Family, business and power: illustrating three extreme cases

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how small family business (SFB) leader‐founders exhibit a dominant logic of action over less dominant prevailing ones. The authors investigate three logics of action: family, power and economic. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory qualitative research is conducted based on case studies. The authors use Cisneros and Genin's conceptual model, to identify, through an iterative sampling frame, three extreme SFB cases where in the first the leader exhibits a dominant family logic, in the second, a dominant power logic and in the third, a dominant economic logic. Findings – The authors illustrate the characteristics of the SFB leaders when they exhibit a dominant logic of action and also present some of the implications of SFB leaders’ dominant logics of action on the SFB and the family and non‐family members. Research limitations/implications – The three extreme case studies provide an important building block for future studies based on larger samples of SFBs. However, the authors’ results cannot be generalised due to the exploratory nature of the study. Practical implications – The paper highlights the importance, for practitioners and researchers alike, of being able to diagnose when SFB leaders use a dominant logic of action. The paper also accentuates the need for a greater awareness of logics of action in training programmes for SFB leaders and for consultants who work with those leaders. Originality/value – The concept of logics of action has never been previously empirically applied to large, medium or small family businesses. The paper highlights the relevance of identifying dominant logics of actions in SFB leaders.