http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2006/11/02/david-landes-on-family-firms/ Economics of organizations, strategy, entrepreneurship, innovation, and more Sun, 12 Feb 2012 08:11:55 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ http://organizationsandmarkets.com/2006/11/02/david-landes-on-family-firms/#comment-6151 Thu, 02 Nov 2006 15:36:44 +0000 http://organizationsandmarkets.wordpress.com/2006/10/30/david-landes-on-family-firms/#comment-6151 [...] Peter Klein points to a new book by the economic historian David Landes that tracks some of the world’s most famous family businesses. This NY Times review of the book is intriguing, but it also raises what I think is an important question: what is unique about family firms? The reviewer writes that the book makes a good argument for the prominence of family firms. A third of Fortune 500 firms are still family businesses (depending, I suppose, on what you consider to be a family firm). Wal-Mart is still overseen by Sam Walton’s son. The family controls about 40 percent of the company’s stock, and a third generation is moving up through the Walton business empire. It’s a good question whether professional outsiders would have maintained, for good or for ill, the almost religious commitment to cost-cutting that the heirs seem to have inherited from the old man. [...]

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