Article
The Bias Against Family-Owned Businesses
by:
R. Phillip Colon, Ph.D. & Jerry I. Kleiman, Ph.D.
Recent statistics show that ninety per cent or more of the
businesses in the United States are family owned (1,2).
Accordingly, there is a good likelihood that some of the
families that we see in treatment have at least one working
parent involved with other family members in a family-owned
business. While we are adept in our understanding of the
myriad of issues impacting the families we treat, many
clinicians are hampered by a lack of knowledge when it
comes to the culture of the family-owned business. For
business families, the family-owned business is an
interwoven theme in their lives, and most naturally, in their
discussions in the family therapist's office. The family-owned
business is pervasive in its impact on the families involved,
affecting both the quality of relationships in the nuclear and
extended family and the family's standard of living. In any
family, there is an interface between the working parent and
the workplace. In the family where the working parent is
involved in a multi-generational family-owned business, or
where the spouses are in business together, there are
greater points of interface between the family system and
the business system. Consequently, there are more issues,
there are more areas of influence between the two systems,
and there is greater potential for conflict. Conversely, where
the two systems can interface in relative harmony, there is
the potential for growth in both the family and the business.
Too often the clinicians lack of understanding of and respect
for these interfaces leads to an under-appreciation of the
forces at play and of their potential to positively impact on
both the family and business. A survey of psychotherapists
was conducted by the authors. Psychotherapists of various
disciplines (Ph.D.s and C.S.W.s) were provided with two
clinical vignettes that differed only in the fact that in one
vignette, the father was involved in a stressful family-owned
business; in the other, the father was involved in a stressful
non-family owned business. A third vignette depicted a well
functioning family, with no identifiable conflicts, and with the
father involved in a family-owned business. The results
showed that in the first two vignettes, the majority of
respondents attributed the business to be a major contributor
to the problems at home, but only when the parent was
involved in a family-owned business. Autonomy and
individuation issues were identified as existing mainly for
those involved in a family-owned business. When given the
third scenario where there were no problems identified,
respondents still subscribed problems of autonomy and
individuation just by the casual mention of the parent's
involvement in a family-owned business. This bias, the
view that many of the issues confronting the family and
working parent in a family-owned business are inherently
pathological, can have a negative effect in the treatment of
the family. The clinician's bias may influence and even
encourage the working parent to leave the family-owned
business rather than attempt to work out the issues at hand.
Successful development of the parent involved in the familyowned business may mean attempting to resolve boundary
issues, learning to negotiate across boundaries, and learning
how to deal with issues of autonomy, competency, rivalry
between family members and other issues of contention.
The family-owned business is often made the scapegoat for
developmental lags in these areas.
A parallel can be
drawn between working with ethnic groups and working with
business families. Differences in cultural experience and
norms between a clinician and an ethnic group can lead a
family therapist to pathologize what in the ethnic culture is
normal. Similarly, clinicians who lack an understanding and
appreciation of the culture of the family-owned business risk
the danger of pathologizing what is normal. Without the
proper understanding of the family-owned business culture,
the clinician may be at odds with interpersonal dynamics that
are not appreciated and may miss the opportunity to help the
client-family.
Certainly, there are times where the interface
between the family and the family-owned business lead to
issues that are not resolvable, and where the working parent
must give consideration to dissolving or leaving the familyowned business. Nevertheless, it behooves the family
therapist to respect the potential for optimal personal and
business growth that the interface between family and
business allows. Our research suggests that clinicians
tend to be biased about an individual's involvement in familyowned businesses and that there is a need for clinicians to
develop a greater awareness of the culture of the familyowned business. As there are more areas of interface
between the working parent, workplace and the family when
there is involvement in a family-owned business, there is a
greater chance of family conflict and more of a tendency on
the part of the clinician to view participation in the familyowned business a priori as the cause of the conflict. We
found that clinicians tended to view people involved in a
family-owned business as less relationally evolved than
those that are not. There is a need for awareness and
openness on the part of the professional in recognizing that
the family and business can positively interface with and
enhance family life. As clinicians, we need to confront our
bias that involvement in a family-owned business is
inherently pathological.
References:
1. Astrachan, Joseph and Carey, Melissa (1994). Family
Businesses In The U.S. Economy. Unpublished manuscript
from presentation to The Center For The Study Of
Taxation.
2. Lank, Alden G. (1994). The State of Family Business in
Various Countries Around the World. FBN Newsletter, May
1994, No. 9.
Reprinted from "The Family Psychologist," Spring, 1995