Natural Family Business Governance
Product details
- ISBN 9781032549163
- Weight: 453g
- Dimensions: 129 x 198mm
- Publication Date: 20 Oct 2026
- Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
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Family business governance is often thought of as a set of formal policies and structures that every family business should adopt. This is misleading. This book introduces the concept of Natural Governance to broaden the debate and explains how family businesses are actually governed effectively using a combination of informal and formal processes.
Written by Ken McCracken, who has worked as an adviser to family business over many years and gained significant insight, the book provides a framework to describe and sustain Natural Governance, and challenges some popular views about how family businesses should, or do in practice, behave and progress. It describes the more informal governance practices and processes that first emerge spontaneously in a family business, which are sustained by the natural inclination of a family business to move forwards by doing more of what has worked well in the past while trying to avoid repeating previous mistakes.
This book is an essential read for any member of a family business, as well as all professionals who provide services to family businesses. It will also interest researchers and teachers who want to explore this neglected area of family business governance.
Ken McCracken is an independent family business consultant and teacher who has worked with enterprising families in Europe, Asia, and North America. He is a Lifetime Member of the Family Firm Institute (FFI) and a past recipient of the FFI Award for Outstanding Interdisciplinary Achievement (2001). He also holds the FFI Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising. Ken is the author and teacher of two family business educational programmes for the Society of Trusts and Estate Practitioners (STEP), a global professional organisation. In 2015 he received the STEP Award for Family Business Adviser of the Year. In his former career as a corporate lawyer and managing partner of a law firm he was awarded Managing Partner of the Year at the 2004 Law Awards of Scotland.
