delegation and decisionmaking systems, is thought to be quite sensible. The concerns of a dynastic extended family therefore do not relate to the possible interference of the family in company matters. Rather, the strong organizational orientation means that the broad mass of family members who are not active in committees are in danger of losing interest in the development of the company or in family cohesion. Due to the high degree of professionalization and the low quality of kinship between the actors, family ties are lost, so to say. When new committee representatives should be elected, concerns about the junior staff become apparent. Unlike employees, who are usually promoted step by step to other positions within the framework of a career plan, membership of a board is democratically regulated and takes place by election. In dynastic shareholder families, people are usually no longer elected solely based on popularity or branch affiliation, but rather if they have been involved in the company’s activities from the position of “ordinary” shareholder for a long time and have developed corresponding shareholder competencies over time (Horváth et al. 2015; Rüsen et al. 2014). The family members participating in the research project see here the great danger that the small number of available places and the high selectivity in filling them could lead to a growing disinterest in the joint continuation of ownership as a dynastic extended family. The specific questions here are: • Through which committees, forms of participation, and so on, can members of the shareholder family be more actively involved than before?

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• How can the active participation of family shareholders be promoted, but at the same time interference of individual non-delegates in the committee’s work be prevented? • How can interest be aroused in participating in working groups, committees and family bodies, and thus in the shareholder family community? • How can the individual family member’s identification with and at least minimal interest in the company be maintained, even if he or she probably has no prospect of a position in the governance structures? • In what form are the structures sustainable? For example, what will the family look like in 20 years if current reproduction dynamics continue? Have the committee structures and the family organization been developed and implemented in a sustainable way? • What expenses for the family management measures are adequate and accepted by the community? How high are these in comparison to the expenses for normal market investor relations costs? Is there an awareness within the shareholder family that the costs for cohesion as a family community are necessary investments for maintaining future viability? • How can binding relationships be created within the circle of shareholders that strengthen both family cohesion with and loyalty to the family business?

Qualification and Further Training of Members This set of topics results directly from the previous one. It contains the specific questions for dealing with the existing and future competence of the members of the dynastic extended family. Particularly with regard to junior members for the family and shareholder bodies, fears are expressed concerning competence gaps. The approaches to qualification and further training practised to date vary widely among the families. They range from structured family academies (such as the “Merck Family University”), in which different but successive modules and mandatory participation in them are required as a desirable prerequisite for candidacy for a board, to structured workshop series, coaching and training for elected new members of a board, and laissez-faire approaches that rely on the fact that the sheer size of the family alone may produce sufficiently competent family members. Key questions here are: • How can an internal family training programme be organized that ensures a high level of basic competence of the partners without overburdening people who

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mostly pursue their own professional activity and without such measures being compulsory? • How can family members with relevant experience/leadership be recruited and introduced to serve on the board? • How can board activities be cleverly combined with professional activities so that they do not lead to the exclusion of the “brightest minds” from the family? What incentives can be offered here?

Distribution Policy and Value Differences This set of issues deals with the handling of and intra-family attitude towards the fair market values of the partnership interests. The owners “may be rich on paper, but not in pocket” (Aronoff and Ward 2011, p. 18). According to business calculation methods, there are usually large differences between this and the actual distribution policy. These are often the subject of highly critical discussions within the dynastic extended family, for example when it comes to the question of how to proceed with inheritance tax, which is based on the calculated share value and not on the actual distributions. In addition, individual owners often hold shares that are only fractions of a percent or even parts per thousand – occasionally so-called “dwarf share clauses” exclude shares below a certain level from engagement (Hennerkes and Kirchdörfer 1998, p. 102). But even this is usually accompanied by considerable intra-family tensions and distortions (see also Koellner et al. 2020). Thus, family members in every generation are potentially excluded, therefore endangering family relationships. Nevertheless, even numerically small shares are worth a great deal arithmetically or in the event of a share sale because of the scale of a family firm. A so-called fiduciary mentality, which may have determined the self-image of family shareholders for a long time, is coming under increasing pressure as new circles of owners who grew up in the dynastic extended family at increasing distances from other individuals in the company do not recognize long-established ideals. The arguments that the thriftiness of the ancestors and the reinvested profits of earlier times made the growth and development of the company to its present state possible, are given less acceptance and attention. The willingness of earlier generations to forego is often no longer sufficient as an argument to establish a similar willingness in the present for future generations. A so-called investor mentality is creeping in here (Kühl 2003), threatening the construct of the dynastic extended family with its transgenerational perspective as a network with members of similar interests and values. Central questions in this context are:

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• How can the difference between the actual value of the shares and the distributions paid (especially to owners of small shares) be meaningfully decided? • How should shareholders with mini-shares be dealt with? Are the costs and benefits of membership still in a productive relationship for all those involved? • How should understandable demands for capital market orientation be dealt with without implicitly promoting an investor mentality?

Dealing with Dissent and Conflict Management The conflict tension in business families resulting from the difference between family and business logic is a topic that has received much attention in research and advice literature (von Schlippe 2014). Again, the situation in dynastic extended families is different from most smaller business families. Here, claims are rarely made on the basis of family membership alone, and the often highly conflictual issue of personnel decisions (access to operational or committee positions) is clearly and formally regulated. Conflicts are more likely to concern the micro-political level, for example, when two or more stakeholders with larger stakes are at odds over different interests. However, these conflicts are rather atypical. It would be more dangerous if an unspoken dissatisfaction leads to a large grouping within the business family introducing potential conflict into the overall system. Sometimes individual persons are particularly exposed here: for example, so-called “troublemakers”, for whom it is not possible to assess whether they are actually expressing the displeasure of a sub-group of the shareholder family or whether they are possibly only seeking to make their own personal mark. The representatives of the dynastic extended families within our project above all described proactive strategies. For example, prominent representatives of shareholder families invite the family members living in their respective region and try to intercept and channel possible resentment in an informal atmosphere, over a meal or fireside chat (“If the company has lost them, only the family can win them back!”). Less common is the role of an ombudsperson in the conversation, to whom dissatisfied family members could turn. Questions that arise in this context include: • What forms of dealing with conflicts should be established within the shareholder family? • Where and how should conflicts within the shareholder family be addressed? • What alternative forms of dispute resolution could be institutionalized within the shareholders’ agreements?

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• In what way can persistently critical family members be managed? • What form of handling should be chosen with criticism expressed publicly and/or within the family?

Dealing with Impulses from Society Business families, like all other families, are exposed to social change. In particular, the individualization and pluralization processes of our postmodern society influence the socialization trajectories and individual expectations of members of these families (see, for example, Leiß 2014; Kleve 2017; Koellner et al. 2022). On the one hand, this changes the individual demands on one’s own life. Individual selfrealization and finding one’s own very specific, possibly also unconventional path in life sometimes become more important than family loyalty and acting in line with expectations, even in business families. On the other hand, this gives rise to postmodern family structures in which patchwork families, single parents and homosexual relationships are becoming the social norm. In families, something takes place that we can also observe in other social spheres: the project becomes the central social form (Baecker 2007). Projects are temporary undertakings that begin and end at certain points in time. Today, it is not only the pursuit of a profession that is so project-like, but also the private romantic relationship, which increasingly is no longer a life-long companionship. In contrast, business families expect permanent ties and lasting obligations of loyalty. In addition, business families are confronted with political developments and legal changes (for example, with regard to inheritance tax). In political and general public discourse, the members of business families often experience being perceived in a very one-sided way, for example as “rich” or “capitalists” who lead a particularly privileged life and should therefore be subject to relatively high taxation (see Wagenknecht 2013 for an example of this). The fact that shareholders of family businesses have a special function for our economic system, that they stand for a transgenerational preservation of businesses and thus for job security, is rarely seen in public. In our project, the following problem was mentioned: the individual family member is confronted with corresponding positions and views in his private environment, but rarely has the knowledge and the background experience to provide arguments for the lived transgenerational family entrepreneurship. As a consequence, membership in the dynastic business family is often concealed in the private social context, or ownership of the family business is met with shameful feelings.

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Questions that arise regarding the social context of business families include: • How are business families absorbing both the semantic and structural changes in society? • How progressive or how conservative does the family perceive itself to be; in other words, how is it able to accept and embrace phenomena of social change or to reject and exclude them? • Where and how do family members have the opportunity to reflect on the societal influences on their own and family life? • What role should developments in society play in communication within the business family (and should these be specifically made an issue)? • How does the family deal with political and legal issues (e.g. background discussions and changes in the context of the inheritance tax discussion)?

Family Strategies and Management of the Dynastic Extended Family The findings of research on long-term successful family businesses and the multigenerational shareholder families behind them show that this success can only be achieved through a strategic family discourse that must be conducted repeatedly (von Schlippe et al. 2017, 2021). Current practices of shareholder family management, some of which have been practised for generations, show that lived and communicated value attitudes as well as internal family behavioural expectations are discussed, negotiated and (ideally) written down in an at least emotionally binding manner for all family members in this framework. The contents written down in corresponding family documents as family constitutions, charters or codes serve as a kind of guideline for the members of the community of owners. They are used for the structured answering of classic core questions for their own security as a family of shareholders and for the continued existence of the company in joint family ownership.

General Family Strategy Considerations The process of defining a family strategy is seen by the members of the shareholder family as a conscious examination of questions relating to the future. In essence, the questions and the answers found relate to the positioning of the partner family as a whole, as well as of each individual member, initially in relation to the common

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Individual commitment to the family business / key issues of survival 12

Definion of Family

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Exisng family management system

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Values and goals for company and family

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Distribuon policy/ asset strategy

Process and contents of a family strategy

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Role and funcon of members of the family in the company

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Conflict management / crisis prevenon Informaon, communicaon and behavior

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Role and funcon of family members as shareholders Installaon of commiees

Fig. 2 Contents of a family strategy. (From: von Schlippe et al. 2017, p. 235)

assets. These consist essentially of the family business and the entrepreneurial responsibility borne by the joint ownership. In addition, the attitude and approach towards the tradition as a business family as well as the self-image as such is a central component of a family’s strategic self-reflection. Interestingly, revisions and adjustments take place almost automatically with each generational change. In the process, each new generation tries to find its perspective, interpretation and (if necessary) adjustment of the family values. Thus, in each generation a new variant for dealing with and preserving the transgenerational heritage emerges that is suitable for that generation. Existing family management systems can be grouped into 12 thematic complexes (see Fig. 2), each of which addresses a central issue whose clarification and addressing by the shareholder family is forward-looking. In addition to clarifying the general basic attitude towards the preservation of the family business and the cross-generational community of owners as a family (Complex 1), questions of affiliation and membership conditions are dealt with in relation to the family network (Complex 2). The family’s lived values and expectations of the community of owners or the company and its top management (Complex 3) are formulated. Finally, the attitude towards the participation of family members in the company (Complex 4), the self-image as shareholders (Complex 5)

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and finally the committees and procedures in which the control and monitoring function of the shareholders, but also the family management are organized (Complex 6), are dealt with. Central, especially in the case of large communities of owners, is the organization of information and feedback processes of the community of shareholders and their representatives in the committees (Complex 7). The definition of defined procedures for dealing with conflicts within the community of owners (Complex 8) is just as important as the clarification of the basic attitude towards the joint family assets (Complex 9). Professional shareholder families also define procedures, systems of rules and intra-family responsibilities, for example through so-called “caretaker functions” or the use of supporting structures such as a family office (Complex 10), as well as the form of systematic development and maintenance of shareholder competence (Complex 11). Finally, a family strategy includes dealing with breaches or violations of the family’s own rules and a systematic review and adjustment of the family management system (Complex 12). The aforementioned issues arise for every business family above a certain size, usually in the transition from the second to the third or the third to the fourth generation.

Specific Family Strategies for Dynastic Extended Families When considering dynastic extended families, several specific features need to be taken into account concerning the forms of the family management system. In this special form of business family, as already described above, the central family strategy issues lie in the organization of binding social ties, cohesion and the preservation of competence. Here, those responsible for family management must increasingly ask themselves in what form the notion of a common crossgenerational orientation or commitment to the family business is still possible. This is made more difficult by the increasingly complex family structures described above. In the course of our survey of the participating families, it became clear that the representatives of the dynastic extended families are recruited from the core families of previous holders of responsibility. This seems to be where the interest in and willingness to commit to the business family and the family business are most likely to be found. This is initially also understandable, since in corresponding nuclear families the family business and the tasks of the management of the business family were experienced much more closely in everyday family life and thus the consciousness of the descendants was shaped differently.

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A declining motivation in dynastic extended families can also be described as the result of decades of successful patriarchal decision-making and organizational structures in the preceding generations. The successes of the actors in charge can in fact have a major downside: the non-active shareholders who have not been elected to a supervisory or advisory body of the company are caught in a “learning trap” – they have either comfortably settled for the work being done by others, or they experience discouragement in their involvement due to a lack of available opportunities for participation. This leads to a loss of interest in the company, and the focus of attention increasingly turns to the value of the shareholding and the distributions received through it. On the other hand, the family members who contribute to the company and the cohesion of the business family often intermingle only among themselves. The exchange within the extended family – as outlined above – is in danger of being lost. This is where family management needs to find solutions (such as media or digital communication platforms) that address the needs of individual family members in the context of their lives and at the same time are so attractive that regular use of such solutions is seen as a desirable and enriching part of their own lives. Managing the dynastic extended family in this context therefore means much more than improved service or more extensive “one-way communication” of expectations, information and messages from the committee members to the extended group of the family community. Well-functioning communication within the family creates personal and digital communicative spaces beyond “ego communication”. However, this requires a steadily increasing involvement of interested family members of all ages and the passing through of some difficult times, especially when the cohesion had been eroding for some time. The case studies examined show that it takes five to ten years of lively interactive communication within the family community before results become visible. This then has – similar to adult education – rather the character of an “enabling didactic” (Arnold and Schüssler 2003).

Requirements for Family Managers in Dynastic Extended Families If the primary objective of the members of the dynastic extended family is to achieve and maintain cohesion as a closed system, there is a need for the establishment and support of a family investor relations organizational unit in relation to the company. It can be formulated as an expectation of the owners towards themselves and at the same time towards the company. In addition to communicating the

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company’s strategy, current market and competitive dynamics and economic performance indicators, this unit must support or independently carry out all measures that enable the control, development and management of the shareholder group as a community of related individuals. It immediately becomes clear that the tasks, structures and competences required here must be dualistic in nature. It must be clarified whether corresponding units are to be located on the side of the company (e.g. as a shareholder office) or with an independent organization of the shareholders (e.g. as a family office). Regardless of the answer to the structural connection of family management, it becomes clear with regard to the competences required here that family management must also have more socio-pedagogical skills in dealing with familiality in addition to classic business management and legal skills. In connection with the complex family structures present here, this means that profound knowledge must be acquired of social and group dynamics, individual and familial psychological patterns and models, as well as communication theories and forms and models for the interactive shaping of communication in large groups. If we follow these findings, then it becomes clear that the classic requirements or training for a supervisory or advisory board member in the management of a large shareholder family are useful and necessary, but not sufficient. The training of a member of a supervisory and control body is, in accordance with the focus of the task, geared towards business management and legal factors of the company, which are certainly important. However, the compensation of communicative and familydynamic backgrounds through many years of experience as a committee member or through acquired trust in the family, which is often carried out in practice, is not sufficient for the control and management task of the family community required here. If the dynastic extended family is to be professionally managed by a corresponding family committee, then in addition to the family members responsible for managing the business, persons must also become active here who have the corresponding training, skills and above all experience. A profile of the requirements to be fulfilled for this second important role would accordingly include a degree in psychology, social pedagogy or sociology, sound knowledge of communication theories and designs, as well as specifically acquired and extensive practical experience in dealing with conflict-laden communication, interpersonal conflict dynamics or activities as a mediator. A sensible first step towards designing a family management system tailored to the special needs of a dynastic extended family would be to formulate a requirements profile for the family management as a body. Here (analogous to the

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logic of high-performance teams) corresponding individuals could be selected for the respective fields of competence to be represented. Such a heterogeneously structured family management system of the dynastic business family thus reflects both the entrepreneurially relevant competences and those necessary for family cohesion. The part of family management that is dedicated to the needs within the family community is then less directed towards fulfilling grassroots democratic ideas of co-determination or individual needs in individual cases. Rather, it provides a systematic organization of opportunities for discussion and reflection within the larger family circle. Analogous to the works council for the employees of the company, the family investor relations organizational unit then becomes a socio-pedagogical “caretaker unit” for the members of the dynastic extended family.

