Interaction of Family Values in the Management of a Family Business From Minas Gerais State: A Zema Group Study Case.

Abstract

This work aims to analyze the history of a family business from Minas Gerais and identify its main contributing values in management. A study linked to its family history, through a documentary analysis of the corporate assets, was carried out, as well as interviews with three members of the current Administrative Council of this company were made; specifically, two members of the family and an experienced director. For the characterization of the surveyed company, we used the model of Gersick et al. (2006), that analyses the evolution of family companies according to three variables: ownership, family and management/company. The organizational and family values were assessed by the theoretical proposal of Schwartz (1992), known as Motivational Types of Values, adapted by Oliveira and Tamayo (2004). The results show that the family values and the management of the companies are interlaced, causing situations and considerations on the maintenance of organizational values. Family values have become active in the company’s actions, through the examples lived by the previous generations, and are of great importance for the guidelines of this organizations to be systematically present in the company’s policies or to be experienced by everybody, causing the everyday activities of this company to show a positive reference of the adopted values.