Understanding a family business requires selecting an appropriate perspective to identify its driving factors and management strategies. The business complexity at Icon World of Tile emerges from the intersection between emotional family dynamics and methodical business choices.Our company demonstrates the complexity of managing a business with more than 60 family shareholders spanning three generations and six production units that operate independently under one brand.
The Three-Circle Model (Tagiuri & Davis, 1982) helps us understand complex family business structures through its illustration of how “family,” “business,” and “ownership” intersect. Within Icon family members participate in daily operations while some only hold shares and others remain uninvolved. Every critical decision relating to succession, hiring, or expansion requires consideration of personal loyalties as well as business logic and ownership interests.
In merit-based hiring discussions the business circle selects top candidates whereas the family circle prefers to preserve their legacy by offering positions to relatives. Our achievements and difficulties both stem from this existing tension.