Family business is the oldest and most common model of economic organization. The vast majority of businesses throughout the world—from corner shops to multinational publicly listed organizations with hundreds of thousands of employees—can be considered family businesses.

The economic prevalence and importance of this kind of business are often underestimated. Throughout most of the 20th century, academics and economists were intrigued by a newer, “improved” model: large publicly traded companies run in an apparently rational, bureaucratic manner by well trained “organization men.” Entrepreneurial and family firms, with their specific management models and complicated psychological processes, often fell short by comparison.