Field Theory: An Alternative to Systems Theories in Understanding the Small Family Business

Abstract

Environmental changes have increased our sensitivity to family business issues. There are more than 30 million Americans over 65 years of age (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1987), and this group of people constitutes the fastest growing sector of the United States population (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1977). Business succession imposes wide variety of significant management problems. Another change is the increasing number of women in the labor force. has become difficult for individuals to disregard the close interrelationship between work and family life. The cumulative effect of these changes heightens our collective awareness of the interdependence of families and businesses (Lansberg 1988). Three research approaches have been identified in this emerging field of family business research: the rational approach in which owners are sometimes advised to excise the business from the family when making business decisions; focus on the founder approaches, also emphasizing the conflicts between the owner and the business; and business phase and stage concepts (Hollander and Elman 1988). The seeds of systems theory underlie all three. Hollander and Elman (1988) suggest it is premature to adopt systems approach to this young field of inquiry. Generally, researchers in management accounting have adopted the systems approach (Hopper and Powell 1985). Most research models in management control are formulated under the assumptions that the organization is separate or objective entity and that the human beings within the organization are passive. In the dominant cybernetic approach, the organization is a machine and the relative parts of the can be set in motion to produce the desired product. According to modern systems theorists, the organization's well-being depends upon smooth integration of these parts. Child (1972), Schreyogg (1980), and Cooper (1981) generally criticize insufficient theoretical consideration of the discretion possessed by key decision-makers and how values, beliefs, and ideologies may influence choices. Because owner-managers of small family businesses are key decision-makers in their firms and have the discretion to make choices and override business control systems at all levels, it is critical that the theoretical framework used as research tool reflect this environmental fact. The purpose of this article is to propose the alternative of field theory as research tool in understanding the management decisions of small family businesses. Relying upon field theory, owner-managers are expected to direct behaviors simultaneously to achieve both family and business goals. impossible for the majority of individuals to excise the business system from the context of the family and business. Management control should therefore be designed for the larger field rather than for the business system. This study relates the general concepts of field theory to the ecology of the individual in the context of family and business. Empirical evidence is presented to support field theory as research approach in explaining the behavior of owner-managers in the family firm. The theoretical constructs of the general model for field theory are operationalized in terms of the specific research problem. Testable hypotheses are developed, and the results of the analyses are presented. FIELD THEORY Clerk Maxwell (1921) characterized field theory in the physical sciences in the preface of his posthumous book. As Einstein and Infeld (1938, 259) have pointed out: It needed great scientific imagination to realize that it was not the charges nor the particles but the field in the space between them which is essential for the description of physical phenomena (emphasis added). Einstein's theory, formulated at the beginning of the twentieth century, provided conception of space as definitely distributed of gravitational and electromagnetic forces. Under such field theory, the distribution of forces in given environment determines what an object with certain properties will do in that environment. …

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