"In Press" Family business best practices: Where from and where to?

This paper discusses the emergent family business best practice literature recognising a need to identifylessons for effective family firm governance andmanagement that can be learned from successful, longlastingbusinesses, whether family owned or otherwise. We review lessons characterized as familybusiness best practices by a number of researchers, the established meaning and use of the concept bestpractice in the business excellence movement, and the critique of several aspects of that use. We alsoexamine specific challenges the notion of family business best practice faces, and question the origin ofidentified practices and where they could be headed. Given the problematic nature and implications ofbest, we query whether the transition from lessons learned (local knowledge about what works) to bestpractices (universal knowledge about what works) is justifiable. Moreover, since family enterprises areas unique and idiosyncratic as the families that influence them, and the outstanding ones floutconventional management practices, we also ask whether characterizing lessons learned as bestpractices is either appropriate or necessary. We are led to conclude that the notion of family businessbest practice is fraught with enough difficulties to warrant avoiding or limiting its use.