Conclusion The aim of this article is to raise awareness of the fact that a certain type of shareholder family has received little attention in research to date. In the management of a dynastic extended family, it is often no longer a matter of the classic contents of a family strategy, with which many business families of smaller and medium size are concerned, since they already bear the traits of dynastic families because they are highly diversified over several generations. However, large dynastic families have usually already gone through these processes a long time ago and are faced with other tasks and challenges. Here it is a matter of ensuring, on the basis of well-established structures, that the centrifugal dynamics are counteracted and that identification, social cohesion and motivation can always arise anew within the large family network. Accordingly, dynastic extended families need a family management system that is organized as a family-investor-relations unit. In addition to the classic tasks, a professional approach to the individual family members, their wishes and needs for participation, communication and development opportunities must also be implemented. If the individual member of a nuclear family is left to his own devices within the dynastic extended family, the loss of interest in the community or network is to be expected and the disintegration of the large shareholder family is foreseeable.

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Koellner, T., Kleve, H., Simons, F., von Schlippe, A., & Rüsen, T. (2020). „Vermögensmanagement in großen Unternehmerfamilien: Zwischen individuellem Anspruch und kollektiver Verantwortung.“ Zeitschrift für KMU und Entrepreneurship 03 (2020), (pp. 191–217). Koellner, T., Haver-Rassfeld, H. & Kleve, H. (2022). “Das Doing-Family-Konzept: Eine neue Perspektive zum Verständnis der Herstellung und des Zusammenhalts von Unternehmerfamilien“. Familienunternehmen und Strategie 01/2022, (pp. 11–17). Kormann, H. (2017). Governance des Familienunternehmens. Wiesbaden: Springer Gabler. Kühl, S. (2003). Exit – Wie Risikokapital die Regeln der Wirtschaft verändert. Frankfurt a. M.: Campus. Lambrecht, J. & Lievens, J. (2008). Pruning the Family Tree: An Unexplored Path to Family Business Continuity and Family Harmony. Family Business Review 21(4), (pp. 295–313). Leiß, G. (2014). „Ich seh das Ganze als Staffellauf“. Intergenerative Aushandlung im Nachfolgeprozess von Unternehmerfamilien. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Lück, H. (1996). Die Feldtheorie und Kurt Lewin: Eine Einführung. Weinheim: Beltz. Lueger, M. & Frank, H. (Eds.). (2018). Die Unternehmerfamilie im Kontext ihres Familienunternehmens. Wien: Facultas. May, P. & Bartels, P. (Eds.). (2017). Governance im Familienunternehmen. Köln: Bundesanzeiger Verlag. Melin, L., Nordqvist, M. & Sharma, P. (Eds.). (2014). The Sage Handbook of family business research. Los Angeles, London: SAGE Publications. Morck, R. & Yeung, B. (2003). Agency Problems in Large Family Business Groups. Entrepreneurship, Theory and Practice (27), (pp. 367–382). Otten-Pappas, D. (2013). The female perspective on family business successor commitment. Journal of Family Business Management, 3(1), (pp. 8–23). Otten-Pappas, D. & Jäkel-Wurzer, D. (2017). Weibliche Nachfolge: Ausnahme oder Regelfall? Eine Studie zur aktuellen Situation im Generationswechsel deutscher Familienunternehmen. Witten: Eine Studie des Wittener Instituts für Familienunternehmen (WIFU). Renders, A. & Gaeremynck, A. (2012). Corporate Governance, Principal-Principal Agency Conflicts, and Firm Value in European Listed Companies. Corporate Governance: An International Review (20), (pp. 125–143). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/j. 1467-8683.2011.00900 Rüsen, T. A., von Schlippe, A., & Groth, T. (2014). Gesellschafterkompetenz in Familienunternehmen. Über gezielte Aus- und Weiterbildungsprogramme in Unternehmerfamilien. Familienunternehmen und Stiftungen (pp. 101–108). Rüsen, T. A., Kleve, H., & von Schlippe, A. (2021). Managing Business Family Dynasties. Cham: Springer. von Schlippe, A. (2014). Das kommt in den besten Familien vor. Systemische Konfliktberatung in Familien und Familienunternehmen. (1. edition). Stuttgart: Concadora. von Schlippe, A., Groth, T. & Rüsen, T. (2017). Die beiden Seiten der Unternehmerfamilie. Familienstrategie über Generationen. Auf dem Weg zu einer Theorie der Unternehmerfamilie. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. von Schlippe, A., Groth, T. & Rüsen, T. A. (2021). The Two Sides of the Business Family. Governance and Strategy Across Generations. Cham: Springer.

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Sharma, P. (2004). An Overview of the Field of Family Business Studies: Current Status and Directions for the Future. Family Business Review (17), (pp. 1–36). Simon, F. B., Wimmer, R. & Groth, T. (2005). Mehr-Generationen-Familienunternehmen. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Suess, J. (2014). Family Governance: Literature review and the development of a conceptual model. Journal of Family Business Strategy (5), (pp. 138–155). Wagenknecht, S. (2013). Freiheit statt Kapitalismus. Über vergessene Ideale, die Eurokrise und unsere Zukunft. München: dtv. Wimmer, R., Domayer, E., Oswald, M. & Vater, G. (2018). Familienunternehmen – Auslaufmodell oder Erfolgstyp? (3. edition). Wiesbaden: Gabler.

Tom A. Rüsen Prof. Dr., is economist, Managing Director of WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke. Arist von Schlippe Prof. Dr., is psychologist, Chair of Leadership and Dynamics of Family Businesses, WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke. Heiko Kleve Prof. Dr., is sociologist and social pedagogue, holder of the Chair for Organization and Development of Business Families at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke.

The “Tripled” Family: Dynastic Business Families as Families, Organizations, and Networks Heiko Kleve, Arist von Schlippe, and Tom A. Rüsen

Starting Points Starting from a critical review of the often cited “three circles model” (Tagiuri and Davis 1996), the evaluation led to the first approach to formulate a systems theory of the business family. The focus was shifted from the difficult-to-specify notion of an “overlap” between family, business, and ownership (see also v. Schlippe and Groth in this volume for more details) to another aspect: the “doubled family.” It is not the three systems that are in conflict. Rather, it is the business family that must constantly oscillate back and forth between the logic of the “family” and that of the “business family.” Therefore, it must work through the paradoxes that this inevitably entails. Instead of an overlapping or either-or logic, a perspective of simultaneity of both thus emerges. For family communication, then, the following problem arises: It is often difficult to differentiate between one or the other communication logic (and the associated expectation structures). Family strategy in this context has the task of providing clear “context markers” (Bateson 1981, p. 374) and thus giving orientation to family members. A theory of the family business, v. Schlippe et al. (2017, 2021) conclude, must therefore first and foremost be a theory of the business family and must address the challenges faced by this form of family. The empirical background of this contribution is a project that analyzed very old and large business families in Germany and developed the thesis of the “doubled” family. In this, the specifics of dynastic business families, which can consist of H. Kleve (✉) · A. von Schlippe · T. A. Rüsen Witten Institute for Family Business, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_11

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several hundred members, are reflected. In these families, at least three problems arise: • Firstly, its members hardly know each other personally and grow up in different contexts; • Secondly, even shareholders’ meetings or family days have long since failed to involve all those concerned; and, • Thirdly, the provision of relevant information for the shareholders and their decision-making and communicative coordination among each other require an elaborate management of the complexity and diversity of people and opinions. This is also based on the logic of action research in reconstructive social research. This leads practitioners and researchers into a joint learning process: The “object of study” changes in the research process as the learning experiences themselves do. These experiences are repeatedly fed back into the research process and are the subject of reflection (Bohnsack 2000; Burns 2007). The focus of the research relates in particular to the following questions: • How do numerically large business families realize the organization of their family management? • How do they shape their communication and ensure both formal and informal interaction? • What problems arise in the organization and communication in these families and which strategies are applicable? Already in the first phases of the project it became clear that the outlined concept of the “doubled” family described the large business families only partially. Of course, business families also have the task of continuously balancing the logics of a “classic” family and those of an organized business family. But their specifics go far beyond that task. They even have to triple their shape (Gestalt) by establishing themselves as a family, a formally organized business family, and a “dynastic” family network (see also Jaffe and Lane 2004, p. 82; Bergfeld and Weber 2011). A business family never reaches such a dynastic stage without a high degree of organization and structure (Jaffe and Lane 2004). It is therefore very different from smaller families with only a few shareholders and family members. In the context of family businesses, nuclear families realize what families generally achieve in modern society and what is expected of them in terms of their functions: They see themselves as the primary socialization context for people. They integrate people holistically and are therefore geared towards satisfying the

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basic bio-psycho-social needs of their members. In addition, as business families, they are challenged to gradually organize themselves formally in accordance with the requirements of the growing complexity of business and family. They have to set up committees, carry out family-strategy processes, and structure their business and family-related decision-making processes on the basis of family governance concepts. However, it is apparent in large business families that neither the classic family concept nor the model of the formally organized business family alone can solve the problem of cohesion and intra-family cooperation in large, dynastic family groups (Kleve et al. 2020; Rüsen et al. 2021). For this purpose, another social mechanism is needed that establishes itself beyond close family relationships and also beyond professional relationships of organized business families. This mechanism or social form is referred to here as a network of non-specific give and take. By this network we mean the values shared by the members of the owner families or the basic motivation of belonging to a transgenerational community with responsibility for the business and to follow certain rules that restrict individual opportunities. In the following section, the “tripled” business family is reflected in terms of systems theory by showing that all three social forms concerned here, the family, the formally organized business family, and the family network, can be described as solutions to specific problems of reference. This contribution thus represents an attempt to formulate a theory of “big families,” i.e. large business families, on the basis of a systems theory of the business family (see also Kleve et al. 2020; Rüsen et al. 2021).

Families Families, especially the classical nuclear families consisting of two to three generations (parents, children, and possibly grandparents), are atypical systems for modern society because they bind people holistically and integrate them biopsycho-socially (e.g. Fuchs 1999; Luhmann 1990; Simon 2000). In this way, families solve a social problem that can be defined as an anthropological constant of human existence: Human socialization (especially in the first years of life) requires social bonds in which all biological, psychological, and social needs are included and sensitively satisfied (see, e.g. Grossmann and Grossmann 1995; v. Sydow 2008). Attachment and the desire to belong are the most basic human needs (Baumeister and Leary 1995), and it is the family that provides these. It should also provide these in terms of societal structures of expectation (which is

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readily apparent from the occasional public outrage over reports of child welfare endangerment). As a rule, this relationship context is the nuclear family, which is formed by the parents and possibly by the grandparents, in whatever constellations they live in (in a pluralized society). In terms of systems theory, this social form is characterized by the communication medium of love (Luhmann 1982). In the medium of love, whether this is expressed as love between a couple or as the love of parents for their child and vice versa, the respective other becomes the decisive contextual factor of one’s own life. Love needs positive reciprocity, i.e. that one’s own life is also seen from the perspective of the relevant other(s) and related to it. Therefore, the form of family relationships is not only manifested in the relationship of parents to their children, but also and first and foremost in the couple relationship, which – at least in Western modernity – develops and manifests itself through a holism. That is, it needs a declaration of love, which indicates that the whole person of the counterpart is meant, not just a part such as the labor force, which is what organizational communication is about (key differences that need to be addressed include attachment and decision-making communication, see v. Schlippe et al. 2017, 2021). Luhmann speaks of “full inclusion” in this context, by which he means a family’s tendency to exaggerate communication and extend it to “everything”: “Walking, for example [. . .] when it takes place in the home, is almost inevitably observed as communication and thereby becomes communication in the network of observations of observations” (Luhmann 1990, p. 205). Families are characterized by the reciprocity of give and take. In families, life itself is passed on. This gift binds those to whom life is given, that is, children, to those from whom life comes, such as parents, grandparents, and so on. With this, and with the dependence of human newborns and infants on nurturing and caring parents, the human conscience develops as a kind of family conscience that rewards all actions that confirm belonging to the primary family group with positive feelings, while actions that might damage this belonging are accompanied by negative feelings (“remorse”) (Hondrich 2004). All this also applies to small and nuclear families in the context of family businesses. They, like all other families, are structured by the bio-psycho-social requirements and needs that shape human life. However, in these families there is a significant contextual factor that enriches the complexity of family life in a lasting way: the family-owned business. In a sense, the members of such families not only live their own lives, but are linked to the existence of one or more businesses. This family business ownership is not only bound up with the presence of the socialization and identity formation of the family members. It is also linked to both the history and the future of the family, thus exhibiting a transgenerational

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component. This is precisely what constitutes the special type of family business: That there is a co-evolution of family and business that significantly shapes both social systems, the family, and the business. Thus, there is a “mutual coloring” in the sense that the family becomes more business-like and the business more familylike (Simon 1999, 2012; Wimmer et al. 2018). The larger the family becomes through the transgenerational succession in the business, the more likely it is that family management of the business will be taken care of by outside professionals. This preconditions a different handling of tasks inside the business family. In many cases, the need for regulation becomes apparent in the form of concrete tasks and thus leads, at first slowly, to the formation of governance structures. Later, when family businesses enter the third or fourth generation and usually comprise several nuclear families owning the business, the need arises to explicitly manage and formally organize especially business-related communication within the growing extended family and thus ensure family cohesion (Koeberle-Schmid et al. 2012; Kormann 2011; v. Schlippe et al. 2017).

