Many small businesses are family owned and operated. They may be owned by parents and children, spouses, siblings, and extended families. Some family enterprises work well; others are disasters. Every family and every business has interpersonal dynamics. In a family business those dynamics intertwine so it is difficult, if not impossible to separate them. For example, imagine a husband and wife who own a business together. They have a disagreement at work and it continues at home. It can escalate until, eventually, the business and the marriage is damaged. I know of situations where one spouse fires the other and another where a mother demoted her son