Journal of Family Business Strategy最新文献

The paradoxical nature of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) provides unique opportunities to advance management theory. Focusing on a dominant theoretical framework, Socioemotional Wealth (SEW), we argue that contextual features of LAC, namely the concept of extended family and the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environment, make family businesses “SEW intensive” (i.e., high degree of preservation and enhancement of various aspects of SEW) and “SEW sensitive” (i.e., high degree of firm responsiveness to external factors that are SEW-relevant). In turn, these SEW features influence decision making and approaches to dealing with performance hazards and venturing risks. While we use LAC as a specific context, our theorizing and 12 propositions are also relevant to guide future research on other regions of the world, such as parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, where the concept of extended family is widespread and a VUCA environment is also predominant. Overall, we use the characteristics of the LAC context to challenge existing assumptions, advance theory, and guide future empirical research on family businesses.

When it comes to organizational conflict in (small) family businesses, managers’ personality has received little attention. We investigated the relationship between managers’ personality traits (Big Five) and their perceptions of task conflict and relationship conflict in two types of firms (family vs. non-family business). We collected data from 103 managers in small firms (56 family firms and 47 non-family firms) in Ecuador. Our findings show that family firms have less relationship conflict compared to non-family firms. Managers’ personality seems to play a key role in perceiving conflicts. Particularly, managers’ openness and extraversion are related to less perceived conflict. Introverted managers in non-family businesses perceive more relationship conflict than those in family businesses. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Single family offices (SFOs) manage trillions of dollars worldwide. The enormous value of assets under management highlights their key role as a cohesive wealth management tool globally. Despite the increasing relevance of SFOs, research on SFOs is still in its early stages. Particularly little is known about the capital structure of the firms owned by SFOs. By drawing on a hand-collected sample of 173 SFO-owned firms in the DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland) region, we compare the capital structure of SFO-owned firms with the capital structure of family-owned firms. Our empirical results show that SFO-owned firms display a higher long-term debt ratio than family-owned firms, indicating that SFO-owned firms follow trade-off theory, similar to private equity-owned firms. Additionally, we show that this effect is stronger for SFOs that sold their original family firm. In contrast, family-owned firms tend to be more conservative in their financial decision-making and seem to follow the logic of the pecking order theory.

Research on emotions is gaining momentum in the family business literature. However, the literature remains unclear on the psychological foundations of how managing one’s emotions can contribute to socioemotional wealth goals in a family business. We contribute to the study on emotions in the family business literature by linking the ‘Socioemotional Wealth’ (hereafter ‘SEW’) perspective with the ‘Emotional Labor’ concept to elaborate on the microfoundations of SEW. Following an interpretive qualitative methodology, abductive data analysis was conducted using thematic analysis techniques with over fifteen hours of interview material collected from family business owners/members. Results indicated that family members’ perception of SEW objectives and their emotional labor are linked and that this relationship has utility in the preservation of SEW. We also found that, when exercised inappropriately, latitude in emotional displays, also known as ‘display latitude’, could potentially deplete SEW. Our findings extend the family business literature on emotion management and contribute to our understanding of the emotions-related mechanisms associated with SEW preservation and depletion in family firms. Our results have practical implications for family businesses regarding the need for family members to strike a balance between emotional labor and display latitude for the sake of preserving SEW.

Qualitative research can offer meaningful insights into the complexities of family businesses and inspire and inform theory development in family business as well as other fields. Unlike in quantitative approaches, there are no general standards for conducting and reporting qualitative research. In lieu of such standards, following templates in previously published papers has become a popular means of establishing a certain level of standardization in qualitative research. However, recent discussions about the detriments of mindless template use have highlighted the dangers of inappropriate standardization for research quality of qualitative research. This article raises awareness of the challenges and inherent risks of template prescriptions in qualitative family business research and proposes alternative avenues going forward. Scholars, as well as journal editors and reviewers, may take inspiration and orientation from these alternatives to harness the diversity and core strengths of qualitative family business research without enforcing generalized standards.

