Purpose

Family governance mechanisms serve to govern and strengthen relations between the family and the business, as well as the relationships between the members of the business family itself. However, despite agreement on the importance of adopting family governance structures, explicit research on the determinants of family governance mechanisms is currently missing. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to uncover the determinants of family meetings. In order to do so, the social systems theory is used to unravel several determining factors of this crucial form of family governance mechanisms in private family firms.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors perform a qualitative study by conducting semi-structured interviews in eight Belgian private family firms in order to discover the antecedents of the implementation of family meetings. The authors use a pattern-matching technique as an analytical strategy.

Findings

The findings of the study highlight the importance of “soft,” relational, qualitative issues as antecedents of family meetings as opposed to previous research on family governance, which predominantly focused on “hard,” quantitative measures (e.g. family ownership). The findings of the study also provide novel insights into the origins of the family component (i.e. family meetings) of family business governance.

Originality/value

While the current literature has only focused on describing the different types of family governance and their positive consequences for the family firm, the authors take a step back to explain why family meetings, as a form of family governance, are adopted in the first place. Second, the authors demonstrate the instrumentality of the social systems theory in understanding the family's needs that necessitate the implementation of family governance mechanisms.

中文翻译：

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私人家族企业中家庭会议的决定因素

目的

家族治理机制用于治理和加强家族与企业之间的关系，以及企业家族本身成员之间的关系。然而，尽管对采用家族治理结构的重要性达成共识，但目前缺乏对家族治理机制决定因素的明确研究。因此，本研究的目的是揭示家庭会议的决定因素。为了做到这一点，社会系统理论被用来揭示私人家族企业中这种重要的家族治理机制形式的几个决定因素。

设计/方法/途径

作者通过对八家比利时私人家族企业进行半结构化访谈来进行定性研究，以发现实施家族会议的前因。作者使用模式匹配技术作为分析策略。

发现

该研究的结果强调了“软性”、关系性、定性问题作为家庭会议前因的重要性，这与以往关于家庭治理的研究不同，后者主要侧重于“硬性”定量措施（例如家族所有权）。该研究的结果还为家族企业治理的家族组成部分（即家族会议）的起源提供了新的见解。

原创性/价值

虽然目前的文献仅侧重于描述不同类型的家族治理及其对家族企业的积极影响，但作者退后一步解释了为什么首先采用家族会议作为一种家族治理形式。其次，作者证明了社会系统理论在理解需要实施家庭治理机制的家庭需求方面的作用。