Formally Organized Business Families When families of family businesses formally organize themselves, they expand their structure and include a second social form, the formally organized business family. They enrich their familiality with an aspect that is foreign to the family, and as business families they simultaneously become a type of formal organization because they form a specific form of family organization in addition to their existence as a “classic” family (see, e.g. v. Schlippe et al. 2017, 2021; Simon et al. 2005; Wimmer et al. 2018). Organizations solve different social reference problems than families. Organizations depend on factual decisions being made. To this end, they involve people in their communications in a way that is fact-, competence-, performance-, and function-related and based on the division of labor (Luhmann 2000). In contrast to families, organizations therefore do not relate to people holistically, but only in part (partial inclusion). With regard to the families of family businesses, it should be added that, at least from a legal point of view, only those family members who own shares in the business belong to the business family. As a rule, the business family thus comprises fewer members than the “classic” family group of descendants. The formally organized business family develops and implements structures, functions, and positions that are formulated in a family governance and are often created as part of a family-strategy development process. The structures built, such

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as a family council or a shareholders’ committee, are staffed with people from the business family who are determined within the framework of election procedures. Within the committees, company and/or family-related decisions are made. This results in a process of function-related hierarchy formation that is typical for organizations and is structured quite differently from hierarchy formation in the family (which is defined by generational affiliation). In large business families, such a professionalized organization of decisionmaking can lead over time to a situation where there are only a few active family shareholders, but more and more non-active ones. The latter observe the development of the company and ask for information and co-determination, perhaps participating in elections and selected meetings of the business family or the group of shareholders, but otherwise remain passive. As the size of the ownership group increases, the question arises as to how the identification of the numerous shareholders within the company can be secured. How can this specific form of social capital and the resource of familiness be upheld (Frank et al. 2010; Weismeier-Sammer et al. 2013)? This is important because there is a difference between whether the owners value their company in a return-oriented way, analogous to the ownership of shares at the stock exchange, or whether they cultivate the idea of a family business as a transgenerational mission and see ownership as a responsibility that has to be passed on to the next generation. In addition, different forms of reciprocity are established in organizations than in families. Here, a legally regulated and economically calculated (financial) service in return is expected for every service rendered, i.e. a form of payment. Thus the expectation of the members of the business family that their commitment to the family will be remunerated can lead to disputes if parts of the family regard the annual profit distributions as a kind of “trustee fee” and thus as sufficient payment for the commitment shown. However, the larger a business family becomes, the more complex the tasks of family management and the higher the demands on the people responsible and their competencies (Astrachan and Pieper 2011; Horváth et al. 2015). Accordingly, it becomes difficult to stimulate, maintain, and sustain commitment to the family and intra-family cooperation. This raises the central problem that in large business families, which may well consist of several hundred family members, intra-family relationships, especially informal ones, are not self-explanatory. Instead they have to be actively encouraged and shaped, produced and reproduced (see also Koellner et al. 2023). It is precisely at this point that a “qualitative leap” from the “doubled” to the “tripled” family can be observed. Here a third social form emerges as a solution: the social family network.

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Large Business Families as Networks The Threefold Task for Family-Strategy Development in Large Business Families The task of managing the difference between the logic of attachment, which characterizes family communication, and the logic of decision-making in the company, leads to the “doubling” of the family as a business family. The small and nuclear family is characterized by close social relationships based on biological descent relationships. Strong bonds are strengthened by communal living, in which people are included with all their bio-psycho-social personality aspects. As an “organized family,” it must at the same time also be able to act in categories of the decision-making logic, i.e. to handle family relationships as functional and factual relationships in which only those parts of a person are included which are necessary for the performance of functions and services and for the fulfillment of assigned positions and tasks. Here, business families often face enormous challenges, since their actions as a business family (e.g. allocation or exclusion of positions) are often understood in the logic of the “classical” family. With the logic of the network, the growing business family reaches a new quality that needs to be managed: “On the one hand, there is the nuclear family, organized not much differently from everyone else around it, and on the other hand, there is the network of cousins, parents, grandparents, uncles, great aunts, etc., created by common ownership, which is also called family” (Simon 2012, p. 72). Similarly, Jaffe and Lane (2004, p. 82) state, when talking about the “dynastic family,” “we feel it is an appropriate term for a network of families who are joined as an economic unit.” The special aspect they point out is that not only do individuals organize themselves in such a network, but that it also includes many independent nuclear families, which are often only vaguely connected by their surname and joint ownership of the family enterprise (Kleve et al. 2020; Rüsen et al. 2021). We can understand such networks as relational contexts that are realized beyond close nuclear family relationships and also beyond organizational ties; they lie basically across them (Kleve 2017a, b). Network relationships solve the problem of social inclusion where the interpersonal relationships and the social relationships cannot be regulated through close kinship ties or through formal organizational contexts. For example, friendship, acquaintance, and neighborhood relations take the form of social networks. Accordingly, we propose to describe the social relations between the distantly related members of very large business families (approximately 80 to 100 members, and often far more) as social network relations

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and to take this idea as the starting point of a systems theory of the large business family. We start from the following thesis: The better these family societies succeed in stimulating and permanently stabilizing network relations, the more sustainable family cohesion and intra-family cooperation will be.

Expectations of Compensation in Social Systems An elementary quality of social behavior consists in balancing feelings of obligation (Homans 1972; Stegbauer 2011). According to Gouldner, social structures are more likely to be stable when they are in reciprocal functional exchange relationships (Gouldner 1984; Uehara 1995). This reciprocity is closely related to the need for justice (Montada 2003): When is one “even” with someone? How can one ever be “even” with one’s ancestors and their diligence and renunciation? A closer look at the difference in compensation logic quickly shows that it is very different in a family, in an organization, and in networks. • In a family, compensation can often be “stretched out” for a very long time and be out of proportion with the effort. A single mother, for example, will experience compensation when her daughter, for whom she made it possible to enroll as a student with great effort, successfully completes her master’s thesis and thanks her with a symbolic gift or a personal speech. Years of effort are repaid with thanks (Stierlin 2005). However, the intra-family settlements of what one has brought into the relationship oneself and what one expects in compensation from another can also lead to fierce conflicts and disputes in families, because the “management of accounts” and the accompanying expectations of compensation are certainly made in different individual ways even within nuclear families (Stierlin 1997). “Psychological contracts” and the expectations associated with them can be interpreted very differently (v. Schlippe and Hülsbeck 2016). • In organizations, completely different expectations of compensation apply. The balancing of give and take is embedded in contractual law, mostly exclusively financially and rather in the short term through remuneration, payment, salary, or in the medium term in the granting of career opportunities. Both in families and in companies, the expectations of compensation arise from membership in the system. In networks this is different; here membership is only established through the dynamics of give and take. • Network relationships thus come about when a reciprocity of unspecific give and take develops between at least two people. The attribute “unspecific” makes it clear that it is not a matter of a formalized relationship in which the give-and-

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take relationship is legally stipulated. The only thing that is clear in network relations is that those who have received something are confronted with the expectation (and also expect this expectation by themselves) that they will have to give something back in due course (on the concept of so-called “expectationexpectations” see Luhmann 1984, pp. 412–413). In terms of its fit, this return gift is subject to the evaluations of the people involved and, in dynastic families, can be partly thought of or “expected” across generations. From their point of view, therefore, it must be considered appropriate both at a given time and in terms of its subject matter, so that it is offset as a gift in the network context of give and take. In this way, it becomes particularly clear in networks that social, interpersonal action can at the same time be understood as action in the economic sense (Stierlin 1997). Action is thus an exchange of give and take, a reciprocation of gifts and counter-gifts, a process of reciprocity (Hondrich 2001, 2004; Simon et al. 1998; Stegbauer 2011). In dynastic families, where shares are often very valuable, the transfer to the next generation often includes the implicit promise to preserve the firm’s shares and to increase their value before they are passed on to the next generation. As long as this chain of expectations is reproduced and the beneficiary family descendants behave in accordance with expectations, the network remains in equilibrium, so to speak. Such reciprocal processes create liabilities and loyalties, beyond close family relationships and organization-related positions, functions, and claims. However, the liabilities and loyalties are only made permanent and implemented in the long term if the imbalance between give and take is preserved and upheld by those involved: It is the difference between giving and receiving that secures commitment. Whoever has received something therefore gives back something more than he/she received, so that a new claim and a new expectation of the return gift can develop: “If we receive a favor, we feel obliged to return the favor. The extent of the reciprocation is usually greater than the favor received” (Werth and Mayer 2008, p. 319, the so-called “tit for tat plus one”). However, in contrast to economically or legally regulated formal relationships in organizations, there are no objective criteria for this reciprocity in network relationships. What the participants define as appropriate give and take depends on their subjective reference systems, their personal account management, and the values that apply within the family network (see also Simon et al. 1998; Stierlin 1997). Finally, another distinction is important for understanding network relationships – namely, that between direct and generalized reciprocity (Stegbauer 2011). Direct reciprocity means the reciprocity of give and take that takes place between two people, which binds these two people into an interrelated network

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relationship. Generalized reciprocity means that the reciprocal relationship of give and take is also attributed to the group or system to which the people involved belong. Thus, whoever receives something from a member of the business family develops a compensatory obligation towards the business family as a network system in the context of generalized reciprocity.

The Family Network as a Stable Structure over Time In large business families, the family network functions as the context of a common socialization that overlaps the small and nuclear family contexts. The basis of this network is membership in an extended family kinship group and the associated joint ownership of one or more companies. The family network thus encompasses numerous nuclear families and their members, but does not formalize their affiliation. Instead, it thrives on the fact that processes of give and take are repeatedly stimulated and realized. What characterizes such networks in large business families is a structure of reciprocity of unspecific, informal give and take. The economic system is also carried out through give and take, but here the exchange of goods or services takes place in exchange for money. The universally applicable medium of money fully balances the debt between the buyer and the seller. In social network systems, compensation takes place through communications that are unspecific: Something is given by one party to another, without either party being entirely certain when and in what way, through what actions, and how the action will be reciprocated. Socially, it is merely understood that something is to be returned – whenever and whatever. The way in which this thing is returned must, of course, be considered suitable in the eyes of the person who expects this return and has corresponding claims or expectations. Accordingly, social networks generate an expectation structure that all participants anticipate: To take means to return something suitable at a given time. Luhmann (1997, p. 651) discusses such reciprocal phenomena of giving and taking in the context of pre-modern tribal societies. In these societies, each giving, each gift, began a “social time” (Luhmann 1997) that shares a memory of what was given from an expectation that something is to be given back. “Every gift creates a provisionally unbalanced situation. [. . .] And since society has no beginning and no end, but communicates in a recursive network of memories and expectations, there is, strictly speaking, no ‘voluntary’ service that is not already reciprocation and obliges reciprocation” (Luhmann 1997, pp. 651–652).

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Finally, the question of how much time can pass between giving and taking without causing irritation is interesting in this context. Robert Axelrod (Axelrod 1984, p. 157), in his discussion of human cooperation, explains the phenomenon known as the “robustness of reciprocity.” Network relationships are more robust in terms of their reciprocity, if the “shadow of the future” (Axelrod 1984, p. 18) is large enough, i.e. if “the individuals have a sufficiently large chance of meeting again so that they have a sufficient interest in their future interaction” (Axelrod 1984). Exactly this large shadow of the future is given in business families by the kinship affiliation and the common ownership per se. Time thus forms a special context in business families, as it does both: It connects to the past, i.e. to ancestral gifts, and also innovates, i.e. by orienting the business family towards the future and the next generation of family shareholders. This is done by valuing the present ownership of the company as a “fiduciary loan” that should be preserved and kept available for future generations.

Networking in Large Business Families: Five Observations How do large business families work to develop and persistently reproduce social networks of open reciprocity among family members? Although the term “network” is rarely used as a self-description in large business families to describe the work on family cohesion and cooperative relationships, as a first partial result of our project we can observe five strategies that are implemented in these families to stabilize and expand social network relationships. They will be briefly outlined here. 1. Make the Family and its Entrepreneurial Orientation Visible throughout its History The first strategy refers to the family affiliation to the business family. Here it is a question of each individual member of the business family being able to understand in what way he or she is connected to the founders of the family business in terms of kinship and thus also in terms of ownership via succession and inheritance. Knowledge of this history not only creates an identification with the family and the business, but also conveys feelings of belonging, responsibility, and loyalty to the ancestors, i.e. forms of generalized reciprocity. Numerous large business families have recognized the importance of this strategy and do not only develop family trees and chronicles of their family history, but also open museums on family and company history or restore old ancestral homes and turn them into meeting places.

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In this way, the family network shows itself to be systemically differentiated. It forms a clear external boundary to the group of people who do not belong to it; it is closed to a certain extent. At the same time, it allows potential for inclusion: It can only include, but does not have to include, those people who are connected by family affiliation. 2. Establish Social Formats and Meaningful Frameworks for Annual Meetings Members of business families have the privilege of receiving money for which they have not worked. Therefore, it is not highlighted as an individual entitlement to which one has a right as a member of the business family. Instead, it is framed as a gift from the founders and an obligation to future generations (e.g. in the declaration of dividends as a trustee fee). Regardless of the legal status of this, it is advantageous for the design of sustainable network relations and reciprocity if the benefits of membership (such as the distributions) in the network are individually and socially accounted for as “gifts.” In this way, they are described as unearned and attributable to some form of luck, and thus challenge generalized family- and/or company-related compensatory obligations of those who receive them. 3. Create Informal Opportunities for Exchange and Networking What generally happens “naturally” in the family and is implemented in organizations in a formally structured way through positions, functions, and monetary remuneration systems, takes place on suitable occasions between initially unconnected people who nevertheless have or develop common interests, concerns, or experiences: Direct reciprocal exchange relationships emerge. These are experienced by the members of the network of relationships as valuable, meaningful, and beneficial. This requires informal spaces and times, such as celebrations on certain occasions or forums for certain identifiable groups like children and young people, mothers, fathers, and so on. Digital social networks are also often set up specifically for this purpose. Social media is also often introduced specifically for communication in the business family and made available in access-protected internet areas. Especially large business families whose members live around the world benefit from this and already use many of these communication options. Therefore, it seems to be a central point that large business families also see themselves as a network, describe themselves accordingly, and also connect with each other through worldwide intra-family communications.

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4. Create Spaces of Recognition It can be assumed that it strengthens the network if particularly committed family members, who in whatever way promote communication in the business family and stimulate and maintain social relationships, receive explicit social recognition in terms of their commitment and achievements. A culture of appreciation uses familybalancing logic to strengthen network relationships in the extended family, ensuring the constant flow of give and take. By expressing appreciation for what individuals in the business family give in whatever form, compensation occurs through appreciation, such as in the extended family circle. This in turn strengthens the loyalty of the valued people towards the family and the company and may be an incentive for other people to also become more involved. 5. Create Spaces for the Inclusion of Individual Abilities A large business family comprises a great many different people who, although identical by the two associated criteria of kinship and ownership, are very different in terms of ownership shares and other personality traits. At best, it is possible not only to respect these individual differences, but also to incorporate them in an appropriate manner conducive to the entire family and the business. In this way, social formats could be created in the family in which the different abilities and competencies of the family members are regularly, i.e. recurrently, observed for the benefit of all. At the same time, the possibility of being actively involved and participating in the shaping of the common network promotes the stability of the bond between the members. This could be, for instance, formally organized workshops on specific family and company-related topics. If realized, they may initiate a very unique dynamic between the participants, who are responsible for the design of “their” workshop. In many cases, such workshop offerings are also aimed at the younger generations, who can build up social “capital” in this way. However, it is crucial that the results of such work are discussed in the business family in a way that is suitable for publicity and, if necessary, implemented. After all, commitment is more likely to be reproduced if its results can have a social impact.

