Family Business-Owning Couples: An EFT View into Their Unique Conflict Culture

This study expands the understanding of business-related tensions within business-owning couples through an interdisciplinary literature review, through a longitudinal data analysis, and through application of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) to a case study. Business-owning husbands and wives in this study reported that conflicts related to work/family life balance and unfair distribution of resources (money, time, energy) between family and business systems create the greatest tensions. Low family functionality, wives' role dissatisfaction, transfer of resources from family to business, and husbands' identification of wives as major decision makers were all predictors of wives' higher tension levels. Husbands reported increased tension when wives worked more hours in the business. Three elements of EFT are applied to a family business couple.