This article explores verbal and visual language use in Zimbabwean contraceptive promotional brochures distributed from the early to mid-1980s. Drawing on recent work in critical discourse analysis of text and visual design, the article uses multimodal discourse analysis and draws from Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar’s transitivity analysis to analyze family planning pamphlets, focusing on the discursive construction of women as contraceptive users. The article argues that the salience of the language of risk and vulnerability, which is textually and visually (...) deployed throughout the pamphlets, discursively constructs risk as a feature of unequal power relations. The article further argues that underlying the overarching discourse on risk are multiple ‘silences’ that discursively construct an ideological difference consisting of oppositional binaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ in terms of power relations. The differentiation of social groups reflects ‘hidden’ social inequalities in the text and visual images. (shrink)

In spite of the considerable development of research in the fields of business ethics and family business, a comprehensive review and integration of the area where both disciplines intersect has not been undertaken so far. This paper aims at contributing to the call for more research on family business ethics by answering the following research questions: What is the status of the current research at the intersection of business ethics and family business? (...) Why and how do family firms differ from non-family firms regarding business ethics? And, what are the key directions for further research? To answer these questions, this study combines a systematic approach for the selection of articles, resulting in a sample of 31 articles over 35 years, with a narrative review to analyze the literature. This paper finds that research on family business ethics is scarce but increasing and that family firms are considerably different from non-family firms regarding ethical issues. Particular stakeholders, goals, relationships, and practices are found to be the forces behind the peculiarity of family business ethics. Ultimately, research development on family business ethics is encouraged and future research directions flowing from the key findings and reflections of this review are provided. (shrink)

Small family businesses have generally been shown to exhibit significant concern for social responsibility, especially at the community level. Despite the reported heterogeneity of family firms in their preferences for and participation in social responsibility, the drivers of such differences are not agreed upon in the literature. We draw from enlightened self-interest and social capital theories by exploring their complementary and competing implications for the effect of duration and community satisfaction on participation in community-oriented social responsibility. Additionally, drawing (...) on the association between gender and self-construal and evidence that gender shapes helping and giving behaviors, we assess the moderating role of the gender of the firm manager in these relationships. We test our hypotheses on a sample of 279 family businesses and find support that gender moderates the relationship between community duration and satisfaction and measures of CSR. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the family business as an organizational entity and as a proprietary form useful to transmit personal values and company assets to the next generations. This paper aims to introduce the legal instruments in Italy to transfer family businesses and to evaluate how these are useful for ensuring not only the survival of the company in the market but also that family values and characteristics pass from one generation to the next maintaining a prosocial (...) humanistic management perspective. The legal status of the family business and the fact that most small- and medium-sized companies in Italy are not listed, which considerably affects disclosure obligations and makes it more challenging to get consistent and reliable information at affordable costs, has to date limited research on this model. In recent years, given their growth in size and market share, the strategic potential of family businesses was recognized by both academics and practitioners, giving rise to further study. A primary goal of a family business is to maintain its competitive advantage in the market and pass down its values in the succession line. Hence, one of the most important themes on which scholars focused has been how this process takes place to ensure continuity. This paper argues that the trust and the family pact are both valid legal instruments to this end, albeit with different advantages depending on the circumstances surrounding the succession. (shrink)

Religion has significantly influenced societies throughout history and across the globe. Family firms—particularly those operating in strongly religious regions—are more likely to be subject to the influence of religion. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which religion affects business activities in family firms. We study how religion impacts business activities through a qualitative study of two Anatolian-based family firms in Turkey. We find that religion provides a dominant meaning system that plays a key (...) role in constituting business activities through three mechanisms: family imports religious practices as business practices; family adheres to religious values as a rationale for business actions; and family religious values define business taboos by avoiding the evil eye. These mechanisms highlight how religion becomes a source of well-understood business practices, how religion defines the nature of rationality that guides business activities, and how religious taboos can delimit the range of potential business activities, respectively. (shrink)

Religion has significantly influenced societies throughout history and across the globe. Family firms—particularly those operating in strongly religious regions—are more likely to be subject to the influence of religion. However, little is known about the mechanisms by which religion affects business activities in family firms. We study how religion impacts business activities through a qualitative study of two Anatolian-based family firms in Turkey. We find that religion provides a dominant meaning system that plays a key (...) role in constituting business activities through three mechanisms: family imports religious practices as business practices; family adheres to religious values as a rationale for business actions; and family religious values define business taboos by avoiding the evil eye. These mechanisms highlight how religion becomes a source of well-understood business practices, how religion defines the nature of rationality that guides business activities, and how religious taboos can delimit the range of potential business activities, respectively. (shrink)

