The Prevalence of Family Business from a Household Sample

This paper presents U.S. prevalence figures and their relationship to various family business definitions offered in literature to date. The percentage of households that own at least one family business where its owner or manager resides in the residential familyqhousehold was 13.8%. Results yielded a 10.0% prevalence rate for households having a business that qualified for this 1997 National Family Business Survey. The level of prevalence was shown to be associated with gender, ownershipqmanagement, involvement of family members, and generation of owner. These findings are useful for refining family business definitions. This paper also offers implications for future research, teaching, and practice relative to family businesses.