Impact of family capital on family business sustainability: A study of selected micro scale businesses in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of family capital on the sustainability of micro family businesses in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State. The specific objectives of the study were to investigate the impact of family human resources; family social resources and family financial resources respectively on business sustainability. To achieve these objectives, an explanatory research which involved a cross sectional survey was designed and adopted in this study. This led to drawing a simple random sample from the total micro family businesses in Abakaliki. A total of 354 structured questionnaires were distributed to the owners/managers of the selected micro family businesses. The data gathered from the survey were tested for fitness, including discriminant and divergent validity and reliability with the Confirmatory Factor analysis (CFA). Descriptive statistics to test the level of relationship between the study variables was done using the Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation, while the test of analysis was calculated via a multiple regression analyses using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS, V. 23). The findings of the study indicated that the individual variables of family capital: human, social and financial, all have positive and significant impacts on sustainability of family business (β = 2.30, p<0.01; β = 1.35, p<0.01; β = 1.20, p<0.0). This implies that the right mix of family capital fosters sustainability of the business. Thus, it was recommended that the owners/managers of these firms must ensure that they acquire and maintain these resources within their businesses, as they will enable them sustain the business in the family.