Growing concern about economic inequality has generated a polarized narrative regarding the causes and consequences of extreme wealth. We contend that divided ideological positions obscure a more mundane reality about the typical wealthiest 1% households. Using data from the triennial survey of consumer finance, we demonstrate that there is substantial heterogeneity within the 1%. Contrary to public discourse, the typical 1% household does not have wealth reflective of popular rich lists, but derives a significant share of its wealth from ownership (...) and active management of small- to medium-sized private enterprise. We use these findings to shed new insights on business families’ relationship to economic inequality and open promising new areas of inquiry regarding the role of the family business in society. (shrink)

In the biblical Book of Ruth, Boaz instructs his workers not to molest Ruth. We draw insights on the problem of workplace sexual harassment in the family-firm setting from the Book of Ruth. We then integrate these insights with several discrete findings in the literatures on workplace sexual harassment and family firms: First, family firms are relatively strong when it comes to a culture of fairness and respect. Second, family firms sometimes lack formal codes of ethics, (...) which could hamper integrity. Third, religious exemplars can reinforce the positive culture of family firms and even substitute for a formal code of ethics. Fourth, religious exemplars can also attenuate excessive risk-taking behavior in family firms. (shrink)

This study investigates the internationalization of small family businesses by classifying the effects of external socioemotional wealth vs. internal socioemotional wealth. The study involved 2,704 small family businesses in China, and the results support the hypothesis that family reputation has a positive effect on internationalization, while family involvement has a negative effect on internationalization. Moreover, entrepreneurial spirit reinforces the positive effect of family reputation on internationalization and enhances the negative relationship between family involvement and (...) internationalization. This study contributes by examining the effect of entrepreneurial spirit as a potential balancing factor for the paradoxical influence of internal vs. external socioemotional wealth. (shrink)

Despite the economic relevance and distinctiveness of family firms, little attention has been devoted to researching their nature and functioning. Traditionally, family firms have been associated both to positive and negative features in their relationships with the stakeholders. This can be linked to different orientations toward corporate social responsibility. Thus, this research aims to identify the approaches that Spanish family firms maintain about social responsibility, based on the model developed by Quazi and O' Brien Journal of (...) class='Hi'>Business Ethics 25, 33-51 (2000). An empirical study carried out for 112 Spanish family firms gives support to our initial assumption about these organizations not being a homogeneous group in terms of their orientation towards corporate social responsibility. The differences in perceptions do not seem to be associated to biographical characteristics. These results lead to some relevant academic and practical implications that suggest interesting lines for future research. (shrink)

Based on case studies of religious Muslim and Christian family firms operating in a religiously diverse country, we explain the multiplicity of family, business, religion, and community logics in the family firm. In particular, we give attention to the religion logic and how it interacts with other logics when family firms are considering ethical issues. We show that religion has a rule-based approach in Muslim family firms and a principle-based approach in Christian family (...) firms. We also draw attention to the fluidity characteristic of the religion logic, through which family firms interpret the role of religion among other logics in influencing ethical decisions. Our study advances institutional logics literature in highlighting the plurality between and within logics in family firms, and contributes to the growing recognition of the influence of religious beliefs on the ethical behaviors of family firms. (shrink)

The inclusion of morally binding values such as religious—or in a broader sense, spiritual—values fundamentally alter organizational decision-making and ethical behavior. Family firms, being a particularly value-driven type of organization, provide ample room for religious beliefs to affect family, business, and individual decisions. The influence that the owning family is able to exert on value formation and preservation in the family business makes religious family firms an incubator for value-driven and faith-led decision-making and (...) behavior. They represent a particularly rich and relevant context to re-assess the relationship between ethical beliefs, decision-making processes and behaviors in business organizations at the interface between family and professional logics. This Special Issue is dedicated to deepening our understanding of the role religious values and spirituality play in the formation of organizational ethical practices in faith-led family firms and resulting organizational and family-related outcomes. In this editorial, we introduce the 10 papers included in this Special Issue, which investigate the relationship between religion or spirituality and family firm ethical behavior in various geographical, cultural and religious contexts, using a multitude of qualitative and quantitative methodologies. By focusing on the effects of religious or spiritual orientations on both the business and the family, as well as on the values, norms and goals present in the family business system, further research can gain a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between religious and spiritual believes, and sustainable ethical behavior in family firms. (shrink)

