The Most Trusted Advisor and the Subtle Advice Process in Family Firms

Abstract
The literature on advising family firms has primarily focused on providing practical advice through offering explicit intervention phases and advising models to family firm advisors. Yet the underlying implicit processes behind advising are not well understood. This study examines nine most trusted advisors in six family firms to develop a grounded theory model of how advisors capture attention, how they become attuned to family firm members to influence attention, and how they aid family members to collaboratively interrelate and mindfully govern the firm in order to facilitate an environment of collective attention.