The Invisible CEO - Chief Emotional Officer (by K@W)

An interesting article from Wharton @ Knowledge about the worldwide family business citing an example of a Malaysian entreprise:

Published: June 27, 2007 in Knowledge@Wharton This article has been read 1,655 Times

When your family business involves an extended network of 52 family shareholders, as it does for Bukit Kiara Properties, a leading Malaysian real estate development firm, simply pulling everyone together for family dinner can be hard work. But N.K. Tong, who co-founded Bukit Kiara with his father and is now group managing director, says there's just one person to call: "My auntie."

"When she picks up the phone, everyone comes running," says Tong. Her effectiveness at bringing people together was essential in the late 1990s when Tong and his father, Alan Tong Kok Mau, sold one family business and started Bukit Kiara. "My dad asked her to find out which family members wanted to join us, and over a single weekend she raised a fair sum of money from over 20 [of them]."

Tong's aunt plays a role some scholars describe as a family business's "chief emotional officer," an informal function usually filled by a family member or close advisor. But the topic is not as warm and fuzzy as it sounds: Not only can the emotional officer job be stressful and go unrecognized, it can also fall dangerously by the wayside as businesses are passed on to succeeding generations.

Nevertheless, nearly all family businesses have a person who plays the chief emotional officer role, according to Raphael "Raffi" Amit, a Wharton professor of entrepreneurship who studies family businesses. "Having worked with numerous families around the world, I have found there is always a confidant, either the patriarch of the family, a trusted lawyer or other friend of the family," says Amit, who chairs the executive committee of Wharton's Global Family Alliance, a private forum that brings global family business leaders together with researchers.

Family firms make up anywhere from 80% to 90% of business enterprises in North America, according to a 2003 research article in the journal Family Business Review, although other studies put the number much lower, closer to 50%. A 2000 study of East Asian firms, however, found that more than two-thirds were controlled by families or individuals...

For full article, please refer to http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1760