Small firms are saturated with the ideology of the family. For some, the notion of the `family firm' conjures up an image of harmony at the workplace; moreover, it is seen to serve as an important source of flexibility. Others, however, view it as little more than a cover-up of exploitative practices which are believed to be dominant in small firms. Using an ethnographic approach, this article explores in detail how the notion of the family is actually operationalised at the level of the workplace. Participant and direct observation methods were used to examine the role of the family in management organisation, recruitment and workplace control. We argue that the family is crucial to the understanding of the pattern of social relations within small firms, but it is more complex and contested than commonly portrayed. The `family' was found to be both a resource and constraint; management benefited from the `flexibility' afforded by familial ties, but the family also imposed obligations which contradicted economic rationality. The diffuse nature of such arrangements meant that `negotiated paternalism', rather than autocracy or harmony, more accurately depicted the family at work.
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