Emotion, succession, and the family firm: Josiah Wedgwood & Sons

We argue that both business history and social science studies of family firms often neglect the family qua family, in particular paying insufficient attention to the emotional elements of family as they affect family firms, separating out one from the other as distinctive variables, and treating each from a rationalising perspective. Adopting a microhistorical approach we use the case of succession at Josiah Wedgwood & Sons to argue that consideration of emotions and sensibilities provides new insight into behaviour at this world-famous firm.