Governance and Stakeholder Coupling for Family Firms: The Case of Blue Bell Ice Cream.

Family firms are generally treated as special cases of governance theories such as agency theory and stakeholder theory, despite their global prevalence and distinct differences from public firms with dispersed ownership. The strategic decisions made by the owner-managers of Blue Bell Creameries during an event of product contamination appeared irrational in the light of family firm theoretical views, and an interpretive case study was conducted to make sense of the more puzzling actions and behaviors. The themes and results suggest current understandings of socio-emotional wealth building, risk-taking and stakeholder management may be equilibrium perspectives of core behavioral tendencies regarding control and coupling based on stakeholder saliency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]