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When you hear the phrase family business, you might think of the backstabbing Roys of Succession or the dysfunctional Duttons of Yellowstone. But while TVs family companies are entertaining, their real-life counterparts may be even more compelling. Around the world, family businesses produce about two-thirds of all economic output and employ more than half of all workers. And they can be very profitable: The worlds 500 largest family businesses generated a collective US$8.8 trillion in 2024. Thats nearly twice the gross domestic product of Germany. If youre not steeped in family business researchand even if you aretheir ubiquity might seem a little strange. After all, families can come with drama, conflict, and long memories. That might not sound like the formula for an efficient company. We are researchers who study family businesses, and we wanted to understand why there are so many of them in the first place. In our recent article published in the Journal of Management, we set out to understand this different kind of whynot just the purpose of family firms, but why they thrive around the world. The usual answers dont really explain it The standard answer to Why do family companies exist? is straightforward: They allow owners to generate income and potentially create a legacy for future generations. A related question is: Why do entrepreneurs even want to involve their relatives in their new ventures? Research suggests entrepreneurs do so because family members care and can help when resources are limited. But that might not be unique to family businesses. All companieswhether run by a family or corporate executivesbalance short-term profit and long-term goals. And all of them want reliable workers who are willing to pitch in. So those answers dont explain why family companies, specifically, are so common worldwide. A different angle: Winning without fighting For our study, we considered decades of research about family firms to conclude that family businesses are uniquely skilled at keeping competitors out of their market spaceoften without actually competing with them. How? We think a quote from Sun-Tzus The Art of War captures the idea: To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemys resistance without fighting. Family-owned businesses often do exactly this, which is why there are so many of them. Heres how it works in practice. 3 key differences Research on family businesses has shown that they differ from other types of companies in three key ways: the types of goals they pursue, the governance structures they establish, and the resources they have. Together, these three characteristics explain how family businesses may use their property rights to get an edge over their competitors. The first is goals. Unlike other types of enterprises, family businesses prioritize noneconomic goals involving the reputation, legacy, and well-being of the familyboth now and in the future. Of course, they still have to worry about making a profit. But their interest in family-centered goals can lead them to choose projects that may yield lower returns but still fulfill their noneconomic goals. These sorts of projects may not be attractive to other types of firms. As a result, family businesses may find themselves operating in spaces where theres not much competition to start with. For instance, take Corticeira Amorim, a family-run Portuguese company that dominates the global market for cork stoppers and other cork products. The cork industry is a classic narrow niche: There are only a handful of serious global competitors, and Amorim is widely described as the worlds largest cork processing group, with a sizable share of global wine and Champagne corks. CEO Antonio Rios de Amorim discusses the history of his family business in this Business Insider video. The second key factor is governance. Family members who work together often know each other well, care about each other, and want the best for both the family and the firm, which may stay in the familys possession for generations. This fact may reduce operating costs and the cost of contracting. Why? When they make decisions, they dont always need to hire a fancy, Harvey Specter-like lawyer from the show Suits. They can decide on the next move for the company while having dinner together. This significantly reduces the costs associated with decision-making. In other words, because they rely less on formal contracts and monitoring, family businesses can operate more cheaply. Finally, family firms use resources like information and money differently. Since many established family businesses have been around for decades, relatives who work together accumulate information thats hard to acquire and transfer, and might not even be useful elsewhere. Being a family membr means not only doing business with relatives but also going through life together, acquiring a unique perspective about the family itself. As a result, family businesses have lower transaction costs than other companies. Sometimes this shows up in very concrete ways. An uncle may invest money in the business and never ask for it back. Would that happen at a nonfamily business? Probably not. This dedication makes family members a special type of human asset thats hard to replace. Put simply, nonfamily businesses are unlikely to hire someone who cares as much about the companys success as a deeply invested relative does. And because these relationships arent for sale on the open market, competitors cant easily access them. That fact helps family businesses keep competitors at bay while essentially being themselveswhich in turn explains why there are so many of them. Family businesses are so common worldwide that there are several holidays celebrating them, including International Family Business Day on November 25; U.S. National Mom and Pop Business Owners Day on March 29; and the United Nations Micro-, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises Day on June 27. This holiday season, you might consider spreading a little extra cheer with the family-run retailers in your community. Vitaliy Skorodziyevskiy is an assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at the University of Louisville. Hanqing “Chevy” Fang is an associate professor of business and information technology at the Missouri University of Science and Technology. Jim Chrisman is a professor of management at Mississippi State University.