The paper builds on the stakeholder salience framework and applies a social identity approach to explain family firm dynamics and how these could impact on family firm governance and ethics. In particular, we consider the family as the main stakeholder for family firms and we refer to the recent approaches to stakeholder theory based on ‘names-and-faces’ and on social identity to focus on family members at the individual and organizational level. Family businesses offer an (...) opportunity to study stakeholder salience in settings with multiple logics. Our paper acknowledges how the attributes of legitimacy, power and status, for family business members, can derive from three different institutional settings (family, business and local community) and how these attributes are assigned and gained by family members on the basis of the stakes they put (or could put) on the business. From the analysis of these dynamics specific ethical considerations emerge. (shrink)

When this study was initiated in 2008, the concept of family social capital was new to the family business discipline. This paper summarizes in-depth qualitative research grounded in owning family experience to understand the nature and source of owning family social capital. _Exploratory research_ began with roundtable discussions among family business owners, advisors, and researchers to understand how owning families sustain positive relationships characteristic of family social capital. These discussions revealed that some (...) family business owners rely on their family faith to sustain and establish ethical norms. A follow-up review in the family studies literature revealed that many families rely on family faith practices and faith-based narratives to reinforce ethical norms that strengthen family relationships. Based on these findings, researchers developed hypotheses to guide additional research. Four owning families affiliated with different Christian denominations participated in _in-depth qualitative research_ that supports hypotheses. Interviews and archival data revealed very similar faith-based practices, beliefs, and values across the four owning families. And additional qualitative evidence indicated positive connections between values-based family social capital and family owner succession, business performance, and community support. Theoretical relationships derived from qualitative data are summarized in a Faith-Based Values Theory of Family Business. (shrink)

In this paper the authors address the issue of investments made by family businesses. Their study attempted to verify the level of investments made by Polish family businesses in comparison with the level of investments made by Polish non-family businesses. The study focused on the analysis of investment flows of Polish listed companies included in the WIG index for the years 2006-2018. A total of 233 companies were analyzed, including 177 non-family businesses and 56 family (...) businesses. The results corroborated the argument that Polish listed non-family businesses invest much more money than family businesses. It was also observed that only a small percentage of companies in both groups invest their finances in research and development. (shrink)

Nowadays financialization seems to be an inherent and obvious phenomenon and it appears to have infected all industrialized economies. Within general phenomenon of financialization, three areas should be indicated: financialization as a system of capital accumulation, financialization of business entities and financialization of every day-life. In our paper we try to investigate family businesses that are unique due to the overlap of family and business subsystems in one entity. More specifically, we undertake to find out whether (...) intertwining of family values with business objectives can influence the level of absorption of various finance instruments that are offered on nowadays financial market. Analysis revealed a few statistically significant relationships between perception of family firm objectives and absorption of basic and sophisticated finance instruments. It is the first to suggest, that family firms which are intrinsically-oriented, i.e. those more willing to keep independence or to keep long term survival, are less prone to absorb sophisticated finance instruments, e.g. private equity, venture capital, hybrid capital or they are less keen to become a public company. On the other hand, if a family firm is more oriented towards risk minimisation or keeping long term growth, then it is also more open for absorption of advanced finance instruments. (shrink)

Despite the economic relevance and distinctiveness of family firms, little attention has been devoted to researching their nature and functioning. Traditionally, family firms have been associated both to positive and negative features in their relationships with the stakeholders. This can be linked to different orientations toward corporate social responsibility. Thus, this research aims to identify the approaches that Spanish family firms maintain about social responsibility, based on the model developed by Quazi and O Brien Journal of (...) class='Hi'>Business Ethics 25, 33–51 (2000). An empirical study carried out for 112 Spanish family firms gives support to our initial assumption about these organizations not being a homogeneous group in terms of their orientation towards corporate social responsibility. The differences in perceptions do not seem to be associated to biographical characteristics. These results lead to some relevant academic and practical implications that suggest interesting lines for future research. (shrink)

