Successfully supporting change in family businesses
With this research we wanted to investigate to what extent change processes can be more supported ("my and/or "our" change process) by the (non-)family employees in family firms and how psychological ownership can contribute to successful change processes in family firms.
Psychological ownership (PSO) is defined as the feeling that something (e.g., a task, a company) belongs to "me" or to "us" (Pierce et al., 2001). Specifically, in this project we wanted to develop a tool that would help family businesses determine the extent to which their change processes are supported by their stakeholders. We did this by developing a website with a digital self-scoring questionnaire (a so-called "self-scan"). The underlying database of this website was based on measurements (surveys and in-depth interviews) of successful and less successful family businesses and also on an extensive collection of data on best practices for successful change processes. By linking the score of the self-scan to the database, an automated, customized report can be generated for a broad group of family businesses with possible areas for improvement. Finally, through in-depth interviews with family entrepreneurs and their employees, we wanted to explore how PSO can be promoted in family businesses. We are making this information available in the form of a book.
Despite the fact that much has already been written about change processes, in practice more than 70 percent of change processes in companies fail (e.g. Davidson, 1993). This is no different in family businesses. In addition, family businesses have specific challenges such as, for example, managing the relationships between family and non-family employees. So the question is why so many change processes still fail in family businesses and how the success rate can be increased.
An answer can be found in the extent to which PSO is encouraged with respect to the change process. When employees are given the opportunity to feel ownership, they gain in their self-esteem and pride in the results achieved. They feel more connected to the family business and have a more active participation in change processes (Lambrechts et al., 2009 a; b), which increases the success rate of the change process. However, we still know too little about how PSO can be stimulated in family enterprises.
Since 77% of enterprises in Flanders are classified as family enterprises (IFB, 2012), and the failure of change processes entails significant economic costs, we thought the topic to be investigated was highly relevant.
