The focus of this international conference was the family-run firm, without question the most widely-used business ownership and organizational structure. It was noted that in Europe and the Anglo-Saxon world, and in the Far East and more recently emergent countries, the family business constitutes – albeit to greater or lesser extents and with marked differences from region to region – a key pillar of the global economy, in the production of wealth as well as in job creation. Yet despite the abundance of such firms, which in Italy account for around 73% of all businesses and for similar if not higher percentage proportions across the Old Continent (between 70-80%), by and large the family business still remains a little-examined and poorly understood phenomenon in terms of its deeper implications.
The participants pointed to issues primarily of a definitional and empirical nature as being the major determinants of this overall lack of analysis and understanding. Indeed, despite the pivotal role played by family businesses throughout the course of the historical development of capitalism, the economic sciences have only recently begun to take a systematic interest in the family-run business, and often as a dialectical alternative to a much more well-studied and understood model, namely, that of the public company. Despite these developments, however, until a few years ago there was still a widespread reluctance in international public debate among non-specialists in the field to treat the family business as a “unique category” in terms of ownership structure and corporate governance, choosing instead to focus – both in conducting business censuses or gathering statistics, as well as in analyzing business performance – on other more traditional classification parameters, such as the mere size of firms or their form of incorporation.
It was acknowledged, however, that here too, the economic and financial crisis has led to a rethink, triggering heated debate over the pitfalls and virtues of the development model that had gained ascendancy over the past two decades. In particular, the underscoring of critical issues such as short-term vision, inadequate controls over managers, the propensity to indebtedness, and the excessive financialization of the economy, has contributed to a more prominent role being accorded to the relationship between business and family, understood as a stabilizing factor, geared towards the long term, and anchored in values (handed down from generation to generation) of social responsibility and greater respect for the needs of the community and local economic area to which one belongs.
In simpler terms, it was felt that, as a result of the crisis, the family business structure now has an opportunity to take on a more distinct “independent personality” than has hitherto been the case, and undoubtedly one that is more in keeping with its prevalence in numerical terms and its widespread distribution across Italy as previously mentioned. On one hand, the model offers the strength that stems from a shared system of values and interests, whilst on the other, the country exhibits a need for innovation and particularly for renewal, an imperative that has ramifications for the cultural dimension as much as it does in the regulatory and managerial realm. It was stressed that, generally speaking, this should entail a receptiveness to and capacity for change in respect of governance and ownership structure, the interplay between ownership and management, interactions within the ownership structure itself, internationalization and at the same time ties with the local economic area and community, growth in size and the creation of networks with other family businesses, ensuring generational handovers are planned well in advance, and greater gender equality for those in top management positions. By way of conclusion, the participants noted that hanging over all this is the issue of leadership (never more crucial than here), which raises questions regarding the link between Italian household wealth and the undercapitalization of the country’s businesses, but especially regarding the interrelationship between rewarding merit, passing on the reins, and succession: between leadership and legitimacy, between parent and child – and all this amid the difficult task of building a future in the spirit of continuity and tradition.
