This edited volume provides an anthropological study of family businesses and business families. In previous research on family firms and business families, the comparative cross-cultural approach of anthropology has so far received little attention. As a result, family firms and business families are too often analyzed without considering cultural and kinship differences adequately. Similarly, although the topics of kinship and the economy are central to anthropological analysis, research on family firms and business families has been a marginal topic only that lacks in-depth discussions within anthropology. This volume breaks the mold by offering new empirical and theoretical insights into discussion about business families and family firms from a comparative cross-cultural perspective. It first addresses how the business family can be defined in different cultures and how kinship becomes understandable as a process and through ‘doing family’. In this, the book provides a systematic comparison of the connections between family, kinship and economic activity in different cultures, whereas many of the previous studies have concentrated on only one or a few regions or cultures. It also shows the complexities and challenges when grounding the analysis of economic activity and entrepreneurship in cultural context.
Author(s): Tobias Koellner
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Language: English
Pages: 320
City: Cham
Preface
Contents
Notes on Contributors
Part I: Introduction
Chapter 1: An Introduction to Family Firms and Business Families from the Anthropological Perspective: Concepts, Reflections and Ethnographic Observations
1 Introduction
2 An Anthropological Approach to Family Firms and Business Families
2.1 Doing Kinship, Relatedness, Kinning and Doing Family
2.2 The Business Family and the Kinship Enterprise
2.3 Business Families in Cultural Contexts
3 Overview of the Chapters
4 Conclusion
References
Part II: A Processual Understanding of Kinship
Chapter 2: How ‘Enduring Family Bonds’ Are Made: Insights from Fulɓe Kinship Enterprises in Northern Benin
1 Introduction
1.1 Fulɓe Family Economies as ‘Kinship Enterprises’
1.2 Perspectives on ‘Family’ and ‘Kinship’
2 Economic Projects: Pastoral Systems of Production
3 Social Projects in Fulɓe Kinship Enterprises
4 How ‘Enduring Family Bonds’ Are Made
4.1 Kinning Rituals at Birth
4.2 Marrying Sons and Daughters off: Rationalities and Desires
4.3 Caring for Cattle and People
4.4 Transferring Rights over Cattle and Milk
5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 3: Producing and Reproducing the Business Family Across Generations: The Importance of Narratives in German Business Families
1 Introduction
2 The Research and Its Methodology
3 Narratives and Family Business
3.1 The Narrative Approach
3.2 The Role of Narratives in Family Business
4 Empirical Examples of Narratives in Family Business
4.1 Case 1: Survival and Succession: Flexibility, Cooperation, Continuity and Change
4.2 Case 2: The Cleverness of the Family and its Members
5 Conclusion
References
Part III: Family Business after the End of Socialism
Chapter 4: Power, Family and Business: Practices of Oligarchic Economy in Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Armenia (Before 2018)
1 Introduction
2 Social and Cultural Specifics of Economy and Kinship in Late Soviet and Early Post-Soviet Armenia (Before 2018)
3 ‘Family Business Empires’ in the Post-Soviet Period of 2000–2018
4 Gender Issues and Matrimonial Practices in Oligarchic Families and Networks
4.1 Matrimonial Practices of Oligarchs: ‘The Oligarch’s Wedding’
4.2 Business Empires and Women: ‘Muk’s Casus’
5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 5: Business as a Gift: Family Entrepreneurship and the Ambiguities of Sharing
1 Introduction
2 A Short History of Family and Gender Relations in (Post-)Soviet Russia
3 Gifts, Temporalities of Exchange and Politics of Value
4 A Job as a Gift
5 Property Exchanges
6 A Gift as an Informal Contract
7 Balancing Sharing and Market Risks
8 Conclusion
References
Part IV: The Contet of Family Business
Chapter 6: Rethinking Confucianism: Family Business and the Ritual Construction of the ‘Family’ in Japan and China
1 Introduction: Anthropology in Approaches of East Asian Area Studies to Family Business
2 The Confucianism Conundrum in Cross-Cultural Management
3 Ritual Theory and Family Business
3.1 East Asian Conceptions of Ritual as a Theory of Ritual
3.2 The Ritual Construction of Family Business
4 Japan: Enacting the Family Business as a Family Corporation by Means of Ritual
5 China: Enacting the Family Business as Family Enterprise by Means of Ritual
6 Conclusion
References
Chapter 7: Kinship, Godparenthood and Urban Estates in the Bolivian Andes: The Cultural Production of Business Families
1 Introduction
2 Market Institutions, Firms and Urban Estates
3 Kinship Relationships and Mutuality in the Market
3.1 Andean Kinship
3.2 Mutual Obligations in the Market
3.3 Economic Differences Among Siblings
4 Ritual Kinship
5 Conclusion
References
Chapter 8: Anthropology of Family and Family Businesses Is Emic All the Way
1 Introduction
2 An Anthropological Idea of Culture
3 Family in Kinship Order
4 Japanese Kinship
5 The Japanese Ie and the Japanese Kaisha (Company)
5.1 The Kaisha as the Pragmatic Objectification of the Ie
6 Conclusion
References
Part V: Family Business and Historical Change
Chapter 9: The Legacy of the Past in Business Families of Northern Italy
1 Introduction
2 The Importance of Kin Ties
3 Family Work Contribution
4 Land Fragmentation
5 Catholic Cooperativism
6 Conclusion
References
Chapter 10: Family Values, Paprika Production and E.U. Integration: An Ethnography of a Kinship Enterprise in Contemporary Hungary
1 Introduction
2 Focusing on a Family Business and a Family History: Between the City and the Countryside
3 Becoming a Manager and Entrepreneur: The Historical Roots of a Family Business
4 Privatization: Becoming a Family Business
5 Paprika Powder Production
6 The Family Business’s Accession to the European Union
7 Generational Change
8 Conclusion
References
Chapter 11: The Other Side of Succession Issues: How the Decline of Some Family Businesses Allows for the Consolidation of Others
1 Introduction
2 The ‘Sweet’ Origin of Mauritian History—and Family Firms
3 Between Failed and Successful Succession: Franco-Mauritian Conglomerates
3.1 Building Upon the Succession and Financial Troubles of Other Family Firms
3.2 Disentangling Shared Investments
4 Conclusion
References
Part VI: Concluding Remarks
Chapter 12: Conclusion
References
Chapter 13: Afterword
References
Index
