The Challenge of Keeping a Family Firm Alive

Abstract

Keeping a family business alive is perhaps the toughest management job on earth. Only 13 percent of successful family businesses last through the third generation (see Table 1 and Appendix G). Less than two-thirds survive the second generation. And, as indicated by other studies (Blotnick, 1984), fewer than 5 percent of all businesses ever started actually become family businesses through appointment of a successor from the next generation.