The family company and its stakeholders

In addition to facing a number of special management challenges, the family company, defined as a business owned and operated by a family that employs several family members, must pay special attention to communicating with its stakeholders. Family companies share many stakeholder groups with all other companies. These include the communities in which they are based or maintain a significant presence as an employer; law makers and regulators who are influential in those communities or in the sectors of industry or commerce of importance; suppliers of raw materials, goods and services essential to the activities of the company; partners of various kinds in distribution, production or joint ventures; customers and consumers; employees and potential employees; and non‐family members of management. In addition, the family company has to ensure it maintains communications with certain specific groups. These are the family executives working in the company; family shareholders who are not employed by the company; and banks and financial institutions whose confidence in the company is essential as a source of capital. With all stakeholders in the first group, the company must seek to develop a positioning and communications programme that stresses the advantages of its status as family‐owned while countering any possible negative perceptions stemming from the same heritage. For the larger, longer‐established family companies which now have a large group of related shareholders and members of different branches of the founding family at work in the firm, systematic and effective family communications are of the highest importance.