Multiple Roles in Serving Families in Business

When family business professionals serve family firms in more than one capacity, they begin to mirror the problems that cause conflict in business families. Fulfilling multiple professional roles started from necessity and became a tradition. The practice of “dual relationship” has gone unchallenged, even though it holds significant potential risk to the family enterprise. “Best practices” from corporate governance, together with established codes of conduct, provide guidelines for protecting both the quality and the integrity of professional input on which family firms rely. Better educated consumers and accountability to peers mean higher professional standards for meeting the needs of family enterprise.