May/June 2013
A scientific field offers insights for family businesses
By Scott E. Friedman
Family business struggles are well known to anyone working in the field, whether as a proverb (“shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations”), as a statistic (only 12% of family businesses make it to the third generation), through regularly published accounts of prominent families caught up in litigation or through personal experience. Despite having access to professional advisers working to promote intergenerational success, many family businesses continue to struggle. This suggests the need for family business leaders to adopt a new planning paradigm.
The evolution of conflict
In The Science of Fear, Daniel Gardner writes that the central insight of evolutionary psychology …
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