The study purpose is to understand the nature and functioning of workplace identity verification of nonfamily employees in family firms as it affects financial and innovation performance of the family firm under the umbrella of Place Identity Theory. Creating a productive employee workplace environment involves verifying elements of a workplace identity meaning set composed of firm identification, firm loyalty, and decision making participation. QCA provides combinations of those workplace identity elements that create the greatest potential for financial and innovation performance. Interactional combinations of firm identification, firm loyalty, and decision making participation of family firm nonfamily employees creating the greatest potential for financial and innovation performance vary by firm age and CEO duality. Complementarity between SEM and QCA demonstrates the benefits of using a mainstream quantitative analysis method with the benefits of an emerging qualitative analysis method, thus, expanding Place Identity Theory's descriptive, predictive, and explanatory power.

This special issue contributes to the literature on entrepreneurship in family firms by leveraging the family embeddedness perspective. In doing so, the papers of the special issue bridge entrepreneurship at firm level with analyses at the individual and the enterprising family levels. Starting from and extending such contributions, in this introductory article we offer a “multilevel” embeddedness perspective on entrepreneurship in family firms. We do so first by considering that, in family firms, each individual's cognition ultimately depends on whether they belong to the enterprising family, and whether and how they are active in the family business. Second, we advance that individual entrepreneurial orientation is a key cognitive factor resulting from the multilevel embeddedness and bridging it with entrepreneurship at firm level. We derive theoretical implications for entrepreneurship in family business and highlight avenues for future research.

This study sheds light on the intrapreneurial motivation of non-family employees in family firms. Although family involvement is known to enhance workforce motivation to contribute innovative ideas toward the firm’s improvement, what motivates non-family employees in family firms and the role the enterprising family plays therein remain underexplored. Therefore, we conduct a multiple case study using a dyadic sample of interviews with owner-managers and non-family employees in nine German family firms. The cross-case analysis shows that in firms with strong enterprising family influence, the identification of non-family employees is heightened, intrinsically motivating them to become intrapreneurially active. Our findings also reveal that in family firms with reduced enterprising family influence, this intrinsic motivation decreases. Furthermore, we observe the establishment of certain business mechanisms in these firms aimed at fostering the extrinsic motivation of non-family employees.

Studies analyzing the entrepreneurial orientation of family businesses compared to their nonfamily counterparts have contributed to spreading the myth that family firms are less entrepreneurially oriented. However, the distinctive aspects characterizing the entrepreneurial orientation of family firms have received less scholarly attention. Aiming to advance this literature stream, this study postulates that family businesses are neither more nor less entrepreneurially oriented than nonfamily firms but express their entrepreneurial orientation differently, even when manifesting a similar level of entrepreneurial orientation. Building on entrepreneurial orientation studies and adopting a family embeddedness perspective, our multi-case study of 10 small artisan family firms with a high entrepreneurial orientation shows that family firms express their entrepreneurial orientation according to a set of interplaying firm- and family-level factors. The relationship among these factors leads to three different entrepreneurial orientation configurations: generational clash, family mirroring, and evolutionary adaptation. Our study of these configurations and the underlying nuances provide novel contributions to the literature and several implications for practice.

A variety of work has explored the firm level influences impacting innovativeness in family firms, yet little emphasis has been placed on the effect of the business family on family firm innovativeness. Drawing on the resource-based view and family commitment literatures, this analysis answers recent calls to consider the simultaneous influence the family system and the business system have on entrepreneurial activities. Using primary data, we study 275 family firms from multiple countries, to enhance our understanding of the fundamentals of family firm entrepreneurship. Specifically, we examine how family commitment influences family firm resource stocks (i.e., human, social, and financial), which consequently impact the entrepreneurial family firm outcome, innovativeness. Our findings suggest that some resource stocks (i.e., human and social capitals) mediate this relationship, whereas another resource stock (i.e., financial capital) does not. Our analysis demonstrates the differential impact of the disparate forms of capital on family firms’ innovativeness.