Family Owned Business Institute

Research Scholar's Abstracts 2009 - Reg Litz

The House of: When Family Businesses and Business Families Rise, Stand, Fall and Rise Again
Reg Litz
2009

This project will seek to understand the family business and its correlate institution, the business family, as coexisting parts of a single larger entity, the house. Using this metaphor as a grounding construct, the study's central question can be stated as follows: Why and how do houses rise, stand, fall and sometimes rise again? The study will involve in-depth longitudinal study of several U.S.-based family business biographies where the book's author has invoked the descriptor of the family business as a "house" in the book's title. The study's key output centers on identifying key themes that explain why and how family businesses and business families rise, stand, fall, and, sometimes, rise again.