The business world is dominated by family businesses of all sizes. Economies and societies
depend on them. One tremendous advantage is that they focus on sustainability long-term
business and community support and survival. Answering the question of how they survive intact
and how families can maintain family unity over hundreds of years is essential. To answer this
question interviews with seven multi-century large multigenerational family businesses from
Germany were undertaken to uncover secrets of their success. Chief among health indicators is
family cohesion. What these families practice is the use of multiple dimensions of cohesion to
bond the widest number of owners to the family and business and to fulfill the family and
business dreams. The specific different mechanisms they use are revealed in this text.
Maintaining family cohesion also requires family business leaders to effectively manage the
ambiguities that come along with seemingly irreconcilable forms of cohesion and with
potentially diverging interests and goals of owners. By exploring the conditions for
sustainable family cohesion the study adds new recommendations for effective family business
governance.
