The Family Business Leadership Behavior, Governance Model And The Study Of Performance

This research takes family business in China as the research object. On the basis of literature research, a series of empirical sub-studies were conducted on the leadership behaviors of family business entrepreneur-leader (LBFB), the main factors which influence the LBFB, the relationship between the two dimensions of LBFB. the relationship between relational governance and contractual governance, the relationship of LBFB, governance and family business performance, and the mechanism that influence family business performance. Some original, valuable and meaningful research achievements were got.The first study was composed of two sub-studies which explored and confirmed LBFB construct model in Chinese organizational contexts. In sub-study 1, we first made a semi-structured interview with entrepreneur-leaders of family businesses to identify the key behavioral attributes of LBFB with critical incident technique. Then a content analysis was conducted based on the interview data. After that, we put forward an initial LBFB construct model which includes vision-task leadership behavior (3 dimensions) and responsibility-consideration leadership behavior (4 dimensions). At last, case study was used to explore the leadership behaviors of LBFB and family business governance.In sub-study 2, we empirically validated LBFB construct model. Based on the literature review, interview study and case study, leadership behavior questionnaire was developed and delivered to the top and middle level managers of family businesses. A total of 114 valid questionnaires for exploratory factor analysis and 228 valid questionnaires for confirmative factor analysis were returned from 107 family businesses. We performed an exploratory factor analysis on the data from sample 1 and a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on the data from sample 2. The exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis revealed a new LBFB construct model in the organizational contexts in Chinese culture which include 3 dimensions of vision-task leadership behavior and 3 dimensions of responsibility-consideration leadership behavior. Then, the study made a comparison study to probe into the discrepancy of the leadership behaviors between family businesses and non family businesses, and found that there were significant discrepancies at some dimensions of the leadership behaviors. Lastly, we analyzed that how relationship between the respondents and the entrepreneur-leaders, and how strength of the family orientation would affect LBFB. The results show that the strength of the family orientation had some affects on LBFB. The study also probed into the discrepancy of the leadership behaviors with different organization background.StudyⅡdeveloped and constructed a family business integral performance model. On the basis of the interview and literature research, adopting structural equation modeling, we developed and validated the family business integral performance model which contains business success and family success.StudyⅢexplored the relationship among LBFB, governance and the family business integral performance. Based on the anaysis of 228 valid questionnaires, we constructed the relational model of LBFB, governance, the cross forms between the LBFB and the governance, and the family business integral performance.The research found that the two dimensions of LBFB and the two dimensions of family business governance have the tendency to increase or decrease at the same direction and at the same time. The research results show that the entrepreneur-leaders in the family business with high relational governance or high contractual governance have a tendency to adopt positive leadership behaviors.The research found that the positive LBFBs have a significant impact on the two-dimension performance, or have a positive correlation with the two-dimension performance. The research found that the relational governance and the contractual governance had significant impact on the two-dimension performance; and the relational governance had significant impact on family success.The research also found that the cross form of the relational governance and the vision-task leadership behavior, the cross form of the relational governance and the responsibility-consideration leadership behavior, and the cross form of the contractual governance and the vision-task leadership behavior had significant impact on the two-dimension performance.StudyⅣexplored the relationship among LBFB, governance and employee attitude through experimentation. The study includes two sub-studies of 2×4 between-subjects design with a sample of 246 and 126 MBA students respectively. The research found that both the vision-task leadership behavior and the responsibility-consideration leadership behavior had significant impact on the organization commitment and the organizational citizenship behavior. And the family business governance had moderating effects on the relationship between the vision-task leadership behavior and the organization commitment.Finally, the main conclusions of this research were summarized. The theoretical developments, the practical implications as well as the limitations of the research and the directions for future research were discussed.