Visualizing Sustainability: The Visible and the Invisible

In contemporary culture, we typically think that being visible is more powerful than the unseen, even family businesses care about their image. However, I explain why the invisible is equally powerful. The concept of invisibility in the literature is strictly connected with that of women in family businesses, not only given the dearth of research attention afforded to them, but also because invisible is synonymous with the narrative relating to women’s role in the family business: women have been supporting family businesses for centuries in gendered roles which have been unconsciously incorporated and reproduced within the family firm; these roles were typically informal, loosely defined and generally unpaid. The same is true for women’s work in the whole economic system. Moreover, what happens to women in society is very similar to what happens to the family in the family business: in family business studies, the business prevails and the family remains invisible. Scholars have started to call for studies on the role of the family, nevertheless, we are still far from a real understanding of the family and the meaning of the family for the economic system. Profit maximization and accumulation are still considered the main goal and this is not a point of discussion, yet. I would like to propose here that this should be a point of discussion. In this chapter, I present a historical sketch about the role of the family through time and how the image we collectively develop is synchronized with the evolution of economic and social spheres and I also discuss how this is related to the concept of sustainability.