Family Business Governance

CHAPTER 7

Increasing the Professionalism and Effectiveness of Family Firms

Improving Decision Making

For effective business performance, and for the continued success of the firm through multiple generations, decision making is a vital skill (Aronoff and Astrachan 1996; Alderson 2009). Decision making is a skill and it needs to be learned. For the next generation of family business members, some of the learning occurs in their professional education at college and by working for other companies before joining the family firm. Much of the learning takes place as they work at the company. Other learning takes place in the form of mentoring from one generation to another. History, values, and stories of the business are passed down by previous generations. ...