Managing For The Long Run: Lessons In Competitive Advantage From Great Family Businesses [Hardcover]

Danny Miller (Author), Isabelle Le Breton-Miller (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 15, 2005

Conventional thinking holds that family-controlled businesses are beset by inherent weaknesses from "clan" cultures to stable ownership that hobble success and erode competitive advantage. This book argues that those very traits are part of what has ensured the sustained success of some of the world's leading and long-lived family controlled businesses. This is not a book for "mom and pop" family businesses. Rather, it is for firms of all kinds and sizes who want to emulate the strategies of the best family-controlled businesses for long term success.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Danny Miller is a Professor of Strategy at HEC Montreal and Chair in Family Enterprise & Strategy at the University of Alberta. Isabelle Le Breton-Miller is a human resources consultant and Senior Research Associate at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at the University of Alberta.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press (February 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591394155
• ISBN-13: 978-1591394150
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #609,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Deep Lessons from Successful Family Businesses, February 4, 2005

By 

Mitchell H. Dickey - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Managing For The Long Run: Lessons In Competitive Advantage From Great Family Businesses (Hardcover)

This book is amazing. I know of no other book in the management literature as cogent, as provocative or as compelling as this one. No wonder family businesses outperform their publicly-held counterparts. This book challenges not only our prejudices about family businesses, but also they way we manage our own. It shows clearly why these companies have succeeded and grown over decades to become the powerhouses they are now - their competitive advantages are sustainable.

The book defies what we think of as best management practices for public companies. It reminds me of Collins's "Built to Last" and Level 5 leaders. The underlying research is THAT good.

For me, the centerpiece of it all is an elegant matrix that describes how these companies have been able to deliver on 5 core strategies through the advantages long tenure, patient capital, etc. No quick accounting fixes here. Locate your own company within this matrix and the companies they studied will offer new guidance as you make your biggest bets and make your toughest decisions.

I was dumbfounded at how short-sighted and small-minded I had become as a manager. It's not a quick read, but read it. And you will never think in quite the same way about your strategy, your core competencies, your markets, or the way you leverage/steward your current resources.

This book is both sophisticated and practical. My hat is off to Miller and Breton-Miller.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic in Family Business Studies, October 15, 2005

By 

Hubert Shea (Shanghai, China) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Managing For The Long Run: Lessons In Competitive Advantage From Great Family Businesses (Hardcover)

Modernisation theorists and chandlerian followers have developed plausible arguments that there are too many weaknesses in family-controlled businesses such as nepotism, small-scale, and short-lived.

Danny Miller & Isabella Le-Breton Miller capture mounting primary and secondary data from 58 family-controlled companies in the US and suggest that family-controlled companies can be as marvellous as their nonfamily-controlled peers. This book provides a rich source of useful insights to business excutives in having a novel understanding family-controlled companies.

According to the International Family Enterprise Research Academy, family-controlled companies dominate every aspect of economic life in the world but the study of family-controlled companies has received scant attention in proportion to the significance of their contribution to the economic growth in the US. This book is a classic in family business research and I highly recommend it to all business executives and researchers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great on the unique advantages of family firms., April 25, 2005

By 

S. A. Zahra - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Managing For The Long Run: Lessons In Competitive Advantage From Great Family Businesses (Hardcover)

This is a great book! It is well grounded in excellent case study research and good theory. The authors bring to life some important and profound wisdom about the sources of advantage that family firms have and what makes them successful. Well written, the book is easily accessible to scholars, public policy makers and the public at large. I am impressed by the depth of the research in the book and the time frame it covers. The diversity of companies examined in the book helps to illustrate how effective management can make a significant difference in the ways family firms surpass their rivals in their performance. This is a "must read" book!

Shaker A. Zahra

Paul T. Babson Chair of Entrepreneurship