The resistible lure of the family business

The pros and cons of following in your parents’ footsteps

Apr 5th 2023

Family business makes for compelling drama. Just ask anyone tuning in to the final season of “Succession”, which has recently begun airing on HBO. This Bartleby prefers “Buddenbrooks”, Thomas Mann’s chronicle of the decline and collapse of a German merchant family over the course of four generations. That novel, first published in 1901, drew heavily on the author’s personal experience. The dilemmas of working for an organisation which an immediate family member runs or in which they own the majority sound alarming enough in fiction, never mind real life. And nepotism can be plenty dramatic even without the plot twists.

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “The lure of the family business”