Family governance. Literature review and development of a conceptual model

Family business researchers have devoted a great deal of attention to the topic of family business governance but have rather disregarded the fact that the family needs to be governed as well. The purpose of this article is to shed light on family governance by reviewing literature on family governance institutions, practices and their effects. Family governance will be discussed in the context of principal-agent theory, stewardship theory and social capital theory. Depending on the size of the business-owning family, the family businesses and several other factors, families might decide to establish family meetings/assemblies, family councils, family constitutions, family offices and/or family committees. After analyzing 54 publications on family governance, results show that family governance produces both an added emotional value, as it can mitigate the potential for conflicts, and an added economic value, as it can improve long-term business performance. The article concludes by presenting a consolidating conceptual model with propositions and by showing potential focuses for future research.