Assignment:
Understanding Family Firms Case Studies on the Management of Crises, Uncertainty and Change by Alan L. Carsrud, Malin Brännback
Several issues are facing the firm. While an obvious one is succession, and in fact this may well be the result of a lot of decisions that occurred long before the thought of succession occurred. What are some of these other issues? In addition, many career and personal questions were being faced by members of the third generation. For example:
1. Given competitor and industry pressures, what types of strategic issues are facing Barton Springs?
2. What should Baxter consider putting in his contract?
3. What type of issues does the family face?
4. The three owning families have distinctly different patterns in size and rate of growth, what types of downstream implications are there?
5. What are your biggest concerns for the families?
(A concern is prices had leveled for finished furniture for over a decade. This put enormous pressure on suppliers, the majority having been acquired or gone out of business. This was an extremely cost-sensitive industry. Now Barton faced a competitor several times its size, with enormous purchasing power and economies of scale. With the capital limitations, typical for a privately-owned business, this provides a formidable challenge for Mr. Baxter. One of Baxter's personal goals is to take the essence of the three officers' personalities and habits and from this forge formal policies and guidelines that can be passed on to other managers. The topic of transfer of title and actual transfer of power should be applicable in this case; George Shield was making it clear that he would personally stay involved with a few aspects of the business).