Product Description

Family firms are to be found in every sector of commercial activity, and their special strengths mean that they flourish best where their advantages can be fully exploited. Family Businesses: The Essentials is a comprehensive guide to every aspect of managing a family-owned firm, from day-to-day issues to long-term planning for future generations. This new and completely revised version of the author's previous Guide to the Family Business (Kogan Page; last edition 1999) provides an accessible introduction to newcomers, and also offers knowledgeable business people fresh insight and solutions to the special problems they face. All family businesses are different, but it is critical for each to define its shared family values, vision and purpose. Family Businesses: The Essentials shows how to achieve this, and how to allow each generation to reinterpret and revitalise that vision. Fresh, updated and more sharply focused, packed with real-life case studies, and drawing on the author's extensive research into thousands of family businesses, this is essential guidance for every stage of a family business's development.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #154019 in Books
• Published on: 2007-04-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
'Peter Leach's style is rich in observation, insight and example. This is a great read - comprehensive and authoritative, yet entirely fresh and forward-looking in its outlook.' - Professor Nigel Nicholson, London Business School 'An essential and accessible source for enquiring family business owners, managers and other stakeholders.' - Alex Scott, Chairman, Institute for Family Business'...a mixture of academic-style study and practical advice...much food for thought here.' - New Business Magazine'...shows the pitfalls, tensions and competing demands that can destroy family businesses...offers real insights and help' - Business Executive Magazine

Alex Scott, Institute for Family Business
'An essential and accessible source for enquiring family business owners,
managers and other stakeholders.'

About the Author
Peter Leach is a partner at BDO Stoy Hayward LLP, part of the world's fifth largest accountancy network. He has pioneered family business research in the UK and is founder and chairman of the Stoy Centre for Family Business. BDO Stoy Hayward is widely recognised as the leading adviser to family businesses in the UK.

Customer Reviews

A must have
A great book; easy to read, stimulating and very practical. This is a must have book for anyone working in or with family businesses. It will shame you to realise what you don't know, and make you realise that there is much more you can do for your business, your family or your client.

How to cope if you are involved with, or own, a family business
Planning, starting, operating and retiring from a family business can be difficult. Issues such as succession and pay, corporate governance and recruiting top talent pose special problems for these kinds of organizations. Rivalry among siblings who inherit a family firm is often the kiss of death for even the strongest family business. Nonfamily members, even those who are senior executives or directors, often feel that the family treats them unfairly or fails to listen to them. In this new book, Peter Leach analyzes and provides excellent advice about how to solve such seemingly intractable problems. His suggestions come out of his long experience successfully advising family-run businesses in the United Kingdom. getAbstract recommends this sage and savvy book to family-business founders, successors, inheritors and nonfamily executives or directors.