Succession in the Latin American Family Business, challenges from Cuba.
When referring to family businesses, family businesses are generally described as business organizations that base their governance on decisions made by the members of a given family.
What is a family business?
When referring to family businesses, we generally describe commercial organizations that base their governance on decisions made by the members of a given family. For this reason, they are based on the strategic vision that the following generations will continue to run the company. This differentiates it from companies in which the only owner of a family that participates is the administrator, which are not considered family businesses.
It is stated in the doctrine that an adequate conceptualization of the company must have some indispensable elements:
1-Family control over ownership, which according to Latin American authors must be more than 15 percent, by more than two members of a family.
2-Influence of the family in the management of the company.
3- Concern for good family relations.
4- Intention for the business to continue and be passed on from generation to generation.
These family businesses can be materialized in different ways, either as sole proprietorships, professional associations, holding companies, limited liability companies and corporations, all controlled by a family or a union of these.
In addition to the fact that they can be differentiated because there are different organizational forms or mercantile entities to give body to these companies, they are also distinguished in the doctrine by the level of familiarity of the subjects that integrate them.
Finally, there are those companies that we call private family companies, in which the lowest degree of familiarity is observed, since the minority of the capital belongs to members of the same family and the managerial positions and positions of the board of directors are occupied in their minority by family members, in addition, many of them are in the first generation.
Author: MS.c. Isel Guirola Rodríguez. Assistant Professor, University of Matanzas.
