The power of stories - narratives as a form of conveying values in family businesses
Award-winning dissertation at the Witten Institute for Family Businesses at the University of Witten/Herdecke published by Carl Auer Verlag
The cultural values of family businesses are seen as a key differentiator from non-family businesses. Their competitive advantages and disadvantages are based on them; these values guarantee the stability and reliability of the economy in the public perception. The practical and scientific importance of values for family businesses is undisputed. The small number of scientific works dedicated to their investigation is all the more astonishing. "Above all, the question of how values in family businesses are actually passed down through the generations, how they remain stable and at the same time change over time has so far remained largely unanswered," says Prof. Dr. Arist v. Schlippe, the academic director of the Witten Institute for Family Business. A research work from the institute of Dr. Mirko Zwack offers an answer: "With stories about the start-up phase, crises and incredible successes and those about company founders, leaders and owner families." The work was awarded the 2011 prize of the Systemische Gesellschaft (SG) in Berlin.
"These are stories like the one about the boss of a company that now has more than 30.000 employees, who still drives from the freeway to the parking lot when he sees one of the company trucks there to personally shake hands with the driver," says Zwack gives an example from his research, “or when the company founder shows up at the cash register and, contrary to what was expected of the cashier, does not insist on 'self-service' but on normal payment. Stories like these are told and passed on within the company. They convey, for example, the value of equality for everyone in the interests of the company, or, as in the first case, a special appreciation of employees across all hierarchical levels.” Zwack has examined such stories in three family businesses. For this purpose, stories were identified in qualitative interviews with founders, family members, external managers and employees and then examined to what extent they are known in the company. A quantitative study investigated whether it can be assumed that different listeners of the same story interpret it in terms of the same value. The results confirm the special importance of stories in the process of conveying values.
"Such stories convey the values of a company much more vividly and vividly than abstract mission statements that companies give themselves. They are easier to remember for employees and for that reason alone have a greater impact.” And: You can't simply contradict stories. "I have to have been there before I can say: That's not true. And simply expressing your disbelief is generally considered impolite." In addition: "By never telling everything in stories, but always leaving something out, embellishing something or even inventing something, we focus our narratives on a certain value or a certain core message, that arrives, even if it is only told implicitly. And what is not said cannot be doubted. This is how history protects its values from contradiction.” For Zwack, this is another important argument for the power of stories.
Mirko Zwack: The Power of Stories. Stories as a form of conveying values in family businesses 275 pages, € 24,95 ISBN 978-3-89670-948-6
http://www.carl-auer.de/programm/978-3-89670-948-6
Source: Witten/Herdecke [ University of Witten/Herdecke ]
