Long Range Planning最新文献

By integrating literature on behavioral agency theory and fear as an emotional lens, we develop a theoretical framework explaining how family owners' fear of losing specific dimensions of socio-emotional endowments influence family firm innovativeness. Our analysis of data from a two-phased, multi-respondent, matched survey (n = 407) at two different time points from family SMEs (n = 207) in manufacturing industries in Chongqing, China, shows that socio-emotional preferences, and the fear attached to losing specific endowments, activate or constrain innovativeness. Family owners' fear of losing family control and influence increases firm innovativeness, as do family owners' fear of losing guanxi (social bonds). However, family owners' fear of losing identification with the business among family members decreases firm innovativeness, as do family owners' fear of being unable to renew family bonds. By deepening current understanding of fear and the perceived danger of losing socio-emotional wealth as determinants of firm innovativeness, our findings offer important implications for theory and practice, correcting for the inattention to sentiments and emotional preferences family owners may or may not have towards specific socio-emotional dimensions in their strategic choices.

Many family firms deploy strategies and practices to satisfy the needs of family employees. When non-family employees perceive a relational disadvantage compared to family employees, they may lower their evaluation of organizational identity (OI) and, in turn, identify less strongly with the family firm. Because family firms can ill afford to have non-family employees who lack a strong emotional connection with and commitment to the family firm, we explore approaches to foster non-family employees' evaluations of OI. Drawing on organizational identity theory, we find support for three approaches: (1) shifting non-family employees' evaluation of OI by enacting a proactive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy, (2) compensating non-family employees for a perceived relational disadvantage by involving them in CSR decision-making, and (3) leveraging non-family employees' context, by drawing on those who share the values of the controlling family. Our theory and results suggest that family firms can deploy different approaches to manage the emotional connection with their non-family employees, which can help explain the observed variation in non-family employees’ organizational identification across family firms.

In this study, we take an interest in how family business members create their emotion rules and emotion boundaries in and between the two spheres of business and family and how they manage these. We show that this management of emotion boundaries affects the quality of strategic decisions. We conclude that family members create emotion rules and emotion boundaries based on the meanings and understandings of time, space, and/or the relationships that are embedded within the family business emotion-framing rules. Depending on their concern for their own interests and goals, family goals and/or family business goals, they engage in emotional displays that lead to emotional balance, dissonance, or stamina. We reveal how emotional displays affect the decision outcome quality. We therefore contribute to the literature on the role of emotion boundary management in strategic management by evaluating a specific context where the spheres of family and business overlap with more complexity than in a typical case.

The last decades have seen increasing interest in the determinants of heterogeneity in family firm innovation. In this study, we respond to recent calls to address the micro-level mechanisms behind innovation in family firms. Specifically, we analyze the effect of family CEO affect, namely positive and negative affective traits, on the R&D investment decisions of family firms. We also analyze the moderating effect of family ownership structure on the influence of CEO affect on these strategic decisions. Consistent with affect maintenance arguments, our findings of a sample of 142 Spanish family firms show that positive family CEO affect negatively influences the R&D investments of family firms, while negative affect positively influences these investments. The results also show that family CEO ownership and family CEO branch ownership strengthen the effects of family CEO affect on R&D investments, whereas ownership concentration in other family branches weakens these effects.

Utilizing a qualitative research design based on 53 interviews with 19 Swiss family businesses, supplemented by 14 expert interviews, this study demonstrates that different family firm-specific elements of the process of selecting top management team (TMT) members alter affect infusion in family firms. These are the informal selection context, the involvement of informal advisors, and relationship-related evaluation criteria. The study moreover shows that the context-specific attitude (openness, defensiveness, readiness to delegate) of the family business decision-maker regulates affect infusion. Lastly, the study demonstrates that sabotage in the selection process can occur in high-affect infusion scenarios. Contributions and implications for future research are discussed.

Emotions play a crucial role in the strategic management of family business organizations (FBOs). Yet, they are commonly treated as a black box, and we have a limited understanding of their antecedents, and the processes and mechanisms through which they develop and unfold in FBOs, ultimately leading to strategic outcomes. This paper opens the black box and develops a framework for studying emotions in the strategic management of FBOs. In addition, it discusses how contemporary research contributes to moving the state of the field forward and proposes an agenda for future research by delineating some critical challenges and research directions.

Why does a family sell and why does a family member repurchase the business after it has been sold? We explore these questions by analysing the case of Champagne Taittinger which was sold as part of the sale of the family business by the second-generation in 2005, and the repurchase of the business by third generation, Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger, in 2006. Guided by affective events theory, we use a qualitative approach to identify “turning points” of attachment and conflict and illustrate how an interplay of these affective states at the microfoundations of the Taittinger family influences the macro-level events of the sale and repurchase of Champagne Taittinger. We contribute to understanding how affective events at the microfoundations of family crucially influence business strategy.

In the family business system, the family and business subsystems overlap, thereby reciprocally and dynamically influencing each other. When a son- or daughter-in-law enters the family, the equilibrium of the family business system alters in terms of conflicts and emotions. In this study, we embrace family systems theory to conceptually devise how child-in-law entry in the family spurs strategic change in the business subsystem. Building on this speculation, we introduce a multi-level framework of the emotional and relational mechanisms that unfold at the family-business interface. Our study offers insights to family business research, family systems theory, and strategic management, as well as outlining promising directions for future research.

Digitalization allows new entrants to enter and transform industries with new technologies or business models. Often, these new entrants introduce digital platforms that modify prevalent value creation and capture mechanisms to allow them to take on powerful keystone positions. While prior research has mostly analysed the organizational consequences for firms, we follow a growing field of interest studying the effects of digital platforms on business ecosystems and explore when and how platformization of a business ecosystem occurs. Our study of the platformization of the Dutch music industry from the 1990s to 2016 makes two contributions. First, we identify two mechanisms that drive the platformization of business ecosystems: digital transaction platforms reconfigure value capture as well as value creation, and translators – a new actor-type proficient in digital technologies – emerge that help incumbent keystone actors translate physical products into digital offerings. Second, we theorize this process as business ecosystem envelopment; a viable strategy for digital transaction platforms to absorb a traditional business ecosystem's focal offering without taking over its functionality.

Strategic initiatives are temporary group undertakings designed to renew organizational capabilities and are crucial to organizational performance. Despite the inherent goal heterogeneity stemming from individual, departmental, organizational, and initiative levels, research conceptualizes goals as unitary within the team. Our objective is to explore ways to manage goal heterogeneity for the successful development of strategic initiatives within the intraorganizational context. We argue that organizational controls and decision comprehensiveness can be effective in mitigating the negative effects of heterogeneity. This will help facilitate a group of individuals in behaving as a team and being committed to the agreed-upon task at hand. We also articulate the positive role of strategic consensus in moving initiatives in the resource allocation process. Our theory building provides a roadmap for managing strategic initiatives in the resource allocation process and contributes to research on strategic initiatives and goals and, more broadly, to behavioral theory.