The Perceived Utility of Owning an Agricultural Family Business: Disentangling the Role of Emotional Attachment in Divestment and Reinvestment Decisions

Abstract One of the main characteristics of family businesses lies in their owners’ pursuit of financial and non-financial utility. One core dimension of non-financial utility is emotional attachment. However, we know little about the role of emotional attachment in shaping the owners’ divestment or reinvestment decisions in volatile, uncertain and ambiguous environments. Based on an in-depth case study of a displaced agricultural family that lost its business in Colombia, we investigate the role of family members’ perceived emotional attachment and financial utility in shaping their strategic decisions. Our findings broaden the notion of emotional attachment to comprise the family, the former family business, and the land, identifying six utility patterns. These patterns capture combinations of perceived emotional attachment and financial utility. We label these patterns hybrid family, family control, family splitting, entrepreneurial family, family safety and accommodating family utility, and find that they play a crucial role in each family member’s preference for divestment and/or reinvestment decisions. The experience of trauma influenced two utility patterns favoured by women. This article contributes to the family business literature by advancing our knowledge of utility combinations transcending generations and ownership statuses in their preferred divestment and reinvestment decisions.