New Research Points to Emotional Ownership and the Family Business

Nick Parmee

30 September 2008

Emotional ownership starts young, according to new research from Swiss private bank Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch and the UK Institute of Family Business. The organisations' research on emotional ownership reveals what they call a "golden thread" that links family members to the family business.

The report looks at the factors which contribute to emotional ownership, and asks what family businesses can do to promote it.

The findings suggest that emotional ownership starts as early as age six and that men have higher emotional ownership than women.

But treating both sexes equally pays off - the highest levels of emotional ownership are found among those family businesses which do not discriminate between male and female family members. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the higher the shareholding, the higher the emotional ownership: emotional ownership is closely correlated with financial ownership, which confers statutory responsibility and the rights of an owner and is connected to deeper knowledge of the organisations.