The purpose of this article is to identify different decoupling mechanisms and to conceptualize on how decoupling and possibly recoupling processes evolve over time. Drawing on case studies of eight firms from Germany and Sweden, the study presents different coupling mechanisms resulting in four configurations of coupling based on family control and involvement. the present study contributes to explaining how and why the configurations of coupling mechanisms change over time, as well as how and why control-based coupling mechanisms tend to dominate over those based on visibility. Furthermore, we formulate four propositions based on the configurations.