This study answers Vazquez’s :691–709, 2016) call for more research focused on the intersection between family firms and business ethics. We investigate two contextual factors potentially affecting the ethical reporting of chief financial officers : a firm’s social ties to the controlling family and the CFOs’ perceived relationship quality with the CEO. We test our hypotheses by examining the financial reporting behavior of Chinese CFOs who work at family or nonfamily businesses and in private or public (...) firms. Results of this study advance our understanding of social and contextual factors that may compromise CFOs' reporting behavior in family firms. This research also suggests that failure to distinguish between public and private companies may bias the results of studies that examine family firms. (shrink)

The organizational justice literature and the family business literature have developed independently, which limits our understanding of fairness and justice in the family business workplace. So far, the concepts of justice and fairness have been used interchangeably in the family business literature, as if objective measures that aim to increase justice in the workplace will automatically translate into fairness perceptions among family business employees. By integrating the organizational justice literature and the (...) class='Hi'>family business literature, we first differentiate between the two concepts of justice and fairness and argue that a utilitarian conceptualization of justice may come into direct conflict with fairness perceptions in the family business workplace. Second, we shed light on the importance of incorporating socioemotional goals, particularly those that reveal a bright side of socioemotional wealth, into rules and regulations designed to increase justice in the workplace, which, we argue, contributes to increasing fairness perceptions among employees and to building and maintaining an ethical family business workplace. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed at the end of the paper. (shrink)

Family values are argued to enable ethical family business conduct. However, how these arise, evolve, and how family leaders articulate them is less understood. Using an ‘identity work’ approach, this paper finds that the values underpinning identity work: arise from multiple sources, evolve in tandem with the context; and, that their articulation is relational and aspirational, rather than merely historical. Prior research mostly understood family values as rooted in the past and relatively stable, but our (...) rhetorical analysis unlocks a more dynamic and promising research direction advancing family business ethics. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine how faith-led practices in family firms affect organizational stewardship. Current studies highlight the relevance of religious adherence for family businesses, yet provide limited understanding of how this shapes the key traits of these organizations. Drawing on six autobiographies of family business leaders who openly express their adherence to their faith, and adopting an open-systems analysis of these autobiographies, we demonstrate that faith-led values influence organizational and leadership practices. Overall, (...) our study suggests that the influence of religious beliefs in the organizational practices of family businesses have greater repercussions than previously thought. By introducing a faith-led approach to stewardship, we enrich the theoretical discussion around stewardship and the relevance of religion in family business. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine how faith-led practices in family firms affect organizational stewardship. Current studies highlight the relevance of religious adherence for family businesses, yet provide limited understanding of how this shapes the key traits of these organizations. Drawing on six autobiographies of family business leaders who openly express their adherence to their faith, and adopting an open-systems analysis of these autobiographies, we demonstrate that faith-led values influence organizational and leadership practices. Overall, (...) our study suggests that the influence of religious beliefs in the organizational practices of family businesses have greater repercussions than previously thought. By introducing a faith-led approach to stewardship, we enrich the theoretical discussion around stewardship and the relevance of religion in family business. (shrink)

Although family business comprises the majority of global business, it is significantly under-researched. Yet it is considered to have unique ethical values compared to non-family corporations. This is attributable to its family orientation. Therefore, it is worthwhile to identify and define dominant family business ethics values. The authors compare a sample of the U.S. family business, U.S. corporate entities, and international family business mission statements for frequency of ethics values. (...) The data reveals three primary findings: (1) generally, the U.S. family business expressed a higher frequency of ethical values than its non-family corporate and international counterpart, (2) U.S. family business has a strong lead in “integrity” and “honesty” whereas international family business leads in “environmentalism,” “globalism,” and “social responsibility,” and (3) generally, the frequency of ethics values for all family business globally has increased over time. The family business mission statement continues to provide ethical direction for the majority of global business. The emerging family business values identified in our sample will further impact global business success and promote ethical sustainability world-wide. (shrink)

To study how religiosity affects family business goals, we merge literatures on goal setting, temporal orientation, and family business to argue that family business goals can be distinguished into short-term and long-term orientations and propose that religiosity affects both orientations, but to varying degrees. Drawing on a sample of private U.S. family businesses and applying partial least squares structural equations modeling, we find tentative support that religiosity has a stronger positive effect on long-term (...) goal orientation than on short-term goal orientation. We discuss implications for theory development and future research involving religiosity and family business goals. (shrink)

