EMERGE Research Seminar, Tuesday, 30 July at 12:15 in BSG/28
Wed, 14 Aug 2013 11:39:00 BST
Benson Akume, a first year PGR student at the University of Huddersfield, presented a seminar to the EMERGE group about his research titled “The Stewardship Theory: A new Paradigm for Family Business Sustainability”.
Benson’s research aims at finding out how the Stewardship Theory can be used to enhance family business sustainability through investigating how the Stewardship behaviour of family and non-family employees can be intentionally introduced into a family business; the research investigates the control mechanisms to be used by family business owners to check the operational conduct of employees so as to enhance performance and stewardship behaviour and ascertain whether a relationship exists between business performance and stewardship attitude within a family business.
Interest in the topic arose out of the desire to find solutions to the poor sustainability of family businesses across generations. Hence various literature in the field of family businesses highlights the important contributions of family businesses to any economy, but indicates that only a handful of family businesses are sustained into the 3rd generation, while the rest cease to exist after the 1st and 2nd generations. For instance, relevant literature indicates sustainability rates of only 30% of family businesses into the 2nd generation and about 10%-15% into the 3rd generation across most countries.
The research will rely on relevant literature for its theoretical framework development, and on primary data which will be generated through in-depth interviews of family business owners, managers and other staff across Nigeria to generate findings. The findings of the research, when applied, will strengthen family business literature through further analysis and discourse on the alignment of Stewardship Theory with family business sustainability, which will ultimately improve the sustainability rate of family businesses.
