Five Generations at Work

5Family Businesses

Through a succession of leadership across 46 generations, the Hokuriku Awazu Onsen Hoshi is one of the oldest family businesses in Japan, dating back to the year 718 AD, and continues to thrive today.¹ Similarly, the success of Nishiyama Onsen Keiunkan, founded in 705, is cited for its “intergenerational pride”.²

The intergenerational dimension to family businesses made it integral to our work and to this discussion, as we were curious to go deeper into some of the drivers behind the models of success and sustainability. The other factor behind their relevance is the sheer scale of their influence and impact on the global economy. Two-thirds of companies globally are family-owned, generating 70% of the world’s GDP. As the Global Family Business Index, published by EY and the University of St Gallen evidences, the largest 500 family businesses are growing faster than the global economy, collectively generating US $8.02 trillion in revenues and employing 24.5 million people worldwide.³

Having gained insight and sightlines from our own experience and work with family businesses, we explore in more depth how positive aspects of their cultures could be adopted and adapted to boost the cultures and performance of non-family organisations. Through the course of our research, we examined how they integrate generational thinking into the operationalisation of the business, the structuring of family and non-family roles and responsibilities, succession planning and ...