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Conclusion The previous explanations make it clear that the development of theory on large dynastic business families is still in its early stages. The authors’ remarks are based on preliminary findings from a research project with representatives of six wellknown family businesses, each with more than 80 family shareholders. Our findings illustrate that the previous theoretical model of the “doubled business family” can be extended in the case of dynastic families and expanded into a model of the “tripled business family.” By introducing a network perspective as a complement to the systemic family and organizational theory of the business family, specific observations and dynamics peculiar to this business family type can be explained and described, and initial practical implications for adequate network management can be given.

References Astrachan, J. H. & Pieper, T. M. (2011). Developing responsible owners in family business. In EQUA-Stiftung (Ed.), Gesellschafterkompetenz – Die Verantwortung der Eigentümer von Familienunternehmen (pp. 102–110). Bonn: Unternehmer Medien. Axelrod, R. (1984) Die Evolution der Kooperation. München: Oldenbourg. Bateson, G. (1981). Ökologie des Geistes. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Baumeister, R. F. & Leary, M. R. (1995). The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation. Psychological Bulletin (117), (pp. 497–529). Bergfeld, M.-M. H. & Weber, M. (2011). Dynasties of innovation: highly performing German family firms and the owners’ role for innovation. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management (IJEIM) Vol. 13(1), (pp. 80–94). Bohnsack, R. (2000). Rekonstruktive Sozialforschung. Einführung in Methodologie und Praxis qualitativer Forschung (4. edition). Opladen: Leske & Budrich. Burns, D. (2007). Systemic Action Research: A strategy for whole system change. Bristol: Policy Press. Frank, H., Lueger, M., Nosé, L. & Suchy, D. (2010). The concept of “familiness”: Literature review and systems theory-based reflections. Journal of Family Business Strategy (1), (pp. 119–130). Fuchs, P. (1999). Liebe, Sex und solche Sachen. Zur Konstruktion moderner Intimsysteme. Konstanz: UVK. Gouldner, A. (1984). Reziprozität und Autonomie. Ausgewählte Aufsätze. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Grossmann, K. E. & Grossmann, K. (1995). Frühkindliche Bindung und Entwicklung individueller Psychodynamik über den Lebenslauf. Familiendynamik (20), (pp. 171–192). Homans, G. C. (1972). Elementarformen sozialen Verhaltens (2. edition). Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag.

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Simon, F. B. (2012). Einführung in die Theorie des Familienunternehmens. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Simon, F. B. & C/O/N/E/C/T/A-Autorengruppe. (1998). Radikale Marktwirtschaft. Grundlagen des systemischen Managements. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Simon, F. B., Wimmer, R. & Groth, T. (2005). Mehr-Generationen-Familienunternehmen. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Stegbauer, C. (2011). Reziprozität. Einführung in soziale Formen der Gegenseitigkeit. Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Stierlin, H. (1997). Verrechnungsnotstände: Über Gerechtigkeit in sich wandelnden Beziehungen. Familiendynamik (22), (pp. 136–155). Stierlin, H. (2005). Gerechtigkeit in nahen Beziehungen. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Sydow, K. v. (2008). Bindungstheorie und systemische Therapie. Familiendynamik (33), (pp. 260–273). Tagiuri, R. & Davis, J. A. (1996). Bivalent attributes of the family firm. Family Business Review (9), (pp. 199–208). Uehara, E. S. (1995). Reciprocity reconsidered: Gouldner’s “moral norm of reciprocity” and social support. Journal of Social and Personal Relationships (12), (pp. 483–502). Weismeier-Sammer, D., Frank, H. & Schlippe, A. v. (2013). Untangling “familiness”: A literature review and directions for future research. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (14), (pp. 165–177). Werth, L. & Mayer, J. (2008). Sozialpsychologie. Berlin: Spektrum Akademischer Verlag. Wimmer, R., Domayer, E., Oswald, M. & Vater, G. (2018). Familienunternehmen – Auslaufmodell oder Erfolgstyp? (3. edition.). Wiesbaden: Springer/Gabler.

Heiko Kleve Prof. Dr., is sociologist and social pedagogue, holder of the Chair for Organization and Development of Business Families at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke. Arist von Schlippe Prof. Dr., is psychologist, Chair of Leadership and Dynamics of Family Businesses, WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke. Tom A. Rüsen Prof. Dr., is economist, Managing Director of WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke.

Company, Family, Business Family: Systems-Theoretical Perspectives on the Extension of Three-Circle Thinking Arist von Schlippe and Torsten Groth

Introduction Systems thinking is widespread in family business research. At least since Donnelley (1964), the two circles “family” and “business” have played a crucial role in family business research, and thus – implicitly as well as explicitly – are considered to be two important systems. Later, the third circle “ownership” was added. These three systems – all researchers likely agree – shape both the family business and the business family. An important question in this research, however, is how the relationship between these systems is conceived: are the systems juxtaposed, parallel, coupled or overlapping? In a constructivist perspective, Alfred Korzybski (1933) claims all terms – such as “circles” or even “systems” up to entire theories – are “maps” with which one can attempt to designate the observable “landscapes” appropriately. The following reflections, based on questions and recent research on dynamics in business families, encourage us to assume a multitude of simultaneous, often contradictory expectations that create double binds (Litz 2012). The three systems are thus replaced by coexisting expectations that can be pooled along family, business and owner aspects, but are not exhaustively described as three “circles”.

A. von Schlippe (✉) · T. Groth Witten Institute for Family Business, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_12

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Too Much Ontology A common idea persists in the family business research community: family businesses “consist” of three systems that are intertwined and “overlap”. This idea is reflected in the so-called “three-circle model”, which is repeatedly used as a central concept for understanding family businesses and is almost always included in academic texts on family business research. Actors can be assigned to one of the fields “family”, “business” or “ownership” or can be found in one of the intersections between these fields. However, the questions of how this “overlapping” should be imagined in more detail and what exactly the “lobes” are that lie on top of each other, are usually left open. Thus, from our perspective, there is a need for clarification in at least two respects: First, how are social systems to be thought of in relation to the individual? And second, how is the relationship between the systems conceived? The concept of systems used in the literature is often vaguely defined (for critical comments, see v. Schlippe 2013; v. Schlippe and Frank 2013). For example, when individuals are conceptualized as the core elements of a social system “the individual represents the basic level of analysis. Yet too often research on family business omits the human element” (Pieper and Klein 2007, p. 307 with reference to Kast and Rosenzweig 1992). Accordingly, “organizational subsystems consist of groups that, in turn, consist of individuals” (Pieper and Klein 2007, p. 307). Such an understanding of the system might be intuitively obvious: larger social systems which “consist” of many people, can then be broken down into smaller systems, each of which involves fewer people. The latter are then in each case the elements of the larger, and the conception is oriented towards the relationship between part and whole. But this concept resembles a Russian matryoshka doll: each larger system “contains” one or more smaller ones in each case, and at the end it is the individual that is the basic level of analysis (v. Schlippe and Frank 2013, p. 387). As will be shown in the following part, such an understanding is built on theoretically questionable premises. A large part of what we consider to be highly relevant phenomena in business families can only be adequately captured if people are assumed to be the elements of social systems or if systems are imagined to be “nested” within each other. For several reasons this system concept remains unsatisfactory; it is on the one hand too simple and on the other hand too complex: • First, no separation is made between the individual as such and his or her “membership” or “role” in the respective system. If the individual were the

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element, how could one imagine that several systems can consist of the same individuals? If, let us say, father and daughter sit together in a board meeting, how does the communication “know” which system is active when they interact (a problem that is referred to as “polycontexturality”, e.g. in Vogd (2013))? What happens to system A if the individual co-constituting A moves to another space in which system B “resides” and which also “consists” of that individual, among others? What becomes of the individuals remaining in space A? How, then, can a meaningful distinction be made between systems when it is the individuals that constitute them (Jansen and v. Schlippe 2018, p. 127)? • On the other hand, with this concept of system one quickly acquires “a complexity that overtaxes any modelling” (Simon 2012a, p. 86, who also makes clear that with the difference “part/whole” one comes to limits here that do not arise with the difference “system/environment”). This complexity is problematic in two ways: on the one hand, if one wants to explain processes of the social system through the elements, one is confronted at the level of the individual with a complexity of inner processes that is difficult, if not impossible, to grasp and that determines the individual’s behaviour: emotions, motives, intentions and conscious and unconscious processes. On the other hand, the higher one climbs in the hierarchy of systems, the more complex the circumstances become, because then subsystems consist of people and are at the same time elements of the larger system, without it being clear exactly how this can work. At the same time, it remains unclear how one can imagine the “overlapping” of the systems, because one thing is clear: it is not the individuals that lie “on top of each other”. Obviously something else is overlapping, but what? Already here it becomes clear that the idea of three overlapping circles brings with it the danger of forgetting that “system” is a category of the observer: “A system is not something that is presented to the observer, it is something that is recognized by him” (Maturana 1982, p. 175). It is not like in a game of “man-against-man” where one has to imagine concrete people either in one field (family only, for instance) or in an intersectional field (between owners and family; between company and family) or, like the founder figure, in the intersectional field of three systems (and when he/she gives up shares, he/she moves into another field. . .). How he/she as founder can be a member of these three systems at the same time as an individual is beyond the imagination of that metaphor. This is also implicitly taken up by some authors: when, for example, “role conflict” is spoken of (Tagiuri and Davis 1996), the individual-related system concept is already implicitly abandoned in favour of a role-theoretical system concept that is not further elaborated.

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In short, whoever assumes “people in systems” produces an “ontology surplus”, sorts concrete people into concrete systems and is thus subject to thinking that “systems” really exist. This theoretical reconstruction, however, does not do sufficient justice to the intricate everyday constraints on action and decision-making by people who operate in business families and family businesses.

The Business Family as a Social System As is well known, the system concept of social systems theory does not assume individuals as elements. Communication acts are regarded as elements: “The elements composing the system can have no duration and thus must be constantly reproduced by the system these elements comprise” (Luhmann 1995, p. 11). Thus, the process of fleeting communications constitutes the “system”. Systems are then not understood ontologically (as something “being”) but as meaningfully interrelated communication processes. These processes, however, as much as they are to be understood as sequences of events, do not run completely randomly; they form patterns and become thematically predictable. In the theory of social systems, therefore, in addition to the focus on event-like elements, the concept of structure occupies a special position (cf. Luhmann 1995, pp. 278 ff.). Complementary to unpredictable events, structures restrict the space of possibilities and generate redundancies. Communication systems become identifiable: love communication, family communication and decision communication differentiate themselves, each via different expectations of communicative connections, each in different media. Whether, how and to which structures reference is made in communication becomes a question of identity for each social system and thus also a relevant research question. What this means for business families will be illustrated here using an example (following v. Schlippe 2022): In an interesting business family case, two key factors could be found for understanding a conflict that manifested itself primarily between father and son. In the context of the Christmas holidays, the parents of this family had offered the son and his partner the opportunity to succeed the management of the small hotel, their “jewel” as they called it, that they had built up. It was a highly emotional moment, and the young people happily accepted. Three weeks later, they presented a business plan to the parents with “strategic options”, proposals for structural changes and “milestones” on the way to the final handover of the business. The parents reacted deeply offendedly to this presentation. They experienced the couple’s behaviour as presumptuous, as an attempt to push them, the parents, out of the company and to “sit in the ready-made nest”. The son and his partner, on the other hand, were appalled by the parents’

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reaction, since they had, in their view, done exactly what was asked. Both sides reacted to the other with deep feelings of grievance and incomprehension. In the ensuing conflict management it could be understood that the grievance and incomprehension occurred because the participants were not aware of the simultaneous co-presence of two highly different expectation complexes: the familial expectations, according to which the communication offers of son and daughter-inlaw were observed for their significance for the bond and the relationship, and the expectation structures of corporate communication, according to which, in a systemtheoretical sense, communication offers are condensed as decision alternatives with reference to the future survival of an organization. (Luhmann 2000)

In counselling work with business families, the course of communication is often experienced as problematic by those involved. The problems are exacerbated due to a condensation of several family and entrepreneurial expectations that are charged with high significance and, in addition, a paradoxical intertwining of both expectations. In the experience of those involved, one has to deal with specific logic systems that clash in the everyday life of the business family members. Often it is not the case that both logic systems are mutually exclusive in practice. In such a case, it would be easy to predict, at least for the outside observer, that the emotions described above would arise. These feelings are linked to the feeling of hopelessness and cause blame that would be attributed in a person-related manner and sought in the assumed “wrongness” of the respective other (“stupid, sick or evil” cf. v. Schlippe 2013). The indignation can be seen as an indication of a lack of explanations among the family members. In the case presented above, the conflict could be resolved by working on the intertwining between family and business. Specifically, clearly recognizable contextual markers were introduced in each case: two chairs were placed opposite each other twice, so that the father or entrepreneur and the son or young entrepreneur could choose between a father or son chair and an incumbent or successor chair. It quickly became clear that “Christmas” had been accounted for by the father in his logic of a family system, while the son had accounted for the offer in the logic of the business. The father moved in the logic of family communication, the son in corporate communication. Both associated an unspoken expectation with this “localization”, which, however, was not met (Luhmann 1995, pp. 303 ff.). With the help of the representation in the room via chairs, a useful explanatory model of their mutual anger and disappointment was made clear to the participants.

The special feature of a business family communication system (but also of any other social system) is the permanent presence of highly diverse expectations that are all “in the room” at the same time. In this respect, it would reduce the complexity too much to see or think of the son only in the “company circle” and the father only

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in the “family circle”. The sole focus on the roles of the two would also only reflect a section of what structures the communication between the two. In his main work on systems theory, Social Systems, Luhmann refers to the multiplicity and diversity of expectations. He sees four typical forms of expectation formation: “programs”, “roles”, “person” and “values” (Luhmann 1995, pp. 313 ff.). This schema provides some possibilities for looking at business families in a way that reflects their complexity (Simon 2012b, pp. 85 ff.). Families typically have fewer “programmed” behavioural expectations than organizations, for example. However, a large part of all “rules of etiquette” could be seen as a programme. In business families, a rule from earlier times on succession would also correspond to a programme: “The oldest male descendant has to take over the company!” Here, in each case, it is specified quite precisely how one has to behave in certain situations. More relevant and more appropriate to the present situation seems to us the formation of expectations about “role” and “person”. In this respect, business families refer to theory in a particular way: how can it be explained that although the same people are in the room, we can at the same time infer the presence of two social systems? For the simultaneity of the presence of both episodes (“jewel” and “business plan”) shows that in this family there was an ambiguity – not conscious as such – about which “person” was addressed in which “role” in the communication in each case. By conceiving both “role” and “person” as expectations, it already becomes clear that it is no longer a matter of people or individuals, but of structuring communication. In the role expectation, a rather strong abstraction takes place here. Luhmann speaks of a “collectively attributed restriction of behavioural possibilities” (Luhmann 1991, p. 170). In the counselling case it becomes apparent that both follow an expectation that corresponds to typical role expectations – one as a “father” who expects recognition for his life’s work, and one as a “young entrepreneur” who wants to show himself as competent with the business plan. And the other is expected to behave in a way that to a certain extent prescribes role complementarity: show yourself as a good son and acknowledge what has been accomplished, or be an entrepreneur who recognizes my business plan with its (positive) implications for business development. Already in the attempt to relate the disappointments of expectations to the role alone, it becomes clear that emotionality can only be explained to some extent. Pure role conflicts would not be experienced as “hot conflicts” (Glasl 2014). In the case described, as elsewhere, something additional always plays a role: the “person”. Again, this does not mean the person or the individual, but an expectation that is specifically addressed to individuals, as an “individually attributed restriction of behavioural possibilities” (Luhmann 1991, p. 170). In terms of a “communication address”, the same individual can be addressed as a different “person” in different

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situations. For instance, in the communication system in the example, “oblique connections” occurred that were directed not only to the role, but to different people. If in family communication, entirely in the expectation of attachment and recognition, the sentence “We want to entrust our jewel to you!” is formulated, then the son is addressed not only in his role as “son”, but precisely and especially as a specific person and as the one whom one has raised since birth, with whom one links countless memories, and whom one endows with the expectation that this only son will accept the gift with gratitude. And when the son then responds as a completely different person, namely as a budding entrepreneur focused on decision-making logic, with “Here is our business plan!”, then it becomes understandable why the parents said at the beginning of the consultation: “Help us, we don’t know our son anymore!” Luhmann (1991) also speaks of bundles of expectations or constructs of communication and points out that expectations are always linked to every constructed person. Starting from constructs may sound “inhuman”, but – quite in contrast to talking about people in systems – it expands the possibilities of explaining empirically observable communication processes from the point of view of diverse and multi-layered constellations of persons and expectations. With regard to this case, it can be summarized that the disappointment takes place twice – on the level of the “role” and the “person” – quite apart from the value level, in which, depending on the family or company focus, quite different expectations also acquired relevance.

