The family’s goal to maintain the decision-making power within the ranks of the family and
the expert know-how of the CFO added to the FB’s resource set should also lead to the nonfamily
CFO mainly providing advisement to a family CEO without holding strategic
decision-making power themselves (proposition 6), and thus generally performing a more
traditional CFO role than in NFBs (proposition 7). Moreover, due to this limitation of the
non-family CFO’s power within the firm, it can also be expected that the non-family CFO’s
level of responsibility should be lower than that in NFBs (proposition 8). This proposition is
also influenced by the lower importance of short-term economic goals in FBs compared to
NFBs; as a consequence of the longer-term orientation of FBs, the non-family CFO’s
department should have fewer requirements to report and drive short-term developments,
and thus should manage to perform its tasks with less staff than in comparable NFBs. The
lower importance of short-term goals is also associated with a stewardship-like culture in
FBs, as the controlling family usually strives to keep the firm alive and pass it on to
succeeding generations. This leads to higher valuation of the firm’s success over the
individual benefits of single family members, which is typical for a stewardship-oriented
culture. This culture is also intertwined with mutual reciprocal trust. In addition, the nonfamily
CFO should perceive this higher level of trust, resulting in less rigid control
mechanisms for the non-family CFO compared to NFBs (proposition 5).