Moving Beyond Socioemotional Wealth: Toward a Normative Theory of Decision Making in Family Business

Business-owning families are widely believed to make decisions in order to increase their authority over, influence on, and identity with their businesses. Yet, because the resulting socioemotional wealth is intended to be enjoyed by the family alone, this view reflects a largely self-interested approach to decision making. We, therefore, call on family business scholars to leverage the work of social economists (i.e., Amitai Etzioni) and moral...