Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons

T his is an empirical study of family firm size, asmeasured by the number of employees, and the rela-tionship of a firm’s size to a variety of management activities, styles, and characteristics.A statistical analysis of data drawn from 159 American family businesses indi-cates significant differences by size with regard to the num-ber of nonfamily members in top management, use of out-side advisors, time spent engaged in strategic manage-ment, use of sophisticated methods of financial manage-ment, proportion of women family members involved in firm management, and level of conflict between family members. Implications are offered for family firm owner-managers, for those who assist such businesses, and for researchers in the field of family business. In almost all countries, families are central to the ownership and management of the majority of businesses (Dennis 2002). Within the U.S. economy, family businesses compris