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E-Commerce
If youre an entrepreneur, at the end of the year youre probably excited about the prospect of time off, but also daunted by the new year’s potential and all the deadlines you should be setting. Traditional planning methods like to-do lists and calendars are no longer enough for the complexity of modern careers and lives. This year, I leaned into AI to approach planning differently. When used thoughtfully, AI becomes a partner in strategy, and a system that helps you transform aspirations into structured, executable plans. Heres how I recommend using AI to clarify where youre headed and offer more clarity on how to get there. Redefine the role of AI Most people use AI like a junior assistant, asking it to summarize things or spit out a process or recommendation based on relevant input shared. But what I realized is that AI can be extremely helpful as a thought partner, forcing clarity where youre vague and exposing blind spots youd otherwise ignore. One of the first prompts I ran this year was If I repeat the same behaviors I had this year, where will I realistically end up in 12 months? That question alone reframes everything. AI is excellent at pattern recognition, including your own. Before planning forward, I let AI show me the trajectory Im already on to help me decide what needs to change. Plan like a portfolio manager We have a tendency to approach planning as if every goal deserves equal attention, but lets face it, thats rarely the case. This year, I asked AI to treat my time like a portfolio. I said, given my goals, which 20% are likely to produce 80% of meaningful outcomes? The result was uncomfortable to see but important to make me realize that several projects I thought were important turned out to be just draining my energy. For example, the AI flagged two goals as the most important: clarifying and focusing on one user problem to make sure the team was pushing in one direction, as well as building a regular feedback loop, so that we can iterate the product based on feedback as most important. Everything else on the backlog had to come second. Use AI to run premortems on your year One of the most powerful ways I use AI is by asking it to assume failure. Before finalizing major goals, I run a premortem, by providing context as if its already December next year and the plan failed, helping me see what went wrong. This helps me surface predictable risks, such as being overly optimistic on timelines, or trying to do too many things at once. For example, last year I ran a premortem on what looked like a perfectly reasonable plan of scaling my company while simultaneously launching two new agent products, expanding partnerships, and tightening our internal tooling, all within 12 months. The AI flagged that Id assumed linear progress in a year that would almost certainly include regulatory friction, hiring delays, and long integration cycles with partners. It pointed out that running multiple launches in parallel would fragment leadership attention. This single exercise has saved me months of wasted effort by planning ahead for what can keep me stuck. Turn goals into systems Traditional planning tends to be driven by milestones like “scale by Q4.” But what if, instead of asking what do I want to achieve, you ask: What system do I need to follow to ensure I reach this milestone? This could look like a weekly publishing system with feedback, as opposed to just saying you want to write more. AI helps design these systems, and refine them over time. Let your plan evolve in real time The biggest flaw we tend to make in our annual planning is pretending the future is static. Whats changed for me this year is using AI agents to continuously adapt my plan based on new information, such as meetings added to the calendar or opportunities emerging that I didnt anticipate. You can just sync your preferred chatbot with your calendar to help you do this. This turns planning into a living conversation, not a once-a-year ritual. AI wont magically give you discipline, but it will expose contradictions between what you say you want and how you actually allocate time. Used well, AI becomes a mirror that reflects your priorities back at you in uncomfortably precise ways. The people who will get the most out of AI next year will be doing fewer things, more coherently, with systems that adapt as fast as life does. Using AI to help you in this process is what will make a difference between a plan that looks good on January 1 and one that works all year long.
