Family Business Goal Formation: Exploring Individual Motivation and the Interaction with Family, Business, and Context

This research on family business goal formation examines a longitudinal case study of a family and its business, going “from rags to riches to rags again” over 140 years and four generations. Complementing family business literature on economic and noneconomic goals and the socioemotional wealth lens with self-determination theory, the analysis provides the basis for a process model of family business goal formation. This model highlights individual-level mechanisms through which firm-level objectives emerge. It also illustrates the interaction of the owner’s individual motivation with the family level while taking into account the influence of the business and external context.