Family-related goals, entrepreneurial investment behavior, and governance mechanisms of single family offices: An exploratory study

Abstract

A single family office (SFO) is an organizational entity owned by a single family and primarily dedicated to managing assets and meeting the needs of family members. While a rising number of SFOs around the world emphasize the importance of this specific vehicle for entrepreneurial families, scholarly knowledge on SFOs is surprisingly scarce. To better understand this phenomenon, we conducted and analyzed exploratory interviews with 109 German-speaking SFO-owning families. We answer a call for research on SFO heterogeneity by identifying two relevant, separate dimensions: a) whether the family still owns the original family firm and b) whether the family generation who founded the SFO still owns the SFO. Based on our qualitative insights and theoretical approaches such as socioemotional wealth (SEW) and agency theory, we develop propositions about how the respective heterogeneity of SFOs affects the family-related goals, entrepreneurial investment behaviors, and governance of SFOs.