The “Duplicated” Family: Problems of Simultaneity As part of a larger research project (v. Schlippe et al. 2021), the Witten Institute for Family Business (WIFU) used a series of case studies to examine the various ways in which multigenerational and old business families set themselves up in terms of family strategy. It revealed a lot of “impossible tasks” which reconcile the family as a composite of close relatives and the family as a community of owners. Family as family is usually self-sufficient and the family of a family business, like all other families, also takes care of common family tasks (from lunch to schoolwork). In addition, the family as a business family has to constantly take care of balancing the concerns of family, business and owners. The concept of the “duplicated family” has been offered as an explanation for the problem (v. Schlippe et al. 2021, pp. 73 ff.): the family oscillates between its identity as a family and also as a business family. The paradoxical double task that the family (or communication) has to deal with can be reduced to the concise formula: “Be a family!” and “Be a

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Table 1 The two sides of the paradox of the business family Be a family! Maintain relationship bonds and cohesion! Respect and acknowledge each individual . . . Ensure that everyone can “save their face” . . . Ensure commitment of the family members to the business . . . Ensure that family members can develop freely and without constraints . . . Help the family to remain true to itself ...

Maintain the “fictional consensus” and ensure that everyone gets on with each other . . . Make decisions that the family considers to be fair . . .

Be a business family! Make decisions for the business! . . . and select the most competent individual(s) for appointments and committees! . . . and take decisions even though they will be painful for individuals! . . . and keep them as far removed as possible so as to protect the business from damaging family dynamics! . . . and organize training so as to ensure they are professionally prepared for any work involved! . . . and impose organizational structures for this purpose! In other words, introduce an element that is external to the family in order for it to remain a family! . . . and destroy the consensus if this is important for the business . . . and do justice to the business, the shareholders and the employees

From: v. Schlippe et al. (2021, p. 75)

business family!” And since there is the added expectation to be both at the same time, the classic conditions for paradox are present: follow expectation A (≠ B) but follow expectation B (≠ A) simultaneously. Table 1 summarizes which specific orders have to be answered simultaneously. By extension to the division into circles, the image of the duplicated family points to problems of simultaneity. As family and business family and respective persons, expectations are always present at least twice; one can never know exactly which expectations are expected and “active”. The respective “context markers” that usually help to differentiate various contexts are missing or blurred (Bateson 1972, p. 289): for example, at Sunday breakfast there is talk about strategy whereas in the company a personal dispute continues. The example shows how much one can theoretically get lost if one assumes that social systems consist “of individuals”. For a dilemma like that of the family mentioned above could not theoretically be reconstructed by recourse to individuals and their information processing.

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The Business Family as a Model Case for Polycontexturality The explanations of the previous section make it clear that a simplistic use of the concept of system should be carefully questioned. For one cannot “see” a social system, it is “invisible”, indeed it does not “exist” at all. It can only be inferred from the way one communication follows another. And what is understood as the functional logic of a system is also only a construction of the observer. We are dealing with multi-layered structures of expectation that are operative in various contexts and that appear to an observer as if several systems are “present” at the same time (although, strictly speaking, the word “overlapping” no longer makes sense here). Luhmann speaks of complex “nesting relations”: “selective processes can [. . .] belong to several systems at the same time, and can thus orient themselves to several system/environment references at the same time. Social systems are therefore not necessarily mutually exclusive – just like things in space” (Luhmann 2009, pp. 21–22). With the indistinguishable difference of simultaneously present communicative expectations and communication logic systems, the problems of family businesses are, in our opinion, marked much more appropriately with the term “overlap” than with the three circles. The expectations of one system logic are implicitly carried along in communication, even if the latter is currently present in the other (cf. Jansen and v. Schlippe 2018). In this context, the concept of “polycontexturality” coined by Gotthard Günther will be introduced (e.g. Vogd 2013). He assumes “that our social worlds can no longer be conceived as a hierarchical (logical) order, but are polycentric, i.e. organized across several logically equivalent locations and perspectives of observation” (Vogd 2013, p. 40). Social systems are precisely not “things in space”. What is classified as a system in each case has to do with how a context is perceived. People often move highly competently within the dynamic relationships of communication and context, placing the particular context in a framework through which the logic of communication is “governed”. Elsewhere, therefore, we have argued for seeing a business family as a form in which far more expectations operate than “just” family, business and owners. It is to be seen as a unity of difference of far more: the situations of individuals and also society would always have to be considered (cf. Groth and v. Schlippe 2012). Business families, seen in this light, are in fact not so special. They are only suitable as a striking example because the difference in contexts – and the impossibility to frame a social situation clearly – is so striking. When viewed individually, it is not uncommon for people to have to deal simultaneously with different, sometimes even incompatible, behavioural expectations. In general, people skillfully

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navigate polycontexturalities. They elegantly and simultaneously juggle and sort out the communications that take place, for example, in the complex context of “restaurant” that we visit with children and friends: formal (with the waiter), familial (with the children) and friendly, all the way down to the subtleties: pitch, facial expressions, body language, word choice, and so on. The distinctive feature of the business family, however, is to undertake this management in multi-person constellations, where each individual and everyone as a group are hijacked by the polycontexturality they want and need to manage. The rather narrow corset of threecircle thinking will retain its plausibility for consulting purposes in the future, but it should be opened up and expanded for a deeper understanding of the opportunities and risks for business families when consulting a company strategically and in terms of personnel and at the same time attempting to continue the business over generations.

References Bateson, G. (1972). Steps to an ecology of mind. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Donnelley, R. (1964). The family business. Harvard Business Review (4), 2, (pp. 93–105). Glasl, F. (2014). Der heimliche Krieg. Wie können wir mit der Dynamik kalter Konflikte konstruktiv umgehen? Konfliktdynamik, 3(2), (pp. 101–109). Groth, T. & Schlippe, A. v. (2012). Die Form der Unternehmerfamilie – Paradoxiebewältigung zwischen Entscheidung und Bindung. Familiendynamik 37(4), (pp. 268–280). Jansen, T. & Schlippe, A. v. (2018). Enge Kopplungen alter Routinen. Kontext 49, (pp. 124–136). Kast, F. E. & Rosenzweig, J. E. (1992). System concepts: Pervasiveness and potential. Management International Review 32, (pp. 40–49). Korzybski, A. (1933). Science and sanity. An introduction to non-Aristotelian systems and general semantics. New York: International Non-Aristotelian Library. Litz, R. (2012). Double roles, double binds? Double bind theory and family business research. In: Carsrud, A., M. Brännbäck (Eds.), Understanding family business (pp. 115–132). Cham: Springer. Luhmann, N. (1995). Social Systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Luhmann, N. (1991). Die Form Person. Soziale Welt 42, (pp. 166–175). Luhmann, N. (2000). Organisation und Entscheidung. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Luhmann, N. (2009). Interaktion, Organisation, Gesellschaft. Soziologische Aufklärung 2, 6. edition., (pp. 9–24). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Maturana, H. (1982). Erkennen: Die Organisation und Verkörperung von Wirklichkeit. Braunschweig: Vieweg. Pieper, T. M. & Klein, S. B. (2007). The bulleye: A systems approach to modeling family firms. Family Business Review 20, (pp. 301–319).

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Schlippe, A. v. (2013). Kein “Mensch-ärgere-dich-nicht”-Spiel: ein kritischer Blick auf das “Drei-Kreise-Modell” zum Verständnis von Familienunternehmen. In T. Schumacher (Ed.), Professionalisierung als Passion. Aktualität und Zukunftsperspektiven der systemischen Organisationsberatung. (pp. 143–164). Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Schlippe, A. v. (2022). Family businesses in coaching: Specific dynamics. In: Greif, S., Möller, H., Scholl, W., Passmore, J. Müller, F. (Eds.), International Handbook of Evidence-based Coaching. Cham: Springer, pp. 325–336 Schlippe, A. v. & Frank, H. (2013). The theory of social systems as a framework for understanding family businesses. Family Relations 62, (pp. 384–398). Schlippe, A. v., Groth, T. & Rüsen, T. A. (2021). The Two Sides of the Business Family. Governance and Strategy Across Generations. Cham: Springer. Simon, F. B. (2012a). Einführung in die Systemtheorie und Konstruktivismus, 2. edition. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Simon, F. B. (2012b). Einführung in die Theorie des Familienunternehmens. Heidelberg: Carl Auer Systeme. Tagiuri, R. & Davis, J. A. (1996). Bivalent attributes of the family firm. Family Business Review 9, (pp. 199–208). Vogd, W. (2013). Polykontexturalität: Die Erforschung komplexer systemischer Zusammenhänge in Theorie und Praxis. Familiendynamik 38, (pp. 32–41).

Arist von Schlippe Prof. Dr., is psychologist, Chair of Leadership and Dynamics of Family Businesses, WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke. Torsten Groth is social scientist, systemic organisational consultant, lecturer at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke as well as speaker and trainer on application issues of systems theory in management and consulting.

The Business Family of Society: Function, Code and Medium of an Unusual Social System Heiko Kleve

Starting Points Since the end of the 1990s, family businesses have been increasingly examined from both an economic and a social science perspective as a special form of business with regard to their specific characteristics. One starting point for this interest is their social relevance, and especially the economic significance of this form of business. In Europe, around 70–80% of all companies are considered to be family-run. This means that around 40–50% of all employees work in family businesses (Stiftung Familienunternehmen 2019). Sociological systems theory has established itself as a paradigm in the study of family businesses, both for the business and the family side (for an overview see Simon 2012). This theory offers a conceptual apparatus with which social phenomena can be observed, described and explained. At least this is the claim that was put forward (Luhmann 1984, pp. 9–10). For this, a distinction has been made between interaction, organization and society (Luhmann 1975), which highlights the three formative social differentiation structures, i.e. the social system levels of modernity. With regard to family businesses and business families, it is primarily the levels of interaction and organization that have been examined to date (Hildenbrand 2002; Simon 2011, 2012; von Schlippe et al. 2017). From an interaction-analytical perspective, the focus of attention is particularly on the numerous communication paradoxes and role ambiguities that characterize communications in business families and make these contexts extremely prone to conflicts (von Schlippe 2014). This is because family businesses and business H. Kleve (✉) Witten Institute for Family Business, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany e-mail: [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_13

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Fig. 1 Three-circle model according to Tagiuri and Davis (1996) in a variant by Groth (n.d.)

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families are characterized by three different spheres of communication: firstly by the economically structured system of the business, which can be described as an organization, and secondly by the private sphere within the family, which can be observed primarily in terms of its diverse interactions that shape the everyday lives and life courses of those involved. The third sphere is characterized by the fact that the interactions in the business family are embedded in the legal ownership of the family members in the company. In this way, the people are related to each other in their respective entrepreneurial ownership status. The relevance of the three named contexts of business (organization), family (interaction) and ownership is traditionally illustrated by the three-circle model of Renato Tagiuri and John Davis (1996), which is well known in family business research. This model not only shows the three spheres that shape family businesses and business families (business, family, ownership), but also the supposed overlapping areas of the three system contexts represented as circles (Fig. 1). If we also recognize that companies, families and legal ownership obey different rules, then we can describe and explain the different communication expectations that members of business families experience (for a differentiated overview, see von Schlippe 2014, pp. 23 ff.). For a systems theoretical approach based on the theory of self-referential systems, see Luhmann 1984, 1997 and Fuchs 2001. However, we can also argue that systems do not overlap spatially, but that they owe their existence as operationally closed units to a self-referentially occurring systemic reproduction, the so-called ‘autopoiesis’. In the case of social systems this refers to the continuous

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connection of similar operations: communications of the same type refer to each other, which separates systems from their environment. This is how their autopoiesis is carried out – a systemic self-reproduction. The classical systemic view of family businesses and business families, especially in the publication by Tagiuri and Davis, follows a system model that could be assigned to the so-called part vs. whole paradigm (Luhmann 1984, pp. 15 ff.). In this respect, systems are not described as a system-environment interrelation, nor as constituted via differences, but are thought of spatially, as nested entities or as overlapping units. In recent years, the classical systems perspective is also extended to the theory of the family business and the business family (Simon 2012; von Schlippe 2013; von Schlippe et al. 2017). According to this perspective, the operational difference between systems and their environments as well as between systems themselves needs to be taken into account. Systems may indeed form environments relevant to each other, so that actions in one system are not ignored by other systems but are processed in a specific way. But systems do not overlap. It is precisely the selfreference of similar operations, the repeated connection of events of the same type, such as communications in organizations or interactions in families, that leads to the formation of differentiated systems. According to this view, a system is a selfreproducing context of similar event-like operations that differentiate the system from an environment as long as they continuously arise and connect to each other. It is striking, however, that business families so far have not been considered as self-referentially closed systems, such as the self-referentially closed system of the company. For this reason, it is time to conceptualize the family and the property equally as self-referential systems and to analyze the structural couplings between all three systems. Here we will focus on the question of whether we can conceptualize business families as an independent type of system for which operational closedness, or ‘autopoiesis’, can be used as a descriptive feature. In other words, we do not merely want to consider the structural coupling of families and companies, which is mediated in particular by the legal ownership of family members. Instead, we ask ourselves whether this coupling gives rise to a new system that differentiates itself in a self-referentially closed (autopoietic) manner and thus sets itself in difference with the company on the one hand and with the family on the other. If this thesis can be positively answered with systems theory, a third system can be identified, namely the business family, which emerges as a consequence of the structural linkages that are typical of family businesses: the links of businesses and families on the basis of related business owners. We will approach this thesis in five steps: First, we will start with a characterization of business families, namely, that these families can be considered anachronistic and hypermodern at the same time. Secondly, we will focus on the hybrid

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interaction in business families that can typically be observed as a consequence of the closely connected systems of family and business. Third, we look at the level of organization, which materializes in an unusual way in business families. Not only is the business an organization distinct from the family, but through numerous communications, the business family itself can be characterized by different organizational features. Then, fourthly, the conceptual tools of systemic social theory will be sketched out. Finally, we will examine and discuss whether and how the business family can be described as a social structure that is established and sustainably reproduced in modern society because it fulfils a relevant social function that is not otherwise served by any other system.

