A study on the influence of family on family businesses and its relationship to satisfaction with financial performance

Abstract

This article investigated, within family businesses, the theoretical and practical relationships between the influence of family on the family business and the satisfaction of the top manager family member with the financial performance of his or her business. How a family can influence its own business and what is meant by satisfaction with financial performance has been examined on the basis of the extant literature. Questionnaires have been created regarding the influence of family and satisfaction with financial performance. Afterwards, the relationship between influence and satisfaction was examined within the scope of a proposed model. Data were collected from the family businesses located in the organized industrial zones of Istanbul, Turkey. The influence of family and the satisfaction of the top manager family member with financial performance were found to be based on five and two key factors, respectively. In view of the findings, although spouses of the family members within the family business did not influence satisfaction with profit or debt, they did cause a decrease in satisfaction with sales and operations. The involvement of family in the financial decisions along with the business successor also negatively affected satisfaction with debt, profit, sales, and operations. Although the founder of the business did not have a significant influence on the factors that affected satisfaction with financial performance, family members’ loyalty to and harmony with the business positively affected satisfaction with financial performance. In conclusion, the influence of family has a weak inverse relationship with top manager family member’s financial performance satisfaction.