The Impact of the Family-owned Businesses Specificity on the Dominance of the Cultural Features in their Organizational Structures – Theoretical Approach
The Impact of the Family-owned Businesses Specificity on the Dominance of the Cultural Features in their Organizational Structures – Theoretical Approach

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of this article is to show how the specifics of family businesses (the „familiness”) affects the company’s organization culture. In other words, the article aim is to identify the specific impact of family businesses on certain cultural traits identified in international studies and in the literature as „culture’s dimensions „.Literature analysis and the results of previous research on family businesses let the authors to specify a list of characteristics that „possession”, in the most comprehensive way, describes the specifics of the family business. Based on the literature review authors decided to select some dimensions - cultural traits that are particularly distinctive and noticeable in family businesses, such as: universalism/particularism and status assigned/achieved according to Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, power distance and femininity/masculinity according to Hofstede, pro-partnership/pro-transaction according to Gesteland. Combining the specificity of family and selected cultural dimensions authors found that in family businesses predominate particularistic behavior, hierarchies, there is also a high power distance but with the advantage of setting pro-partnership and female characteristics. In family businesses, there is also a predominance of assigned status. Conducted analysis leads authors to the conclusion that family businesses, regardless of their country and its cultural differences in which they operate, have common features, which are expressed in the intensity of specific cultural characteristics. The article is a theoretical analysis and will be the basis for forward empirical research.

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