To study how religiosity affects family business goals, we merge literatures on goal setting, temporal orientation, and family business to argue that family business goals can be distinguished into short-term and long-term orientations and propose that religiosity affects both orientations, but to varying degrees. Drawing on a sample of private U.S. family businesses and applying partial least squares structural equations modeling, we find tentative support that religiosity has a stronger positive effect on long-term (...) goal orientation than on short-term goal orientation. We discuss implications for theory development and future research involving religiosity and family business goals. (shrink)

Overview -- Why social workers earn less than accountants : pay equity -- Can you have a job and a life? -- Can a woman do a man's job? -- You want to see my what? : sexual harassment -- Nine to five : not just a movie--the right to organize -- Working other than nine to five : part-time and temporary jobs -- What this nation really thinks of motherhood : welfare reform -- Revaluing women's work outside of work (...) -- How you can help get there. (shrink)

This paper examines the success of corporate communication in voluntary sustainability reporting. Existing studies have focused on the perspective of the communicators but lack an understanding of the perspective of information recipients to clearly evaluate this interactive communication process. This paper looks at the issue of a credibility gap perceived by external stakeholders when they doubt the authenticity of communicated information due to the reporting company’s governance structure. The paper uses family businesses to exemplify the emergence of such a (...) gap when outsiders become concerned about the potential agency problem of the integrated ownership and management controlled by a few members of the same family. Following source credibility theory, these concerns raise a credibility gap associated with a family firm’s trustworthiness and goodwill, even if the family has the expertise to carry out sustainability reporting. The findings of two experimental studies indicate that family businesses suffer a greater credibility gap than non-family businesses. An external and independent assurance service can mitigate such gaps, especially when the service is comprehensive and targets family businesses. The paper provides a complete view evaluating corporate communication by looking at the interaction between the communicating company and the information recipients. (shrink)

The aims of this research were twofold: first, to compare the levels of organisational harmony between family and non-family firms and, second, to study the influence of organisational harmony on family firms’ performance (profitability, longevity and group cohesion). Starting from a definition of organisational harmony as a value and considering the importance of the management of organisational values, we use the main topics indicated by the general literature (organisational climate, trust and participation) to analyse organisational harmony, as (...) well as three other topics for performance (profitability, survival and group cohesion). Results indicate that family firms have higher levels of these three qualities than non-family firms, and that the levels of trust, participation and organisational climate have a positive and significant influence on the performance of family firms. These results can be understood as a consequence of the influence of family social capital on organisational social capital and so on the performance of family businesses. From the perspective of institutionalism, the higher levels of harmony existing in family businesses are a reflection of the pressures that the owning family as an institution exercises on the organisational social capital in its companies. (shrink)

This article analyzes a panel of 550 international firms, for the period 2004 to 2010, to compare the role of female directors in family and non-family firms in promoting responsible practices. Many studies have associated the presence of women on the board with a higher degree of socially responsible commitment. However, we found that this is much less so in family firms than in non-family firms. In family firms, corporate social responsibility commitment does not vary (...) significantly with the presence of female directors, as the latter tend to behave in accordance with the family orientation toward CSR. This orientation depends on the stakeholders being addressed, with greater social responsibility shown toward external stakeholders than internal ones. (shrink)

With the arbitrariness of family business decision-making and the complexity of interests become increasingly prominent, the transformation and innovation of family business are imminent. Under the above background, via analysis of data from 259 valid questionnaires from more than ten family businesses in China as a sample and with the help of the SPSS and AMOS, this study explored the impacts of identification on creativity of the family business as well as the mediating (...) role of family business support by constructing a mediating model. The results show that the employee’s identification has a positive impact on the creativity of the family business. Besides, identification has a positive impact on family business support and family business support has a partial mediating role between identification and family business creativity. Especially, the emotional support does not have a mediating role, whereas the instrumental support has a complete mediating role between identification and family business creativity. (shrink)

How do individuals respond when they perceive that their family business has been built upon unethical business conduct? Drawing on an expanded version of Hirschman’s typology of generic responses to declining situations (Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1970), which includes responses of Exit, Voice, Loyalty, and Neglect, we offer a model that predicts probability of intended response behavior as a function of normative obligation (i.e., what (...) one perceives ought to be done), managerial discretion (i.e., what one perceives can be done), and successor commitment to the firm. The model is tested on 124 business school students exposed to a scenario depicting an inherited ethical dilemma occurring in a family business from Arthur Miller’s play All My Sons, and shows support for elements of the proposed framework. Most notable is a significant negative relationship between normative firm-directed commitment and the response of Neglect. (shrink)

Business Ethics, the Environment &Responsibility, Volume 31, Issue 3, Page 601-603, July 2022.

