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The Dynamics of Families in Business: How Therapists can Help in Ways Consultants Don't

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Abstract

Family-owned businesses comprise 80–90% of companies in the United States of America and employ almost one-half of the US work force. Only 70% of these companies will make the transition into the family's second generation of leadership, however, sometimes partly because families work differently and toward different goals than do businesses. Interpersonal family dynamics—spousal, parental, father-son, father-daughter, sibling and in-law—can be a major factor in the failure to thrive. Exploring family systems theory, this article explains why these troubled families in business together need therapeutic practitioners' unique experience—experience consultants usually do not possess.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Texas Woman's University, USA

    Sonya Nance Rodriguez (Doctoral student at) & Joseph Mancuso (Founder and President)

  2. Department of Family Studies, College of Human Environmental Sciences at the, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40506–0050

    Gladys J. Hildreth (Professor and Chair of the)

Authors
  1. Sonya Nance Rodriguez
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  2. Gladys J. Hildreth
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  3. Joseph Mancuso
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Rodriguez, S.N., Hildreth, G.J. & Mancuso, J. The Dynamics of Families in Business: How Therapists can Help in Ways Consultants Don't. Contemporary Family Therapy 21, 453–468 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1021671020586

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