Many family businesses do not last for long especially after the death of the initiators. This affects the economies of most nations especially as many people are left jobless. This work seeks to identify and analyze the factors that are responsible for the collapse of these businesses and to suggest some proposals that may help to remedy the situation. The findings in this work identify some of these critical factors such as : The lack of the notion of sustainability in the mind of the initiator, the lack of the interests of the children of the initiators in their businesses,family conflicts, poor succession planning, poor tax system and corruption, resistance of owners of these businesses for partnership, discrimination among workers which lead to the selection of unqualified managers because they are family members, lack of further training of employees to meet up with the rapid technological changes in the global world.