ABSTRACT
All family businesses wish for business prosperity and family harmony; the reality, however, is that they are often confronted with an underperforming business and numerous unresolved family conflicts. Family businesses face various challenges, and finding a mechanism to manage differences and conflicts has always been a potential fault line in the family, even though it is the key to the survival of the business and the family itself. Many of these differences are caused by conflicts and misunderstandings between different generations and are the family business’s greatest enemy. Understanding generational differences will ultimately help family businesses create a sustainable, cohesive and competitive business. This chapter presents quantitative measures to investigate generational differences in the workplace and qualitative measures to identify strategies to minimize the conflict in family owned businesses specifically.
