Organisational Culture and the Family Business

The paper reviews the literature on organisational culture in family business by tracing its origin in organization studies and its importation to family business field. Despite the vast literature in the last three decades, cultural inquiries in family business have not come a long way. To date, research on family business culture are heavily dominated by functionalist/integrationist perspective that assumes culture as coherent and shared values. The paper suggests future research to examine the multidimensionality of family business, utilize ethnographic methods to go ‘under-the-surface’ and achieve deeper immersion in the field, and take critical stances of culture to understand family business.