Coordination Tasks and Negotiation Modes of Linked Lives in Entrepreneurial Families

Two young men rush to a hotel room where their father awaits them. They enter a room lit only by candles. There the father presents each of them a signet ring bearing the family's crest. It has been mere weeks since their youngest brother, who had hoped to represent the third generation in the growing family business, died in an untimely manner. Still shaken, the Singermayer family is now seeking comfort and peace of mind on vacation together. First, the father turns to the older brother. He asks his son if he could imagine entering the family business; his son declines. The elder Singermayer then turns to his younger son, Sven, who surprises himself by announcing: "I will try, but I cannot guarantee anything." Soon after the vacation, Sven begins training for the position in the family business that had been prepared for his late brother. He eventually becomes CEO of the company and goes on to serve for more than 40 years. The ritual moment was a profound experience for Sven that left him with a lifelong puzzle: Why did he respond the wayhedid?This particular case was the starting point for my understanding that life courses of entrepreneurial family members are linked more closely than the concept of linked lives (Elder, 1985, 1994; Elder, Kirkpatrick Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003) generally suggests. This central theme of the life course approach (Dannefer & Uhlenberg, 1999; Elder et al., 2003; Kohli, 1986, 2007) refers to a simple principle: the sequence of roles one plays in one's lifetime (e.g., child, wife, employee) is intricately interlocked with the roles of others (e.g., parents, husband, employer). Within this web of interdependence, tragic events, health conditions, and general circumstances leave imprints on all linked lives (MacMillan & Copher, 2005).In entrepreneurial families-those which are collectively engaged in founding and developing one or multiple businesses, or entrepreneurship (Ruef, 2010; Shane, 2008)-the intertwining of family and business creates a specific setting for generational encounters. The familial status, professional aspirations, and entrepreneurial performance of one family member may have immediate and powerful consequences for the career choices and lifestyles of other members. This pattern of linked lives is unique to entrepreneurial families, and it makes intergenerational negotiations necessary. This article illuminates these life course dynamics by investigating two main questions: What do entrepreneurial family members typically negotiate about (coordination tasks)? Relatedly, how do they negotiate in order to navigate their linked lives (negotiation modes)?Literature and Conceptual FrameworkResearch on ownership structures in businesses (e.g., Faccio & Lang, 2002) has pointed out that a fairly small group of entrepreneurial families owns the vast majority of businesses around the globe: Germany ranks among the nations with the largest family business population (96% of the country's businesses)-more than in the United States (80%-90%) or the Netherlands (69%; Family Firm Institute, 2004). Although most family businesses are small, many large and publicly traded companies can be classified as such. Cross-national comparisons, however, are difficult because of the unsettled debate about how to define family business.Forthe purpose of this study, I define a family business broadly as one that is under family influence (Massis, Sharma, Chua, & Kotlar, 2012). The nature of this influence varies depending on governance, experience, and culture (Astrachan, Klein, & Smyrnios, 2002) and over time (D. Miller, Le Breton-Miller, Lester, & Cannella, 2007).Despite the economic impact of family businesses, family scholars have largely ignored the families involved in them. In their extensive literature reviews, Jennings, Breitkreuz, and James (2013) found that between 1985 and 2010, fewer than 30 articles on business-owning families were published in English-language family journals. …