The pursuit of socioemotional wealth and the management of the Hudson's Bay Company, 1809-1863

Although generally described as a publicly owned joint-stock company motivated to bring dividends for its investors, during one of the most important phases of its history (1809-1863), the Hudson's Bay Company operated as a family business. This paper outlines why the HBC should be considered a family business during these years, and the significance of this for understanding both the HBC and the nature of family business more broadly. Three related arguments are made throughout: that the four families controlling the HBC were motivated by what Gomez-Mejia et al. describe as socioemotional wealth (the social and emotional value family owners ascribe to their companies); that this fact shaped company governance structure, key policy decisions, how it hired employees, and how it managed succession; and, that these different families sometimes pulled the company in contradictory directions.