Abstract:
Despite the dominant nature and the significant contributions made by Family-Owned Businesses (FOBs) to national and global economies, most family-owned firms face survival problems as the management and ownership pass from one generation to the other. This justifies the need to examine the state of governance of these businesses. A qualitative research approach and analysis based on twenty (20) interviews conducted with participants from fifteen (15) selected FOBs in Ghana were used. Bourdieu’s theory of practice was used to analyse the interviews along the lines of his concepts of field, capital and habitus. The study finds evidence of tacit social board structure, single-tier board structure, family meetings structure, well-structured special committees, traditional and spiritual governance mechanisms as well as supervisory bodies’ Codes and Acts to determine corporate governance practices in family-owned firms in Ghana. It also reveals that the family executed the following roles that were critical for building corporate governance mechanisms in FOBs; capacity building, setting the right tone of governance at the top management, regular education and socialization of members, building consensus and trust relationship among family, board and management, symbolic social corporate social responsibility and sustainability practices, and transgenerational planning. The result of the study reveals the following forms of ownership structures among Ghanaian FOBs; the parent-owner-closed family ownership structure, authoritarian conglomerates business families’ ownership structure, modern family conglomerate ownership structure and the multiple families’ ownership structure. This implies that corporate governance mechanisms in FOBs are the outcome of the interactions between fields, capital and habitus combined with ownership. Therefore, practitioners, policymakers and governments should consider these concepts in designing appropriate corporate governance systems for FOBs.
