RAJ General Supplies Limited: three daughters take over the family business

William Murithi and Karumba Kinyua

Chapter 9 in Case Studies in Family Business, 2024, pp 111-120 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: From humble beginnings in Kenya, Raj Agarwal grew Raj General Supplies Limited, and brought in his wife, three daughters, and other family members to work in the firm. Although Raj sought to create a trust culture, problems occurred when he selected a cousin to manage the firm during his illness. After several fights with the extended family and a legal battle, the three daughters gained control. Faced with strong opposition from both extended family and some male employees, the three managed to save the firm from collapse. The case exposes dysfunction in family business succession and lack of proper mechanisms enabling smooth transition from founder to younger generation without extended battles for control. The case illustrates entitlement of family members, particularly extended family, unethical behaviors by successors, and effects of patriarchal cultural practices that prevent women from leading family businesses because their experience and qualifications are overlooked due to gender.

Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.elgaronline.com/doi/10.4337/9781035307357.00021 (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:elg:eechap:22095_9

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.e-elgar.com

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Chapters from Edward Elgar Publishing
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Darrel McCalla ().