In his follow-up to Tavern League: Portraits of Wisconsin Bars, Carl Corey turns his camera on Wisconsin family-owned businesses in existence fifty years or longer. The businesses portrayed here—bakeries and barbecue joints, funeral homes and furniture builders, cheesemakers, fishermen, ferry boat drivers—have survived against all the odds, weathering tough economic times and big-business competition. The owners are loyal to their employees, their families, and themselves. And they are integral to their local economies and social fabric. The services and (...) goods they provide are usually for neighbors and friends. Generations serve generations, creating lasting relationships and strong, vibrant neighborhoods and rural communities. In For Love and Money, Carl Corey provides indelible glimpses of an increasingly endangered way of life. The Museum of Wisconsin Art’s Graham Reid has said, “As current and future generations come and go, these pictures will survive in the hands of the subjects, collectors, museums, and galleries. Will the businesses featured enjoy a similar longevity? Only time will tell, and we can only watch and hope, but Carl Corey has ensured that they will not be forgotten.”. (shrink)

Business Ethics: A European Review, EarlyView.

Drawing on 49 oral-history interviews with Scottish family business owner-managers, six key-informant interviews, and secondary sources, this interdisciplinary study analyses the decline of kinship-based connections and the emergence of new kinds of elite networks around the 1980s. As the socioeconomic context changed rapidly during this time, cooperation built primarily around literal family ties could not survive unaltered. Instead of finding unity through bio-legal family connections, elite networks now came to redefine their ‘family businesses’ in terms (...) of affectively loaded ‘family values’ such as loyalty, care, commitment, and even ‘love’. Consciously nurturing ‘as-if-family’ emotional and ethical connections arose as a psychologically effective way to bring together network members who did not necessarily share pre-existing connections of bio-legal kinship. The social-psychological processes involved in this extension of the ‘family’ can be understood using theories of the moral sentiments first developed in the Scottish Enlightenment. These theories suggest that, when the context is amenable, family-like emotional bonds can be extended via sympathy to those to whom one is not literally related. As a result of this ‘progress of sentiments’, one now earns his/her place in a Scottish family business, not by inheriting or marrying into it, but by performing family-like behaviours motivated by shared ethics and affects. (shrink)

This ‘story from the field’ emerges from qualitative research conducted with relatives of patients admitted to intensive care. A disturbing feature of researching the needs of family members of critically ill patients is the intense emotion that is often generated during the course of interviewing. For some the opportunity to talk about the experience of having a loved one in an intensive care unit was therapeutic; for others it meant anguish and despair as they relived the event that resulted (...) in a life‐threatening illness. Despite being a reasonably experienced educator and critical care nurse, I was unprepared for the intensity of feelings shown by many of the participants. I found that exposure to this kind of suffering was emotionally draining, experiencing the various roles of confidante, nurse, counsellor and researcher. It became important to share my thoughts and feelings and unwind with an independent friend and colleague as a way of debriefing. Methodological and ethical issues that arose included: generating a situation that potentially required therapeutic intervention; the impact on the ‘purity’ of data of becoming emotionally enmeshed; and the level of investigator preparedness when researching sensitive topics. The issue of walking away from an intensely emotional and intimate interview often leaves one with a sense of ‘unfinished business’. (shrink)

This paper analyses the complexity of family life, which includes both its charismatic and institutional aspects. Deepening the understanding of this basic social group can be useful in explaining how human beings in their decisions and actions, as well as organizations, unceasingly transcend different oppositions and dimensions. Undertaking this topic is not only important in the context of understanding the fundamental and complex experience of family life in the process of preparing and introducing new members to society, but (...) also from the organizational perspective. It means that exploring the role of both dimensions – charismatic and institutional – which are somehow complementary, is crucial for understanding and harmonizing the different relationships and interactions within organizations, including business ones. In this way the article shows the connection between the functioning of the family and society (including organizations within it). (shrink)