Patron-Client Relationships and the Perfromance of Edinburgh Family Businesses and Business Families

Lead Research Organisation: University of East Anglia
Department Name: Norwich Business School

Abstract

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Description The project helped to establish the significance of social class in Scottish family business exchange patterns and redirected the attention of research onto the intersection of stratification, community and family entrepreneurship. It illustrated how the post-industrialisation period strengthens a 'working class' sense of family business responsibility and practical assistance giving for their own kin, cumulating to an 'enterprising' rather than 'welfare' network of blood relatives (business families of class origin). It also showed how post-industrial family business owners' destinations, such as high growth networks, enact their elite interest-driven use of 'family' as an ideology (business families of class destination). Moreover, it presented trade networks as providers of collective help towards improving their family business members' market share position (business families of class neutrality). The study was thus part of a qualitative approach that broadened understanding of what goes on in inter-firm networks over time (content and function of a tie) instead of focusing on the structural features of networks such as density, frequency of contact or size.

It also addressed wider debates about clientelism which was conventionally seen as a macro explanation of backwardness and underdevelopment in the political economy literature. By contrast, the study's micro-exploration of the evolving concept of clientelism in the British post-industrial family business context demonstrated that it is no longer an exemplar of an illegitimate reciprocity but rather structures the flow of resources and interpersonal exchange within the family business; thus the focus of such patron-client relationships was shown to have become managerial and on the grassroots workings of individual organizations.
Exploitation Route The socio-economic impact of this work has come through sustained engagement with research users including family businesses, family business associations, policy makers, business advisors, practitioners and the media. In producing and disseminating new empirical knowledge about the working class origin of entrepreneurial business families, the research also helped to qualify widely held assumptions that uncritically see family enterprising as a route to social mobility. This new knowledge may make social and business policy makers think twice before offering family business support purely based on the circumstances of the 'receiving' groups without taking into account their 'cultures of giving'.
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy
 
Description Scottish Family Business Briefing: Reciprocity and Social Ties 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This event highlighted key findings from this recent research study on how Scottish family business owners' social ties add economic value and in what ways their reciprocal transfers vary. The event also offered opportunities for business networking and be of relevance to business owners, academics, researchers, family business members, policy makers, business advisors and practitioners.

The PI became an invited member of the Institute for Family Business (UK) Research Foundation Academic Advisory Council (2014 onwards)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012