Young family business members must prove themselves to a variety of constituencies: their parents, other relatives, non-family employees, community members and others who might prejudge them because their last name is on the door of the company. While they are learning about the family firm, they must also learn how to manage a variety of relationships.

When twin sisters Jenny Dinnen and Katie Rucker took over MacKenzie Corp., an analytics firm in Lake Forest, Calif., in 2013, they immediately realized that the business needed some new focus in order to remain competitive. Their father, Don Vivrette, had founded the company in 1985 and named it after his mother, Kathryn MacKenzie Vivrette.

It’s two days before the season opening of Morey’s Piers, three boardwalk amusement parks in The Wildwoods, a New Jersey seaside resort about 90 miles outside Philadelphia. On this April afternoon, stands are being stocked with candy and stuffed animals at Morey’s Surfside Pier, and the famous Curley’s Fries have drawn the attention of the bird population. A sweet scent on the breeze suggests that the funnel cake fryer is also getting a test run.

When Tom Pickens and his wife, Kelly, suddenly died in a plane crash, the shock left their children and grandchildren in disarray. The Pickens family had lost not only its beloved patriarch and matriarch, but also the leaders of the family’s $500 million produce business. Although Tom and Kelly were in their late 80s, they had continued to run and own the business Tom had founded decades before. (This is a real case, with identifying details changed.)