Small Family-Owned Firms: The Challenges of Corporate Governance

Despite being the dominant form of business globally, it is widely recognised that research focused on the governance of small family-owned entities has been largely overlooked. The benefits of sound governance practices are deemed salutary for small business prosperity; however, these enterprises are confronted with significant governance issues and unique concerns of their own. One particular issue concerns the compliance costs of governance for family-owned businesses and the extent to which the regulatory environment actually encourages an evolvement towards an improvement in governance practices in smaller businesses. Reconciling decision speed, flexibility and entrepreneurial innovation to necessary enhanced governance practices and procedures remains problematic. It is argued that a proper balance between the costs and benefits of proper governance codes and structures for smaller firms can only be achieved with a strong emphasis on flexibility to take account of myriad types of governance requirements of firms. This would entail the development of an evolutionary view of corporate governance implementation, one which mirrors the process of delegation of the entrepreneurial function to company boards and management. This would lend support to the view that there is no universal ‘best way’ for all firms at all stages of the business life cycle. In this respect, the application of the principles of subsidiarity and incentives plays an important role.