Simultaneity of Anachronism and Hypermodernism Based on the aforementioned three-circle model by Tagiuri and Davis (1996), works have appeared since the end of the 1990s that take a sociological perspective on family businesses and also focus on business families (see Stamm 2013 for an overview). Very few explicitly sociological and socio-theoretically oriented publications exist that focus on the everyday lifeworld of business families and consider the biographies of family entrepreneurs and their relatives (in addition to Stamm 2013, e.g. Hildenbrand 2002; Leiß 2014). Central to this research perspective is the distinction between the two systemic contexts of family and business, as well as the reflection of their connection via the legal ownership of family members in the business. Based on the sociological theory of differentiation (e.g. Mayntz et al. 1988), which views modern society as an interconnection of different functional areas that are separate from but dependent on one another, the existence of family businesses and business families is seen as unusual and atypical for our time. For instance, from a historical perspective, it is concluded that family businesses and business families would constitute ‘merely a transitional stage from the traditional domestic community to the bourgeois family without corporate affiliation’, as Isabell Stamm explains (2013, p. 63), with reference to the historian of capitalism, Jürgen Kocka (1979, p. 117). This is because the dynamics of differentiation within society at the end of the Middle Ages led to the splitting of the so-called ‘whole house’ into different social sub-areas, especially into private lifeworlds and professional work worlds. Whereas in the pre-modern era, life and work, the familial and the occupational everyday life, largely coincided (e.g. Shorter 1977; Mitterauer 2009), the differentiation of these two spheres is characteristic of the modern era. In sociological

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discourse, this division is described in different ways, for example, as the distinction between community and society (Tönnies 2012), small and large society (Hayek 1973), lifeworld and system (Habermas 1981), or as the functional differentiation of society into numerous interdependent but not centrally integrated subsystems (Luhmann 1997; also Nassehi 2015). Based on the differentiation-theoretical perspective, family businesses and even more clearly business families tend to be seen as anachronistic. This is because business families connect what has been pulled apart during the modernization of society: family, private life and business activity with work as the acquisition of economic resources. No matter how large the family businesses may be, whether they are artisanal businesses with a few employees or larger medium-sized enterprises, they regularly display the characteristic that the biographies and everyday lives of the members of the business families are closely linked to the business, from birth to death (Stamm 2013). The family members appear to be influenced by the company in an almost holistic manner, i.e. cognitively, emotionally and in practice. Biographies are closely linked to the family business in their economic existences, whether they are active in the management of the business or are shareholders or family partners. Finally, it is interesting to note that business families do not necessarily have to be seen as anachronistic because they transfer something like the classic ‘whole house’ into the modern age. At the same time, this may be perceived as hypermodern (Stamm 2013, pp. 70 ff.). For example, our digitalized society connects the spheres of work and private life again in a very specific way. The performance of work, for example, is no longer bound to a fixed location, to a company or to entrepreneurial spaces, but can also be carried out in the family space via internet access. In addition, the ideal-typical concept of the entrepreneur is becoming a model of the modern working world, with its networked structures, flat hierarchies and distributed areas of responsibility (Voß and Pongratz 1998). Therefore, we conclude that we can perceive business families as systems that refer simultaneously to pre-modern and to hypermodern structures, because they realize a special coupling of work and life despite the systematic separation of the two spheres in the modern era. This separation, which can be considered constitutive for modern society, leads to the fact that the coupling of the spheres is perceived as a challenge and a special task for reflection from the perspective of the individuals involved. Precisely these challenges and reflections are topics of the previous systemic or system-theoretical considerations of family businesses and business families (Simon 2012). In this context, mainly interactional and organizational analytical perspectives were adopted.

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Hybrid Interactions in Business Families Interaction can be understood as social communication systems that are established between people present and arise spontaneously when at least two people relate to each other and recognize each other (Luhmann 1984, pp. 191 ff.; Kieserling 1999). In such situations, the participants cannot individually determine whether they want to communicate or not. Communication starts whether those involved want it or not. As is well known, Paul Watzlawick has therefore pointedly stated that we cannot not communicate (Watzlawick et al. 1969). This means that in social interaction contexts, potentially every behaviour of the participants in their mutual observation can be understood as a communication of information. According to Luhmann (1984, pp. 191 ff.), communication starts in this way – namely, when the participants not only recognize each other, but when they observe intended or unintended behaviour. In this way, they perceive it as a communicative act, and link this observed communicative act with a certain piece of information. Thus, interactive communication is socially conceived, that is, in view of the strict separation of psychological and social operations. The psyche may think whatever she thinks during communication. Nevertheless, communication starts whether the psyches involved want it to or not, when messages and information are distinguished by the mutual observation of the people present in an interaction. This is exactly what we could call ‘social understanding’, according to Peter Fuchs (1993), which means nothing else than the continuation of communication, the further connection of communicative events to previous communicative events. Whether the psyches involved feel understood or misunderstood in their observation and interpretation of the communication in their social environment is irrelevant for the consummation of the communication. It is impossible for one mental system to check whether another mental system has understood the intended meaning ‘correctly’. This is because the psyches cannot reach each other directly. They can only relate to communication, but cannot communicate themselves. But only psychically, i.e. on the basis of their internal mental operations, can they observe how communication takes place and draw their mental conclusions from it. These descriptions give an impression of the complex systemic processes that are at play when communication takes place in interaction systems. For this reason social understanding happens permanently, while psychological understanding is unlikely. The likelihood that communication will succeed, that it will not only take place socially but that the psyches involved will also assume to be understood, is increased by correlating interactions socially and spatially. For our communications are embedded in social-relational contexts (‘With whom is communication taking

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place?’) and in spatial locational contexts (‘Where is communication taking place?’). Thus, it makes a difference with whom one communicates and where this happens. The social contexts can be determined, for example, by persons and roles. Person means a special social form that is singularly associated with very specific expectations (Luhmann 1984, p. 155). By means of our person we recognize how we are seen by others. Others commonly process their experiences with us in such a way that they recognize us in a specific way and connect to past interactions. In addition to this ‘outside of the person’, the social observation of others, we can distinguish an inside of the person, a psychological self-perception. Person means precisely this: the difference between external and self-observation that stabilizes over time. In contrast, roles refer to generalized expectations that are fulfilled in a similar way by different people (Luhmann 1984, p. 432). For example, local contexts are associated with particular places or buildings. We go from the street to the sports field, from our home to the supermarket or to the company where our workplace is located. In all these locations, we behave differently and according to the context, usually in conformity with expectations. We act differently at home in the family than at work, intuitively taking into account the different expectations within the two contexts, which are also differentiated by location. Nevertheless, it may be that this social and local contextual separation, which traditionally goes hand in hand with functional differentiation, no longer succeeds. This happens when several social spheres overlap with certain persons and specific places, and the probability of successful interaction is reduced. This is precisely what we can observe in business families. Here we can see hybrid interactions. This is because people are relevant in different roles at the same time. For example, a person may be relevant as a mother and as a leading employee in the family business, or as a son and as a potential successor with regard to a leadership role in the company or the business family. The social contexts of family and business combine, mix, couple and in this hybrid entanglement can confuse the people involved. In such cases, individuals often do not know exactly whether interactions are meant to be familial, entrepreneurial or both familial and entrepreneurial. Only metacommunication, which denotes how the interaction is meant, can increase the clarity of the communication again. Arist von Schlippe (2014) describes numerous hybrid patterns of interaction that not infrequently lead to persistent conflicts. He calls one of these patterns ‘oblique connections’ (von Schlippe 2014, pp. 44 ff.). Such oblique forms of communication lead to misunderstandings in interactions, which can challenge different social, psychological or even somatic reactions of the participants. For example, two

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members of the business family talking to each other could associate what they are saying with different information and understand it completely differently. Von Schlippe (2014, pp. 40 ff.) illustrates such a misunderstanding in a business family in which the succession in the business, a hotel, from the parents to the son and his partner led to fierce conflicts. The announcement of the parents to pass the hotel – their ‘jewel’ as they called it – to the next generation, was made to the couple one Christmas. The young couple’s reaction was to develop a detailed business plan and present it to the parents. The situation then escalated, with the parents feeling misunderstood and reacting to the young couple’s proposals with rejection. In the counselling session with this family, it became clear that the parents – from the family side – expected thanks and recognition for their life’s work. However, the young couple immediately responded with a business communication offer, in which they developed a business plan for the future of the hotel and how to change it. Following the communication theory of Friedemann Schulz von Thun (1981), we can assume that the interaction in business families also follows his model: participants speak with at least ‘two types of mouths’ and hear with at least ‘two types of ears’. It involves the family mouth and the company mouth or the family ear and the company ear. If we imagine that a family member in interaction with relatives speaks with his family mouth (kinship communication), but is heard with the company ear (company-related communication), it becomes obvious what the concept of ‘oblique connections’ clarifies. For example, even a father’s question to his son, ‘How are you?’ can lead to confusion and conflict. If the father means this question in a familial way, but the son interprets it to mean that the father is inquiring about the plans of his potential successor in business, an ‘oblique connection’ has occurred, which can lead to misunderstandings and further confusion.

Business Families Between Family and Organization When we move from interaction to the level of organization, further interrelations become visible that are atypical for the functionally differentiated society. Commonly, we strictly distinguish between families and organizations, highlighting the differences in their social structures (Simon 2012). In business families, however, it is different. We are born into families without being asked and are integrated into kinship relationships which, at least in their biological genesis, cannot be dissolved. As newborn human beings we are dependent in a holistic way, with regard to our

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biological existence (i.e. our psychological and social development), on caring adults who secure our bio-psycho-social life and accompany us until adulthood. It is true that socialization takes place not only in the family, but everywhere in society. But the family seems to fulfil a special function, which is especially evident in view of the bio-psycho-social needs of newborns: this is the ‘complete care of the human being’ (Luhmann 1990; Kieserling 1994), the attention to all his biological, psychological and social levels of need (Simon 2000; Kleve 2004, 2014, 2017). Because of this complete integration of people into families, strong emotional bonds develop between family members, biographies co-evolve and specific family cultures are formed which ensure the development of values and preferences among people related to one another. Family members are also in exchange relationships with each other, giving and taking trust, attention, appreciation, recognition and economic security. Or they may complain to each other that they do not receive precisely this from each other, or do not receive it in the way they consider appropriate and fair (Stierlin 2005). Families are strongly integrated systems in biological, psychological and social terms. Membership in the family is not terminable, at least in the biological sense, in terms of descent. It is true that we can emotionally and socially distance ourselves from our families, separate and split off. The fact that we remain a member of the family, that we continue to be in kinship relations with those from whom we choose to distance ourselves, is indisputable and cannot be negated. Thus, family membership cannot be escaped easily; it remains existent as a relationship of descent, regardless of whether this is emotionally rejected, even if a social and local movement away from the family takes place. Already based on these few descriptions we can see that the family seems to be a very traditional system, a system that describes a society that no longer exists (Luhmann 1990), in which people are firmly integrated and fixed in terms of their position with birth in a certain role. We always remain children of our parents, parents of our children or younger or older siblings. What is fixed today, is no longer the social position we can attain in society. We can – at least potentially, based on our civil liberties – move through society in a mobile way, independent of our family affiliation, choose different professions, take on whatever political or legal functions or receive any position, as well as start our own families through free choice of partners. Regardless of the innovations of reproductive medicine, biological existence is still firmly linked to the pair of parents, which in turn links to further kinship lines of origin. In contrast, organizations are modern entities (Luhmann 1964, 2006) whose memberships are regulated by entries and exits. The organizational entry and exit conditions are formally structured. There are procedures that specify exactly who is

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and who is not a member of the organization and with what conditions. Since we live in a society of numerous organizations that regulate the satisfaction of our biopsycho-social needs, we need access to them. This access is mediated by procedures of inclusion (Luhmann 1981, 1997; further Stichweh 1988; Nassehi and Nollmann 1997). For example, to go shopping in the supermarket we gain access by having money, or to study at university we have the basis of a legal right and need corresponding educational qualifications. In this way, organizations regulate social life, differentiate it, and create roles and spaces that allow us to satisfy our biopsycho-social needs. Membership in organizations and the inclusion in whatever role are linked to preconditions, such as monetary payments, individual legal entitlements or school and training certificates. These things serve to prove competences. Organizations are seen as formal structures that centre communication processes through rational procedures and steer them along certain paths, at the end of which decisions are made that are legitimized by the way they are generated (Luhmann 1969). According to this understanding, organizations organize the diversity of our social world in a way that is supposed to ensure reliability, transparency, legitimacy and longevity. Precisely this is the claim of organizations, because they are something like social machines that are supposed to realize intended outputs via certain inputs. Nevertheless, there are also differences because in everyday life, business families reveal this to us time and again when they are not exactly what we expect of them. Predictability and planability are not self-evident, even to organizations that attempt to realize just that. Regardless, they are the counter-model to the family. In a business family, the familial with its bio-psycho-social integration structure now meets the entrepreneurial with its formal organizational structure and decisionmaking procedures oriented towards modern rationality. This coupling and linking of the two opposing social forms can confuse and agitate. Business families are characterized by the fact that family communication is closely tied to the organization of the company, that organizational issues become family issues and that they significantly determine the everyday life and biographical developments of the family members (Stamm 2013). Here, too, it becomes apparent that the modern separation of family and work is not effective in business families. An intensification of the coupling of family and organization occurs when we consider large and long-lasting business families. They have numerous members, who would probably no longer have any contact with each other if they were not connected by company ownership over several generations (Simon et al. 2005). In numerous respects, these business families become organizations themselves. Fritz B. Simon et al. (2005), for example, have shown how this can take place over generations, using the business families in the context of the family businesses

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Merck KGaA, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, C&A group of companies, Freudenberg & Co. KG, Schmidt + Clemens GmbH & Co. KG, Dr. August Oetker KG, Ernst Klett AG, Verlag Dr. Otto Schmidt KG, Huf Hülsbeck & Fürst GmbH & Co. KG and Leopold Kostal GmbH & Co. KG. The basic prerequisites for membership are still kinship to a family or extended family as well as legal ownership of a company. Moreover, the co-responsibility for the company is connected to formally agreed rules, family strategies and decisionmaking procedures (von Schlippe et al. 2017, pp. 229 ff.). Such business families then realize both at the same time: family and organizational communication. Their distinctive feature is that they structure themselves as a family and as an organization. Thus, Simon et al. (2005, p. 125) hold that the ‘secret of success of the extended family [. . .] seems to be that it represents an organization on the one hand – and thus follows the rules of the game of factual communication that also apply to companies – but at the same time also lives up to the rules of the game of families with their person-related communication, which is primarily about emotional ties’.

