Family-controlled businesses and management control: the framing of a practices

Family-controlled businesses (FCBs) are the dominant forms of business in most market-oriented economies and the driving sources behind global economic growth. Despite their relevance worldwide, the role of financial management practices has remained understudied although there are indications that these practices play a critical influence in the survivability, growth and successful succession of family businesses. Drawing on recent developments in institutional theory and the concepts of framing and frame alignment, we investigate how shareholder-oriented management controls (MCs) are adapted in a FCB case over a 15-year period. To analyze the features that drive family agent in supporting a frame alignment, we build our analysis on previous literature in family firms. We investigate the processes involved in the adoption and implementation of adapted shareholder-oriented MCs in this FCB characterized by permanence of the owners and top managers where these actors are following changes based on a new set of shareholder-oriented ideas. This case study research allows more fine-grained observations and theorizations in a protracted institutional context. It is interesting because it shows how a family organization tries to align its MC during a third generation company life. In particular, we contribute to analyze how such alignment processes lead to implement adapted financial MC practices, how different features of FCBs can influence MC practices, and the role of a family member as an institutional change agent aimed to discover a new frame that mobilizes organizational action.