Socioemotional Wealth a Blessing or Curse in the Context of Management Accounting Practices (MAPS) in Family Businesses

Abstract

Though family businesses have a huge contribution to the economy. But these businesses have a high failure rate. Usually, these businesses get fail in the third generation. Qualitative research was used to explore MAPs in family businesses through the theoretical lens of Socioemotional wealth. Qualitative research was adopted to move away from a constricted and mechanistic view of management accounting which resembles the textbook view. The study reveals that positive and negative emotions perform a vital role in the adoption or non-adoption of MAPs. Moreover, the study depicts how socio-emotional dynamics contribute to the strategic decisions of a family business. The study helps to understand the non-financial aspects of a family business. Contingency Theory, System Theory, Resource Based View (RBV), Agency Theory, and Behavioral Agency theory has already been used in the perspective of a family business in the literature.  But these “foreign” paradigms are unable to sufficiently deal with the uniqueness of family businesses where “economic instrumentality” does not prevail.