Introduction:
Family-owned businesses are the backbone of the economy as they create wealth, provide jobs, are locally rooted and connected to communities. They seem to be around for long period of time. From historical view point, keeping in mind the evolutionary reasons, most countries have family businesses constituting the largest category in terms of ownership; estimates do vary, but is above 75 percent in all cases. About one third of the companies listed in Fortune 500 are family businesses (Lee 2004). Since they normally do not have short term orientation and are interested in growing the family wealth with necessary precautions with a different set of strategic goals compared to non-family owned private companies, (Ward, 1987), their long term contribution to economy is significant. This is true with the Indian economy too. Families are united over generations by their vision, values and emotional bondage. There is growing realization that families have a social role to fulfil and be responsible for specific activities including community development through charity (Gallo, 2004). However, long term sustenance of family business depends on its smooth survival across generations.

Review of Literature:
Currently, family-business research is largely descriptive rather than prescriptive. Most of the literature that has taken a prescriptive approach has done so from the perspective of how to improve family relationships rather than business performance. Dyer (1988)