Cross-cultural perspectives of diversity within family businesses

The importance of family businesses has been well documented in academic literature since the early 1990s (Chrisman et al., 2008; Chua et al., 2009; Daily and Dollinger, 1992; Debicki et al., 2009; Dunn, 1996; Fletcher, 2002; Lyman, 1991; Milton, 2008; Rogoff and Heck, 2003; Steier et al., 2009; Ward, 2004; Zahra et. al., 2004; Zahra et al., 2008). However, the model of traditional organisation of work and family life in industrialised countries has underplayed the interface of family and work. Functionalist family ideology, which underpinned industrialisation, was based on the male norms of isolation of work and family. However, family businesses, and the nexus of family and work, have recently become topics of significant preoccupation in the academic literature, owing largely to changes in the demographic composition of workforces and the demands that these changes place on the reorganisation of all constituencies of life.