The Most Trusted Advisor and the Subtle Advice Process in Family Firms

Abstract

The literature on advising family firms has primarily focused on providing practical advice through offering explicit intervention phases and advising models to family firm advisors. Yet the underlying implicit processes behind advising are not well understood. This study examines nine most trusted advisors in six family firms to develop a grounded theory model of how advisors capture attention, how they become attuned to family firm members to influence attention, and how they aid family members to collaboratively interrelate and mindfully govern the firm in order to facilitate an environment of collective attention.

The social status of entrepreneurs

“…These representations are adapted from the data structures presented by Strike (2013) and display the final coding in a transparent and analytical manner, as recommended by Hair and Sarstedt (2014). We first present our findings on the status of entrepreneurship, informed by the non-entrepreneur participants.…”

All in the Family? An Exploratory Study of Family Member Advisors and Firm Performance

“…Advisors serving family firms face challenges that are different from those addressed by other advisors (Davis, Dibrell, Craig, & Green, 2013), since they have to work at the interface of family, business, and ownership. They must be aware of both process and content, deal with complex emotions, manage family and business conflicts, and balance conflicting stakeholder interests (Gersick et al, 1997;Hilburt-Davis & Dyer, 2003;Jaffe & Lane, 2004;Strike, 2013). Recent studies suggest that family firms need not only a high range of expertise, but also a great number of advisors: accountants, attorneys, family office consultants, financial services advisors, management consultants, family philanthropy managers, psychologists, and family therapists (Reay et al, 2013).…”

Knowledge sharing in small family firms: A leadership perspective

“…Figure 1 provides a visual representation of the data structure from those firms demonstrating supportive approaches, while Figure 2 provides the same data structure for those showing participative approaches. These figures are adapted from the data structures used by Strike (2013) and also show the themes found from within the data groups, and the aggregated dimensions on the state of knowledge sharing (KS) resulting from these themes. In structuring the data in such a way, the study attempts to answer Hair and Sarstedt's (2014) call for more analytical and transparent qualitative approaches.…”