Abstract
Based on long-term qualitative research with century-old business families in the German context, we emphasize the role of narratives. Understood as discursive social practices, they convey meaning, foster identification and establish particular images of the business family for themselves and outsiders. Examples discussed in the article include narratives about flexibility, cooperation and the particular cleverness of its members. In particular, we argue that narratives contribute to internal cohesion within the business family because processes of individualization, changed inheritance practices and lucrative opportunities outside the family business challenge the intent for transgenerational continuation. Thus we highlight a processual understanding of business families and draw on conceptions such as relatedness, kinning and doing family from anthropology and family sociology. Herewith we are better able to show how these self-images and narratives work and how they are used as mechanism for the production and reproduction of business families. Old business families in the German context, then, are no fixed entities but the outcome of processes where meaning, identification and sense-making are successfully transferred within and across generations.
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Notes
- 1.
All names are synonyms but reflect certain characteristics of the originals. In addition, the names of the company, the city and the family have been omitted to protect the anonymity of our interlocutors.
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Koellner, T., Boyd, B., Kleve, H., RĂ¼sen, T.A. (2023). Producing and Reproducing the Business Family Across Generations: The Importance of Narratives in German Business Families. In: Koellner, T. (eds) Family Firms and Business Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20525-5_3
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