It is widely understood that business-owning families pursue socioemotional wealth (SEW) primarily to satisfy their desire for control over the firm. Unfortunately, due to the private nature of the gains SEW-based decisions are intended to generate, its pursuit is unlikely to serve the interests of those other stakeholders on which the business depends. In response, we draw upon Adam Smith’s classic arguments from An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations and The theory of the moral sentiments to develop a normative theory of decision-making in family business that balances the pursuit of self- and other-regarding interests. We propose that only those families that strive to generate socio-economic (rather than socioemotional) wealth are likely to survive in the long-run.

众所周知，拥有企业的家庭追求社会情感财富（SEW）的主要目的是满足他们对公司的控制权。不幸的是，由于收益的私人性质，是基于SEW的决策旨在产生的结果，因此其追求不太可能为业务所依赖的其他利益相关者的利益服务。为此，我们在亚当·斯密的经典论据借鉴探究国民财富的性质和原因，并在道德情操论发展家族企业决策的规范性理论，余额追求自我和其他利益。我们建议，只有那些致力于产生社会经济（而不是社会情感）的家庭）财富可能会长期生存。