e period of generational transition. In the early 1980s, Beckhard and Dyer (1983, p. 5) stated that 70 percent of family owned business firms failed to survive to the second generation, and that the average life expectancy for a family owned business was 24 years, which also was the average managerial tenure of the founders of family owned businesses. In the 1990s, one half of the owners of family owned businesses in the United States do not expect their firms to survive as family owned enterprises subsequent to their own departure from the management and control of the business (Ward and Aronoff, 1992, p. 52).
One factor frequently cited as a cause of the demise of so many family owned businesses during periods of generational transition is a failure to leadership skills in members of the successor generation (Kets de Vries, 1993, pp. 59 71). A failure to develop leadership skills in members of successor generations,
in turn, frequently is attributed paternalistic and autocratic leadership by founders of family owned businesses (Danco, 1992, pp. 32 33). Team based management has been suggested as a solution to the problems associated with the development of the necessary leadership skills in members of successor generations (Wagen, 1994, p. 10). Team based management need not mean that a business founder must relinquish leadership responsibilities, but team based management does mean that the founder of the business functions as a part of a management team, albeit the leader of that team (Hare, 1992, pp. 16 18). The evidence is persuasive, however, that team based management is now widely embraced by family owned businesses in the United States (Garrett, 1993, pp. 10 14).
The purpose of this study was to measure the values, attitudes, and perceptions of first generation owner managers of family owned businesses, and to assess the congruence of these values, attitudes, and perceptions with the practice of team based mana...