Systemic Social Theory If we can consider the business family as an interaction and as a form of organization, is it also possible to describe it as a social structure that has the character of a subsystem? Dealing with this question will first be approached here and discussed in more detail in the next section. Using systemic differentiation or modernization theory, we can distinguish four types of society: tribal, stratified, functionally differentiated modern and next societies (Baecker 2007): • Tribal society is the original form of human socialization. People live together in tribal and family groups, have their fixed place in a manageable social structure and everyone knows everyone else. Communication is mediated by the orality of language. This form of society is still continued today in the family. • It is characteristic of a stratified society that the structure of tribal society is expanded by a differentiation of strata through which people are categorized in a stratum-specific manner in addition to their family membership. Communication through language experiences an expansion through the introduction and use of writing, which enables the archiving and dissemination of communication in new ways.

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• Modern society adds to people’s membership in the family tribe and strata the need to participate in systems that secure bio-social existence, for example, the economy, law or politics. Only through this participation is it possible to make use of resources that people need for their survival. Communication through speech and writing is expanded by the introduction of (book) printing. In an unprecedented way, society develops into a communication society. • The thesis of a next society, formulated by Dirk Baecker (2007), describes the increase of the modern communication society through the introduction of computers and their worldwide networking through the internet, so that a new media revolution emerges, which once again changes the shape of society and its previous media of dissemination, writing and printing. Through the presence of networked computers and the internet, the aforementioned classical media of dissemination are digitally reformatted, electronically integrated in a hitherto unknown way, archived and networked (linked). Regardless of the question of whether we are currently on the threshold between the modern and the next society, we would like to take a closer look at the structure of differentiation that characterizes modern society and that will be the prerequisite for the transition to the next society. With Luhmann (1997), we can assume that on an abstract and societal level the communications of interactions and organizations are differentiated, sorted and separated from each other into societal functional subsystems. Although being intermingled and concatenated in interactions and bound together in organizations in a division of labour, subsystems of logic such as economy, law, science, politics, art, mass media, education and so on, develop because they are guided by independent systems of social logic at the level of subsystems. This social and special logic of the subsystems fulfils very specific functions for society, which secure the existence of society and are thus reproduced and stabilized in the long term through the formation of structures. Four of these subsystems are, for example, the economy (Luhmann 1988), politics (Luhmann 2000), law (Luhmann 1993) and the family (Luhmann 1990; Fuchs 1999). Central to the description of social functional circuits are at least three questions: First, what function does each particular social subsystem perform? Second, through which code does it realize its system formation and thus its demarcation from communications that do not belong to it? And thirdly, through which communication medium does it successfully ensure the motivation, acceptance and continuation of its communications? We can answer these questions in an exemplary and preliminary way for the systems of economy, politics, law and family:

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The economy acts as a scarcity regulator in society, in which it structures and processes the fundamental scarcity of all resources (raw materials, time, specific labour, goods, services, means of payment). The code of the economy, the form that differentiates economic cycles, can be described by payments and non-payments. Through payments, which are differentiated from non-payments, the system continues as a communication system and realizes its autopoiesis, its selfreferentially closed mode of operation. Accordingly, it is easy to see which medium of communication ensures the motivation, acceptance and continuation of economic communications, namely, money. Money payments reduce the complexity of communications in a universal way, so that in modern society everything that can assume the character of goods and services can be converted into prices and thus into possible money payments. Politics fulfils the function of making and providing collectively binding decisions that relate to all citizens of the respective nation-state and are to be observed by them. The differentiation of politics takes place through the code of power/non-power. All communications that are connected to the monopoly of power of the political system, whose non-observance can thus be sanctioned, carry out the autopoiesis of politics. Power, moreover, appears as the political medium of communication because it ensures that communications are motivated, continued and accepted. Those who know that they will be sanctioned by the state if they do not follow certain decisions made by politics are more likely to behave in the way that is politically expected. Law functions as a system that ensures in society that behavioural expectations are generalized and everyone behaves in a way that is judged to be socially appropriate and corresponds to the individual rights of freedom. The communication of law takes place through the differentiation of right/non-right. All behavioural expectations fixed by law and all communications related to them realize the autopoiesis of the legal system. The communication medium of law is therefore manifested through the codified laws. This ensures the motivation, acceptance and continuation of communication. For, as also formulated with regard to the political system, there is the threat of sanction in the case of non-observance of legally established norms of behaviour. The family, as we have already seen above, fulfils the function of the complete care of persons in society. Only the family offers exactly this: that we are heard with everything that concerns us as people and that we are thereby socially integrated with all our personality facets. Everywhere else in society we play sharply delimited roles and show only sections of our personhood. Accordingly, the family demarcates itself from the rest of the world of non-relatives by means of horizontal and vertical kinship and thus carries out its autopoiesis. The medium of

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communication that motivates and perpetuates family communication and ensures its connections is the emotionally charged recognition and relevant inclusion of the respective other family members. It is through love on the level of the couple, to the children, to the parents, to the siblings and in a weakened form to the further relatives that the family communicates.

The Business Family as a Subsystem of Society It is empirically observable that family businesses and thus business families reproduce themselves permanently, sustainably and stably despite their anachronistic character and although it contradicts the functional differentiation of modernity (Koellner et al. 2023; Stamm 2013). It might even be that what is reminiscent of the pre-modern ‘whole house’ of the integrated family and work community has a hypermodern character. During the transition from the modern to the next society, which is accompanied by the expansion of the digital interconnectedness of global society, work and private life are blurred in new ways. In this way, business families could be pioneers of a new form of life that (re)breaks down the modern separation of social spheres, at least socially and locally. Then, the question to be asked here is whether we can regard the business family in its social existence as a social subsystem that, firstly, fulfils a very specific function for society that is not otherwise served by any other system, secondly, distinguishes itself from its social environment by means of a code, and, thirdly, motivates, continues and keeps its communications connected through a medium. A heuristic strategy is pursued, a search-and-find procedure, which hypothetically and experimentally feels its way forward and tries to capture the empiricism of the business family with systems-theoretical terms. The first issue is what the function of the business family in society could be, or, to put it another way, what would we lack if the business family as a social structure were to be non-existent? One key to answering this question is the special resilience of family businesses, which is evident in economic crises, for example. In contrast to other forms of business, family businesses regularly prove to be more resilient to economic change (exemplified by Amann and Jaussaud 2011; Kleve et al. 2022). One reason for this seems to be the legal ownership of the business by relatives, i.e. the existence of the business family. In contrast to large anonymous companies with capital market orientation, family-run companies are normally more interested in the long-term nature of their success. The business family evidently provides the company with its

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transgenerational logic, which goes hand in hand with the family intention that the company should continue to provide for the family’s economic sustenance for future generations. In this way, business families reduce the extreme acceleration of economic transactions exhibited by the transition from the modern to the digitalized next society. The risks of economic action are obviously reflected more clearly by family-connected business owners because, in contrast to hired outside managers, they have to take responsibility for possible wrong decisions in the management of the company in a more existential way that affects the entire business family. Family businesses continue to demonstrate what the transformations in global capitalism of recent years have increasingly eroded: that those responsible for the results of their actions are those who act as decision-making entrepreneurs and managers. In summary, it can be said that the function of the business family could be to dampen the temporalization (the extreme temporal acceleration of the economic system) through the introduction of family long-term perspectives, i.e. through transgenerationality. At best, this leads to a balance between tradition and innovation that shows its benefits in the evolution of the economic system. For the second issue, the questions we need to ask ourselves are: What can be described as the code of the business family? What differentiates this family form from its social environment and differentiates it autopoietically as a specific system, so that there are continuous communicative connections? In this respect, we would like to start from the thesis that the family of the family business and the business family cannot be regarded as congruent. This is because the business family comprises the family members who are connected to each other firstly through their ownership of the business and secondly through their kinship relationship. Admittedly, the entire family of the family business, children as well as adults, may be influenced by the business, emotionally and socially connected to it, as well as economically dependent on it. But for the business family, the decisive factor is who has the opportunity to have a direct say in the fate of the company, that is, who can make company-related decisions. This can be done in particular by those who, as related owners, have the right to speak and vote in the bodies of the business family. In processes of family strategy development, for example, which social system is considered a family, and who is to be included as a member of the business family, are usually precisely defined. Based on their research, von Schlippe et al. (2017, p. 238) offer a differentiated typification that can be used to distinguish between shareholder families, business families (in the narrower sense), big families and extended families. This definition of family is always concerned with questions of belonging and non-belonging, and of inclusion and exclusion, with regard to the

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simultaneous family and formally organized decision-making regarding entrepreneurial issues and developments. Therefore we aim to formulate the binary code of the business family along the lines of the code of the family (we/rest of the world) proposed by Fuchs (1999), which takes into consideration the specifics of the business family: the autopoiesis of the business family takes place through the social demarcation of a ‘we, the members of the business family’ from the rest of the intra- and extra-familial environment. The social environment from which the business family demarcates itself, in the context of which it carries out its autopoiesis, is the family, i.e. the family members without ownership of the company or those who are not included in business family communication because, for example, they do not yet have legal access to ownership due to their age. On the other hand, the business family, like all families, distinguishes itself from the rest of the social world, for example, from non-kinship relationships. Finally, the third question is how the communication medium of the business family can be grasped, i.e. how the family motivates its communication among the members and establishes their connectivity on an ongoing basis. What ensures the continuation of the communications in the business family and results in the persons involved maintaining interests and intentions to participate successfully in these communications? The answer to this question again refers to two things: on the one hand, to the kinship relationships of the people in the business family and, connected to this, on the other hand, to their ownership of the company. Kinship-based ownership of the company goes hand in hand with economic interests in the company and the prospect that, at best, the children of the current members of the business family can also benefit from this ownership. However, the company and the decisions made in the business family regarding the company must prove themselves in a system that cannot be influenced by the family itself and that is highly uncertain and unpredictable in its communications, namely in the economic system, or more precisely, in the market. The evolution and dynamics of the market mean that the business family is persistently confronted with the contingency of corporate ownership, and with the fact that this ownership can end through a decline in the company. This permanent presence of the contingency of family ownership, which is never wholly and permanently secure, ensures, it is argued, the motivation, acceptance and continuation of communication in the business family. To put it more pointedly, the latent fear within the business family of losing ownership ensures the willingness to continue engagement in businessrelated communication repeatedly. The pressure to succeed in business family communication is fuelled by the threat that ownership may dissolve if the business fails in the market. Without being able to determine the market and foresee its

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developments, this danger of entrepreneurial failure, which is felt as fear, disciplines the members of the business family and ensures the development of family strategies that endow business families with a degree of formal organization that is unusual in other families.

Conclusion The business family can be said to have a permanent presence in modern society, despite its seemingly anachronistic character with the extensive coincidence of family and work, which paradoxically has hypermodern features too. This presence is all the more astonishing the closer we look at the hybrid interactions in these families and the combination of family and organizational logic. For communication in a business family is charged with numerous paradoxes and conflations, which form sources of persistent conflict between its members. At the same time, the communication in this family type in the context of its entrepreneurial ownership is obviously successful, and this family form reproduces itself permanently. Based on this social reality, it was asked whether the business family could be regarded as a social subsystem that develops and makes permanent structures resulting from the successful realization of its overall social function. This function could be described as a special combination of economic innovativeness and family-inspired longing for longevity. In this way, business families apparently successfully slow down the temporalization of the economic system in the transition from the modern to the digitalized ‘next society’. The resilience of family businesses in the context of economic crises shows that this balance of tradition and innovation proves its success in the market. The business family demarcates itself as a social system both from its intrafamily environment of non-involved family members and from the extra-family environment, the rest of the social world, by structuring its membership as a combination of two criteria. Namely, these are kinship relations and legal ownership or the decision-making power with regard to entrepreneurial issues. Relatives jointly organize their ownership of an enterprise – this is the delimitation formula of the business family with regard to its social environment. Membership in the business family, however, does not ensure that communications will start successfully, be permanently accomplished or keep producing appropriate connections. This motivation to initiate and adopt communication is based on the fact that business families are confronted with an unpredictable market that exposes kinship-mediated business ownership to contingency. The

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possibility of economic failure strengthens business family communication and challenges something that is atypical for families: the development and organization of formal procedures and processes of business family management.

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Heiko Kleve Prof. Dr., is sociologist and social pedagogue, holder of the Chair for Organization and Development of Business Families at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke.

The Doing Family Concept: A New Perspective on Understanding the Production and Cohesion of Business Families Tobias Koellner and Heiko Kleve

Introduction A family business is characterized by four aspects: firstly, that it is completely or partly owned by one or more families; secondly, that this family (or families) significantly determines the business; thirdly, that responsibility arises from the management and/or supervisory function; and fourthly, that continuation as a family business in the next generation is planned (Kleve 2020, see also Witten Institute for Family Business 2021). However, the last point in particular requires explanation, as many members of business families today have career options outside the family business, which makes succession in management more difficult and less likely. This means that it is not a certainty but must be fostered. Furthermore, succession as an owner is increasingly important, as shareholdings in family businesses are so-called ‘patient capital’ (Wimmer 2010; Wimmer et al. 2018); that is, distributions do not occur at the level that would otherwise be common in the market. Therefore, selling shares in the family business might seem more lucrative than committing to the business for the long term and receiving the relatively modest dividends that come with it (Koellner et al. 2020). It can be concluded from this that the continuation of the business in family hands is no longer unquestionably accepted from an economic point of view, and at any rate requires explanation and justification. T. Koellner (✉) · H. Kleve Witten Institute for Family Business, Witten/Herdecke University, Witten, Germany e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] # The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature 2023 H. Kleve, T. Koellner (eds.), Sociology of the Business Family, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-42216-5_14

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Not least for this reason, it seems useful to address the importance of the business family. After all, it seems to be the family factor that explains why there are numerous older and very old family businesses that are successfully continued over generations (Jaffe and Lane 2004; Rüsen et al. 2019; Rüsen et al. 2021). The business family thus becomes the starting point for research, as it provides a very suitable, conclusive as well as empirically demonstrable understanding of the dynamics and maintenance of the family business (v. Schlippe et al. 2017; Kleve and Köllner 2019; Aldrich et al. 2021). The business family is then clearly more than just a resource of the family business: it is the social context that gives the business its specific shape (Kleve 2020), a shape which is obvious in a cross-cultural perspective (Koellner 2022, 2023). The business family as a social context is particularly important for transgenerational orientation, as the business family needs to succeed in creating meaning for the family members involved and contributing to their identity (Stamm 2013; Lubinski 2010). Thus, the business family has to be produced and reproduced within and across generations (Koellner et al. 2023). This perspective is based on the pioneering work on Italian business families and the associated family businesses by the anthropologist Sylvia Yanagisako (2002). She develops the concept of kinship enterprise for this purpose, emphasizing the close connection between business families and family businesses: ‘Projects of collectivities of people who feel connected by enduring bonds and whose goals are shaped by a dense web of beliefs, feelings, and commitments associated with those bonds’ (Yanagisako 2019, p. 6). Thus, it is these ‘enduring bonds’, ‘emotions’ and ‘feelings of obligation’ that repeatedly create and renew the bond between the business family and the family business. Based on this, we aim to elaborate in the following sections recent discussions in family sociology and kinship anthropology, with which this constructivist practice of the business family in the context of the family business can be described and explained theoretically and empirically. Thus, it should become clear that families are social constructs whose cohesion cannot be explained by blood relations alone (Alber et al. 2010; Carsten 2000, 2004; Jurczyk et al. 2014; Sahlins 2013). Rather, it appears to be the permanent task of family and kinship groups to produce themselves again and again and to make the connectedness between each other clear. For this, it is also important to stage these groups in a way that can be felt and experienced collectively, as becomes possible with the concept of ‘Doing Family’ or ‘Doing Kinship’ (Koellner et al. 2022). These concepts, as we will present here, also have a high practical relevance for business families. For it is precisely with regard to the question of how growing families stay together and shape their growth in size that these approaches can

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provide answers. Business families often grow rapidly and may contain several, even numerous, nuclear families (Simon et al. 2005; Rüsen et al. 2021). Moreover, they have a historical depth that is unusual for other family forms. This can create strong bonds when the common achievement is remembered or reference is made to the founding generation (Kleve and Köllner 2019, p. 8). Narratives provide a particularly important tool for remembrance (Kleve et al. 2022; Koellner et al. 2023). However, precisely this remembrance can also lead to conflicts, as ‘old accounts’ are invoked and family groups within the business family (so-called branches) come into conflict with each other (Ammer 2017; again, Rüsen et al. 2021). For this very reason, in business families with a long tradition and a large number of individual members who no longer grow up together in a common context of socialization, it is of paramount importance to repeatedly re-establish and strengthen ties to the business family as a whole (also Kleve et al. 2020, p. 7).

