Whether management should coincide with, or be separate from, ownership in family businesses has been debated for years. Like any business though, a family business needs strong leadership to organise and motivate it and awareness of situations which could cause undermine it is critical.
The most important thing for the company and the family controlling it is to guarantee its continuity. Our study of the profile of senior management teams in Italian family owned businesses and the relation between the composition of the team and company reveals the important themes prevalent in Italian family businesses among them management professionalisation and the criteria for management selection.
There is recognition that managers, whether they belong to the family or not, should be oriented more towards professional experience and capabilities. Composition of the senior management team as a whole is also important with companies recognising that tension between managers who are family members and those who are not carries a risk of compromising the efficiency of decision-making and creating tensions within the top ranks of the company that could affect profitability.
This is an English translation of a study conducted in Italian available here