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E-Commerce
2025 was unquestionably the year of the AI boom at work. When generative AI like ChatGPT entered the scene a few years ago, it started as a novelty. Early adapters saw its potential to change the way we work, but for most people it was a way to rewrite Keatss poetry in pirate speak, or remix their favorite memes. But in 2025 AI rolled into offices everywhere, taking up residence as the boss who set performance goals, the on-call therapist-cum-coach, and the silent brainstorm partner. A McKinsey study found that 33% of organizations used genAI at work in 2023, and 55% used AI. This year, that leapt to 79% and 88% respectively. Here are five ways AI changed work in 2025. 1. The AI job application Not only is AI changing how we do our jobs, its changing how we get our jobs. AI generated résumés submitted on LinkedIn surged by 45% this year. Job candidates are also using AI to find companies to apply to and help them network. In parallel, overwhelmed by all the AI generated applications, HR departments are using AI to help them keep up. Three-fourths of hiring managers say they use AI to schedule interviews, and over 90% use AI to screen résumés. While interviewing still remains the domain of humans, about 25% of companies are using AI interviewers. Researcher Brian Jabarian even found that AI interviewers are more likely to result in increased job offers. They also improve 30-day job retention by 17% for industries that hire at a high volume, such as customer service. 2. AI as the superstar employee AI arrived on the scene as the perfect employee. It does not ask for a salary or raises, it does not care about getting promoted, and it wont steal someones lunch from the break room. Instead, it can do the automatic, repetitive work thats present in every job that eats up hours of the week offering very little intellectual satisfaction in return. In fact, even as companies waffled on how to train employees on how to use AI and what their AI policies should be, employees took matters into their own hands and figured out how to use AI to make their jobs easier. About 80% of employees at small and medium-size companies were using their own AI tools at work giving rise to BYOAI: bring your own AI. AI has also reduced the barrier to entry for founders: instead of hiring a fleet of programmers, vibe code. Instead of sinking hours into finding client contact information, get AI to suggest leads. 3. The silent copilot Not only is AI the superstar employee, its the perfect confidante since it wont gossip. As such, AI also became the silent copilot who helped workers brush up on their soft skills and stress test their ideas without judgement. In an informal survey Fast Company conducted of employees using LinkedIn, workers reported using AI to organize documents, brainstorm ideas, challenge assumptions, summarize meeting notes, and prioritize tasks. Employees are even asking AI what kind of health insurance they should get. Its not just employees: leaders are using AI to up their game. Studies show that 85% of new managers dont receive training. AI quietly stepped in to fill the gap. James Cross, cofounder of Tenor, an AI leadership company, noted that managers are often more receptive to AI feedback, because theres no emotion attached to it. 4. The rise of workslop AI might be the best employee but its also the worst employee because it knows not what it does. While AI can generate work, that doesnt mean it understands what its doing. 2025 might have seen the ascendance of AI at work, but it also saw the ascendance of AI generated workslop. Stanford researchers found that 40% of employees reported receiving AI-generated work content that masquerades as good work, but lacks the substance to meaningfully advance a given task. Meanwhile, in July, MIT published a report that found that while companies were investing billions of dollars in AI, 95% of companies had found no return on their AI investments. Worse, OpenAIs research found that their models can lie deliberately. AI promises to work easier, but workers may find instead of kicking back, they have a new job: sorting through piles of AI generated trash. 5. AI took all the jobs, or did it just get blamed for it? In addition to being the superstar employee, AI is also everyones favorite scapegoat. Its getting blamed for replacing all the jobs for good reason. First, 2025 was a rough year for layoffs, with layoff announcements totaling over one million. Second, CEOs pinned the blame on AI. Understandably, as wave after wave of layoffs have swept through corporate America, nearly a third of employees say that they think AI will lead to fewer job opportunities. However, experts point out theres little evidence AI is replacing workersAIs impact on the workforce is comparable to earlier technological disruptions such as the rise of the PC and the internet. In a rocky economy, where companies are struggling to trim back, it makes companies look good to their shareholders, to suggest we are deploying AI so well [that] we are now cutting our labor costs, Molly Kinder, a Brookings senior fellow, told Fast Company.
Category:
E-Commerce
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