Social Change and Modernization Processes: Individualization, Changed Inheritance Patterns and New Gender Relations As a result of social change and modernization processes, business families are facing major challenges, which is why we assume that creating cohesion is currently very important and will continue to gain in importance in the future. First of all, social processes are decisive for this, and can be summarized with the keyword ‘individualization’. For several decades, it has been observed that the choices and opportunities in various spheres of life (work, choice of partner, choice of residence, etc.) have multiplied, which is also referred to as the pluralization of lifeworlds (for a classic work on this modernization process see Beck 2015 [1986]). Selfrealization as an individual thus gains in importance, with which independence from tradition and origin seems to occur (Bertram 2013, p. 9). Increasing welfarestate safeguards make it possible to pursue new paths that previously involved considerable life risks. For this reason, succession in management is becoming increasingly difficult in business families. The diversification of lifestyles enables many members of business families to pursue new career paths that are independent of the family business. However, if interaction with the company diminishes and other peer groups and identifications gain in importance, the connectedness to the company also diminishes. However, if the bond with the company weakens, then the associated business family often loses significance as well, since the interactions are reduced to

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a minimum and the ‘enduring bonds’ mentioned above can no longer develop in full. Succession as owner can create new ties, but also requires constant interaction, as financial benefits alone are not enough (Koellner et al. 2020; Rüsen et al. 2021). In parallel with these individualization processes, changed inheritance and succession practices can be found as social trends (Rüsen et al. 2021). Classic models, such as the succession of the first-born son (primogeniture) in management and ownership, are becoming increasingly rare. This is because today the shares of the company are distributed in a more egalitarian way among all those entitled to inherit (Rüsen et al. 2019; Kleve et al. 2020). This leads to an increase in size of the business family; a number of family businesses today have more than 50 individual shareholders, and can be described as ‘family dynasties’ (Rüsen et al. 2019; Jaffe and Lane 2004, p. 82; Rüsen et al. 2021). This increase in the number of shareholders is also accompanied by increasing heterogeneity in the circle of owners (Felden et al. 2019). On the one hand, the shares are often distributed very differently among the individuals (Koellner et al. 2020), and on the other hand, the interactions between the shareholders and the joint socialization also decrease relative to the number of shareholders (Kleve 2020). The transformation of the business family, the family business and the ownership structure was originally focused on by Gersick et al. (1997, 1999). It was highlighted that certain patterns can be distinguished that show significant differences: individuals, the sibling society, or the cousin consortium. These patterns differ from each other and lead to completely different conditions and challenges. This has also been pointed out by von Schlippe et al. (2017), who focus on the two sides of the business family as two distinct social systems. In particular, the authors point out that the business family takes on organizational characteristics. To this end, rules are established and affiliations defined, which are actions not commonly practised in families. In business families, this is necessary to ensure the family’s decision-making ability vis-à-vis the company. This often leads to a family strategy process and the creation of family governance mechanisms, where the most important decisions are codified. This codification is also unusual for ‘normal families’. Increasingly, the growth of the business family is continuing due to the processes of social change outlined above and is taking on the features of an extended family or a family dynasty. Kleve et al. (2020) and Koellner et al. (2020) have therefore introduced a distinction between the business family 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 (for more details, see also Rüsen et al. 2021). The authors point out that three social patterns can be distinguished in business families: the nuclear family (business family 1.0), the formally organized and structured business family (business family 2.0) and the extended family network that incorporates the individual nuclear families (business

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family 3.0). This growth of the business family is accompanied at the same time by increasing diversity between the individuals and the individual nuclear families. Therefore, as the number of members of a business family grows, so too does the task of maintaining cohesion and relationships between members. The first conclusion to be drawn from this is that business families are very much affected by current social changes. Thus, there are challenges such as individualization, the diversification and pluralization of lifestyles and the changing practices of inheritance. This is also accompanied by the fact that daughters are increasingly entering succession as managing directors or shareholders (Jäkel-Wurzer and Ott 2014; Otten-Pappas 2013, 2015). In this way, new people from the business family are involved who previously tended to stay in the background or only became active in case of emergency. This can not only be celebrated as an increase in gender equity, but also represents a special opportunity, because it means that more individuals are available for the family-internal continuation of the company and tasks can be distributed among a larger group of people.

Doing Family: The Creation of Cohesion in Business Families From the previous sections it becomes obvious that cohesion in the business family must be actively established and cannot be regarded as a natural given. Therefore, the concept of Doing Family, which allows for a better understanding of the processes underway, will be presented in the following sub-section. In doing so, we are able to show how the practice of family construction takes place and which steps it involves. The above-mentioned subdivision of business family 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 is to serve as orientation.

The Doing Family Concept Building on recent work in family sociology and kinship anthropology, Karin Jurczyk et al. (2014) understand the family not only as a biological unit, but also as a social construct. This new understanding of family and kinship is thus part of the ‘constructivist turn’ in the social sciences (Rerrich 2014, pp. 312–313). In this understanding, the family is understood as ‘an area of life in which people invest their emotions, their creative energy, and their new imaginings’ (Carsten 2004, p. 9). With this perspective, a completely new view of family and kinship systems becomes possible: one which analyzes the emotions, the actions and the associated

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meaning of the actors involved. For the business family in particular, this is a central theoretical perspective, since it must first be determined who belongs to the family and how commonality is established. Questions that need to be clarified at this point include, for example, how to deal with spouses, unmarried partners and adoptions, or at which point the next generation should be involved in decisions and transfer of ownership. Specifically, Jurczyk (2014, pp. 61 ff.) distinguishes between three basic forms in the production of family1: • Balance management, • The construction of commonalities, and • Displaying family. ‘Balance management’ remains a permanent task for the acting persons and means that different needs, interests and expectations have to be coordinated. This is of central importance, especially in the business family, since in addition to the individual’s daily life with work, school or leisure activities, the concerns of the family business must also be considered. This is a considerable additional challenge that must be taken into account. In concrete terms, this means that conditions of time and space must be provided that enable co-presence and regular interaction. Particularly in the case of extended family structures or family dynasties, this represents a considerable challenge, since the individuals grow up in different places, possibly speak different languages and spend relatively little time together (Rüsen et al. 2021). The second basic form of Doing Family involves the ‘construction of commonalities’, which implicitly involves the exclusion of others. Commonalities are constructed through mutual reference, and a collective identity is created. In these processes, it must become clear what distinguishes and unites the business family. ‘What makes us so special?’ Rituals, shared memories or narratives can be important tools for this, as they make abstract affiliations concretely tangible by means of people, events or places (for a general theory of community-creating processes, see Assmann 2000, pp. 17, 38 ff. and his concept of the memory figure). In business families, references to the founding period, the founder him or herself,

1 In other publications, Jurczyk (2017) distinguished balance/compatibility management and Doing Family as basic patterns. Within Doing Family, she further differentiated (1) creating social ties, (2) establishing a sense of belonging and (3) displaying family (Jurczyk 2017, p. 146).

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anniversaries or historically significant places are suitable for this. In joint activities, a sense of belonging can then be constructed and a protected atmosphere for confidential interactions made possible. The third and last basic form of creating cohesion takes place through displaying family. In this way, cohesion is made public by consciously showing the life of the family to the outside world. This can happen, for example, by sharing family photos on social networks (Jurczyk 2014, p. 62). These actions make it clear who belongs and who is excluded. This reaffirms the identity and togetherness of the business family internally and sharpens the distinction from others. With the act of displaying family, the processes of community creation and exclusion of others become even more clearly and concretely visible. We have taken inspiration in Jurczyk’s theory and applied it to the business family. For this, we have developed a concept of the business family that includes foundations, processes of doing and the consequences of these processes (Koellner and Kleve 2023). In doing so, we are able to propose a coherent model of the business family as a process. In particular, we are emphasizing the processes of doing such as emotional attachment, belonging and identification, and solidarity and commitment. Herewith we are better able to link these processes to the practices that involve narratives, interactions, rituals and social memories. The practices contribute to the processes and may establish cohesion and transgenerational continuation (Fig. 1).

Doing Family in the Business Family 1.0 In terms of its structures and dynamics, the business family 1.0 shows many similarities with the nuclear family and focuses on the relationship of the parents, through which the children are born and raised (Kleve 2021). Accordingly, the business family 1.0 represents a primary socialization context and satisfies the important emotional and psycho-social needs of all participants (Kleve et al. 2019, p. 251). Therefore, a relatively large amount of time is spent together and members interact frequently. In this context, the family business can take up a large amount of space, both in terms of time and content, with the result that businessrelated issues are omnipresent (Simon et al. 2005, p. 49; Stamm 2013, p. 244). Therefore, there is a challenge here for balance management to ensure that familyrelated issues are not neglected and are given sufficient space. A clear separation between the company and the family is necessary here so that both sides receive sufficient attention.

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Fig. 1 The model of the business family

Similarities between the business family 1.0 and the nuclear family also emerge in the area of commonalities. Anyone who is included in the family by birth, adoption or marriage is a member of the family. This often seems self-evident, but it is quite different in different cultures (for an initial discussion of a comparative cultural perspective on business families, see Koellner 2023). A central common feature of the family is usually a shared household (economic and local communalization) and a common name for all family members (see Lubinski 2010, p. 123). In addition, the business usually plays a major role in the identity of the family as a whole, with all family members participating, as the business is an everyday part of family communication (Stamm et al. 2019, p. 120). This affiliation of all family members is presented and shown at the same time. Displaying family therefore plays a major role and unites the business family 1.0 with the nuclear family. For example, all members can be found in joint photos and take part in celebrations such as company anniversaries or Christmas parties. This presence at company events is usually independent of whether a person is operationally active or owns shares in the company. Rather, the aim is to convey cohesion and show that the tradition will be continued in the next generation.

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Doing Family in the Business Family 2.0 In the business family 2.0, differences from the nuclear family become clear. First of all, it becomes apparent that not all family members are closely interwoven with the company or are operationally active within it. Gainful employment outside the family business becomes the rule and leads to balance management becoming even more complex: the business family enters the scene in addition to gainful employment and the nuclear family. This makes time even scarcer, so that it is no longer possible to meet all the demands, leading to considerable ambivalences (v. Schlippe et al. 2017, pp. 102 ff.) which are not easy to resolve. The construction of commonalities also becomes more problematic as structures become professionalized and membership becomes more regulated (Kleve et al. 2020). As a result, membership is no longer managed in such an inclusive way. Thus, the distinction between family members active in management and those who are shareholders only becomes more important and creates tension. In addition, other challenges arise, such as the different distribution of shares (Koellner et al. 2020), affiliation with different branches (Ammer 2017), or spatial distribution. These challenges are also evident in the displaying family. However, it should be noted here that attempts are often made to negate internal differences externally and to emphasize the shared tradition and history (Keßler et al. 2018). Nevertheless, it remains the case that the business family and the nuclear family are increasingly perceived in a differentiated way. This can lead to different tendencies that should be countered as early as possible; otherwise they may become entrenched and endanger the cohesion of the business family as a whole.

Doing Family in the Business Family 3.0 In the business family 3.0, defined as large and successful business families with more than 80 individual members and a network character (Kleve and Köllner 2019, p. 8), Doing Family takes on special significance, since the classic relatedness, present in the nuclear family, no longer exists. Moreover, even the formal organization of the business family, as described in the business family 2.0, is not sufficient to ensure cohesion. Rather, diverging tendencies continue to gain in importance as a result of spatial and lifeworld separation. It becomes increasingly important to highlight the commonalities of the business family and to make them repeatedly conscious. Otherwise, the bond within the business family and to the

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family business will be lost, which can have far-reaching consequences for the continued existence of both social forms. For balance management, this means that interaction between members of the business family must be encouraged. In other words, explicit opportunities must be created to enable co-presence, which is not a concern in nuclear families as it happens naturally (Jurczyk et al. 2014). This is a veritable challenge, especially in very large and old business families, where members often live far apart and speak different languages (Rüsen et al. 2019, p. 229). Therefore, in the business family 3.0, networks are of huge importance, as they allow members to pursue common interests and partly enter into reciprocal exchange relationships (Kleve et al. 2020; Kleve 2020, p. 99; Rüsen et al. 2021). New technical possibilities are available for this purpose, such as intranet platforms or a family wiki page (Kleve 2020, pp. 100 ff.). Great importance is attached to highlighting commonalities. This can be done, for example, by creating family trees that illustrate the connections between the individual members. Sometimes this is carried out in a playful way, helping younger members of the business family in particular to become aware of their connections to one another. Another example of the construction of such commonalities are narratives that emphasize specific characteristics such as the entrepreneurial spirit, innovative strength or cleverness of the business family (Kleve et al. 2022; Koellner et al. 2023). Finally, the displaying family also plays a very important role. Increasingly, importance is being attached to the business family appearing to the outside world as a unit and presenting itself all together to the public. To this end, the relationship with the company is often emphasized, and the official appointments in the family business are used to display the family. Old family businesses in particular sometimes have their own historians who analyze the history of the family and the business and make it accessible to the public.

Conclusion and Practical Relevance The starting point of this paper is that the business family today is facing great changes and challenges. As a result, it is becoming increasingly necessary to ensure that the business family creates meaning for its members and implements measures to maintain and create cohesion. This is what has been examined and described here with the help of the concept of Doing Family.

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Specifically, balance management, the emphasis on commonalities and the displaying family were detailed for this purpose. These three basic forms of Doing Family not only enable an analysis of these phenomena, but also make it possible to derive measures for practice. We presented these measures separately for each of the different forms of the business family (1.0, 2.0 and 3.0). In this context, we pointed out that these measures must be sufficiently concrete. For this purpose, the connection to concrete persons, places or events lends itself to making the abstract entity of the business family tangible and comprehensible for the individuals concerned. In this way, we ultimately seek to emphasize the practical relevance of our analysis and encourage concrete support for family businesses and business families.

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Tobias Koellner Dr. habil., is anthropologist and sociologist, Senior Research Fellow at the WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business. Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/ Herdecke. Heiko Kleve Prof. Dr., is sociologist and social pedagogue, holder of the Chair for Organization and Development of Business Families at WIFU – Witten Institute for Family Business, Faculty of Economics, University of Witten/Herdecke.