LONDON, England (CNN) -- Families have certain dynamics -- complex, fluid and emotional -- while businesses have very different ones. So what happens when the two combine?

One sort of family business: James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano.

Countless thousands of successful businesses around the globe are family run. But at the same time, a high percentage of them fail to reach a second, let alone a third, generation.

Every family faces "challenges and issues" over communication and other areas, notes Randel Carlock, a leadership professor at leading France/Singapore-based business school Insead, and co-author of the book, "Family Business on the Couch: A Psychological Perspective."

"Families struggle because being part of a family is very difficult and in a family business it's twice as difficult because of the often conflicting overlap between your family system based on love and your work system based on performance," he says.

The book, co-written with fellow Insead professor Manfred Kets de Vries, adds what the authors call a "psychodynamic" perspective to the issue.

The book isn't about issues or answers as such, but approaches this topic from a new perspective of considering the underlying family psychology," Carlock says.

Using a series of case studies about family businesses, both successful and chaotic, the authors look at a series of issues including how family ties work in a business context and ways to manage generational conflicts and transitions.

"What we observe in family businesses is that the transition from the entrepreneur to the second generation, and then from the second generation to the third generation are critical," notes Carlock.

"If you can make those two transitions, then you've got processes in place and you've got experience but until you've done it, it's very, very difficult."