BETWEEN FILIAL PIETY AND MANAGERIAL OPPORTUNISM: THE STRATEGIC USE OF THE HISTORY OF A FAMILY BUSINESS AFTER THE BUYOUT BY NONFAMILY PURCHASERS

Abstract

Historical narratives are considered to play a role of consolidation within family firms over time.
They instill a common vision of family business history made up of values, myths and stories
which forge a distinctive culture. Yet family businesses do not always manage to remain in
the bosom of the family. What happens to historical family business narratives when the
intra-family succession fails? Are they still relevant? If so, for whom? And in what ways? The
use of narratives in the firm after the takeover by non-family purchasers remains a relatively
untouched topic of research. It deserves investigation since “selling out” as an alternative to
intra-family succession can be a viable option.
Through the qualitative case study of a French business school which used to be a family firm
for two generations during the 19th century – the Higher School of Commerce of Paris, presently
named ESCP Europe – this study demonstrates that family business can become, with the writing
of its history, an arena for emotional confrontation. In this case, on the one hand, witnesses of the
family era used the history of the former family business to preserve its alma mater. On the other
hand, its new purchasers used it to show that, unlike their predecessors, they had succeeded in
increasing the organisation’s prosperity to a level that had never been achieved before. Historical
family business narratives can therefore serve both as indicators of the emotional tensions that
run through the firm and as strategic levers for shaping the future of the firm.