A six‐country study of first‐, second‐, and third‐generation family businesses

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare first‐, second‐, and third‐generation family business managerial characteristics and practices in a combined sample from six countries (Croatia, Egypt, France, India, Kuwait, and the USA) with significant differences in cultures, economies, levels of entrepreneurial activity, and family business demographics. Design/methodology/approach – The design was survey research with a sample of 593 businesses from six countries. To compare differences between the three generations, analysis of covariance was run for the 11 dependent variables, followed by post hoc Tukey honestly significant difference multiple comparisons tests to determine which of the three generations were significantly different. Findings – As family businesses move from first to second to third generation, some managerial characteristics and practices remain the same while others change. Furthermore, only minor generational differences between the various countries were found, thus supporting commonality of family businesses in spite of the differing cultural, economic, and demographic variations. Research limitations/implications – The results lead to an improvement in our understanding of entrepreneurial behavior and managerial characteristics and practices between generations of family business in six very diverse economic and cultural settings. Originality/value – Prior family business research has rarely focused specifically on comparisons of first‐, second‐, and third‐generation firms. No prior research combined family firm data from different countries. The analyses are more complex and mixed than the methodologies used in most of the limited previous research, raising questions and indicating a need for further research.