Issue 16

ERENET Profile Vol. IV, No. 4.
www.erenet.org
since the uniqueness of a family and an entrepreneurship may jumble, furthermore the concepts have different
meanings within and outside of a family.
No free lunch – Only free lunch
As I have already mentioned in the Introduction, the producer-families were changed by consumer ones
in the modern societies of socialism in the 1970s. The common shopping meant the relation among the
members, since they had to consume and plan together, or in other words they had to hold together their
assets (houses, cars, and so on).
However, peripheral elements like helping each other appeared in this system, too. Thank to it the
members came into business contact with each other, but they usually did not pay for this service (cousinship
opposes wherewithal).
In case of a company everything has financial value, nothing can be undersold, and the actors of
business life have to make economic decisions. In case of a family these values loose their senses, and human
sentiments become the fund of business. This kind of opposition makes family-value and entrepreneurialvalue
different. In contempt of differences people often mix the two values, but it sooner or later causes
conflicts (for example exploitation and humiliating payment within a family).
Main value: profit - Main value: love (togetherness)
In the capitalist world the exclusive aim or – we’d better say – the highest-level aim of a private
company was profit-realization. In order to realize it the entrepreneurs created special strategies, missions and
visions, and culture.
Contrarily profit-realization cannot be mentioned as an aim of a family, but it can be determined as one
of the means that lead up to love. It also means that in most cases the highest-level aim of a family is love, and
what is more, subsisting and observing love. Unfortunately, in our days’ economic circumstances these aims
seem to be unimaginable, since it is hard to realize financial security and welfare in everyday life. We all know
that money does not make people happy, but its deficit results in many conflicts.
Thank to the parallel appearance of the aims profit and love in a family business, the obvious systems of
goals and means break down, which causes conflicts and arguments among the members of the family.
Organizational hierarchy - Congenital hierarchy
A hard borderline can be drawn between congenital and organizational hierarchy, but of course in most
cases it depends on the size of the business. In the 1970s we could observe an interesting developmental
period of the Hungarian agriculture. In case of farmer’s co-operatives everybody argued by the reforms with
the optimal operation-size in view, but in practice they were contracted in bigger and bigger factories.
Interesting processes went on in the background. At first the local countrymen organized some four or
five collective farms on traditional ground. They elected the leader themselves who lead them. It means that
the scopes of duties were developed by elected functions. But later, when the children of the farmers finished
agrarian schools, these specialists were elected to fill the executive positions.
Thank to this process the Taylorian division of labour evolved. It meant major- and assistant posts in
practice, and involved the transformation of traditional familiar division of labour into a modern, inhuman but
effective one.
A family except the modern ones was and will always be the keeper of traditions. Organizations were
and will always be the keeper of modernism full of fine organizational methods.
Organizational culture – Ethical culture
Families and organizations, like every nation, have their own culture, since they are composed by
people. In case of most people the most important and primary cultural principles are determined in their
childhood by the family, and people often change these principles only in small compass when they are adults.
These principles are the basis of relationships at workplace and in the entrepreneurship, companionships, and
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