Conflicts within a family business and the factors that escalate it to litigation

• Main Authors: Bercasio, Jenica Ann J., Cabalu, Mary Clarice Charmaine S., Quiambao, Camille E., Sangalang, Allerin T.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2010
• Subjects: Family-owned business enterprises > Philippines > Management; Conflict management > Philippines; Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/14490; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=15132&context=etd_bachelors
• Institution: De La Salle University

The topic of this thesis paper is about family business disputes that reaches the litigation process. Family businesses are the most common type of business all over the world. Family businesses, owned and managed by family member, have numerous advantages and even disadvantages. One of its advantages is that it is the easiest form of business to establish since it is composed of mainly the family members. On the other hand, one of its disadvantages is when their interpersonal relationship is affected negatively by the business through conflicts. Conflict is inevitable part of life that it occurs even in families. There are several type and causes of conflict some of which include control issues, performance issues, and ownership issues unclear roles and responsibilities and inability to separate business issues from family issues, respectively. When facing conflict, family members may either choose to have a constructive or destructive response. In this paper, the group chose to focus on the destructive response that reaches the court. The group wants to identify the ratio of family business disputes that reaches the litigation process here in the Philippines. In order to accomplish this study, the group started by tabulating all the court cases that were recorded in the Supreme Court from years 2005-2009. Through this, the group was able to identify which cases relate to family business conflict. The group then analyzed each case in order to determine the factors that lead it to litigation. The factors which the group identified include the type of family, type of business, type of industry, type of conflict, and source of conflict. The group found out the out of 7500 recorded cases, there are only six cases that involves family business disputes. In addition, the group also found out that the most common source and type of conflict are unclear roles and responsibilities and control issues, respectively.