FAMILY FIRMS AND POLICY IN TIMES OF DISRUPTION (NC1030)

• Sponsoring Institution: National Institute of Food and Agriculture
• Project Status: COMPLETE
• Funding Source: HATCH
• Reporting Frequency: Annual
• Accession No.: 0228596
• Multistate No.: NC-_OLD1030
• Project Start Date: Oct 1, 2011
• Project End Date: Oct 1, 2014
• Program Code: [(N/A)]- (N/A)

Recipient Organization
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY
1680 MADISON AVENUE
WOOSTER,OH 44691

Performing Department
College of Human Ecology

Non Technical Summary
Family owned firms comprise the majority of firms in the United States (Heck & Stafford, 2001). The economy depends on them. Small firms represent 99.7% of all employer firms and employ more than half of all private sector employees. Rural communities are more dependent on small enterprises than are urban communities, therefore ascertaining what is associated with family owned firm sustainability is particularly important for rural America and conversely, the well being of rural communities and their citizens is closely linked to the health of locally owned family firms. Understanding the successful survival of owning families and businesses is an important key to the successful survival of a community. One major weakness of previous research on survival and demise after natural disasters is that only survivors have been studied. It is also important to include owners of businesses that did not successfully survive in order to determine the factors that led to the demise of their businesses.Another major weakness of past research is that the owning family was left out of the survival equation, yet may play an important role that is not being considered in disaster recovery efforts and policy. Understanding survival and demise after a significant disrupting event such as a disaster is unique in that it stresses families, businesses and communities simultaneously. Simultaneous stress on systems the family firm habitually depends upon may be an important contributor to business demise. If that is the case, perhaps policy supporting family disaster recovery may be more important than policy supporting business recovery, or at least an important component of it. NC 1030 is well positioned to improve our knowledge of the dynamics leading to survival and success of small, family owned firms.In the past, Regional Research Project NC 1030 has demonstrated the feasibility of finding and interviewing a random sample of family owned firms using a household sampling frame and obtaining a high response rate. After initial funding for data collection from the participating states, the National Science Foundation and National Institute of Food and Agriculture have provided additional funding for data collection and coding. The expected outcomes from this project will provide sound empirical evidence on the consequences of federal disaster asistance to counties, families and businesses. The expected outcomes will also provide empirically based recommendations for sound disruption managment practices by families for themselves and their businesses.

Animal Health Component

(N/A)

Research Effort Categories

Basic

100%

Applied

(N/A)

Developmental

(N/A)

Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)	Subject of Investigation (SOI)	Field of Science (FOS)	Percent
801	6020	3100	50%
602	6020	3100	50%

Knowledge Area
602 - Business Management, Finance, and Taxation; 801 - Individual and Family Resource Management;

Subject Of Investigation
6020 - The family and its members;

Field Of Science
3100 - Management;

Keywords

disaster

family business

disaster assistance

family resilience

business success

business survival

resilience capacity

Goals / Objectives
Determine the factors that contributed to sustainability of small businesses.

Project Methods
The methods used to meet the objectives will be regression analysis, including simultaneous equations and limited variable techniques, of panel data previously collected from a U.S. national representative sample of family business owners and survey data collected from pre-Katrina business owners in Southern Mississippi.Both data sets are unique. The panel data are the only data on family owned businesses obtained from a national representative sample. Both data sets contain interviews with owners of businesses that did not survive as well as those that did. Both also have data on the owning families. The Mississippi data complement the panel data because they contain responses to parallel questions in the panel data for a census of businesses, all of which were affected by a major disaster. Both data sets are also unusual because they include rural counties and agricultural businesses. The results of statistical analyses will be published in refereed journal articles and embedded in paper and web-based tools designed to be used by family business owners and their advisors. Results of the statistical analyses will permit quantification of the relative size of the effects of managerial behaviors and disaster assistance.

Progress 10/01/11 to 10/01/14

Outputs
Target Audience: Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project. Changes/Problems: Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? Project Director has left the University, no information to submit. This report is to close project.

Publications

Progress 01/01/12 to 12/31/12

Outputs
OUTPUTS: A set of 257 observations from the National Family Business Panel data for which there were complete data for the waves 1997, 2000 and 2007 were analyzed via logistic regression to ascertain the influence of families on the survival and success of their businesses over the decade. Profiles of disaster resilient and no-resilient family businesses was developed. A paper was presented at the SERVSIG International Service Research Conference. PARTICIPANTS: Nothing significant to report during this reporting period. TARGET AUDIENCES: Target audiences for this project are business and farm consultants, as well as scholars in the fields of marketing, family business, management and disaster recovery. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: Not relevant to this project.

Impacts
The study advances knowledge of small firm survival and success after natural disasters by (a) using the first micro-level national, representative household sample of family firms to obtain the first generalizable results for firm disaster recovery, (b)having baseline firm data prior to disasters, (c) including owning family resilience capacity, (d)including both county-level and firm-level disaster experience, and (e) using a firm model instead of a disaster model. Also, unlike other firm disaster recovery studies, this analysis includes agricultural enterprises. There was evidence of negative effects on firm survival of stress pile-up; the more negative stressors occurred the less likely the business was to survive. Resource focused family management practices were associated with an increased probability of survival; whereas business management practices had non-significant negative effects on survival.

Publications

• Choi, H., Kandampully, J., Stafford, K. and Klatt, M. (2012). The role of servicescape in determining patients emotion and trust in healthcare service experience. Proceedings of the SERVSIG International Service Research Conference from American Marketing Association, Helsinki, Finland, June 7-9.