Group items tagged

This article aims to shed light on the distinguishing features of management accounting in family firms in relation to processes of professionalization and succession. The study combines insights offered by the debate on family businesses and management accounting with the empirical findings of a longitudinal case study (Monnalisa). By exploring the evolution of management accounting practices within the company and the processes of succession and professionalization, this article shows that management accounting can affect the transfer of knowledge across generations and between the owner family and the management team, thus representing and reproducing the priorities, values, and vision of the entrepreneur.

Our purpose is to challenge the dominant meaning of professional management in family business research and to suggest an extended understanding of the concept. Based on a review of selected literature on professional management and with insights from cultural theory and symbolic interactionism, we draw on interpretive case research to argue that professional family business management rests on two competencies, formal and cultural, of which only the former is explicitly recognized in current family business literature. We elaborate on the meanings and implications of cultural competence and argue that without it a CEO of a family business is likely to work less effectively, no matter how good the formal qualifications and irrespective of family membership.