Abstract:

Family businesses are the key element of the modern economy. For this reason, they arouse interest of the scientific community wishing to learn the specificity of their functioning. However, this is not an easy task since family businesses in many ways constitute a very diverse group of entities. One of the most important differentiating factors is the age of the company and thus the owner generation. This aspect is still poorly explored in the subject literature therefore it became the subject of interest of the authors of the present paper. The objective of the article was to investigate if, in relation to selected aspects of the functioning of family businesses, there are significant differences between entities being in the hands of different family generations. The analyses were conducted on the basis of the data from the report - Family Business Survey 2016. They indicated that the differences related to the generation the family business belongs to can be noted in the case of managers’ perception of the most important characteristics distinguishing family businesses as well as the level of internationalization of activities. However, in relation to the aspects associated with the short-term prospect of operation, there are no clear trends testifying to the significance of owner generation.