Journal of Family Business Strategy最新文献

Corruption is an important social and economic problem globally, and family firms are an important source of such corruption that we know too little about. By leveraging insights from the literature on family priorities, governance, and institutional environments, we develop a multi-level model highlighting why some family firms are prone to exhibit corruption in specific contexts. We focus on businesses where close connections between firm and family cause the priorities of the one to affect the other. There, family loyalties, conflicts, ethics, and social aspirations can enhance the willingness to engage in corrupt behavior. Private ownership and secrecy facilitate that behavior, as do tempting contexts with few institutional constraints. We provide examples and propositions for further research.

Attracting business college graduates is a major challenge for the growth and transgenerational success of family firms. Moreover, the institutional context of countries is critical in explaining family firms’ potential advantages and/or disadvantages in attracting nonfamily talent. This study aims to elucidate how communicating firm ownership (family vs. nonfamily), firm size (large vs. small), and type of job offered (professional vs. nonprofessional) influences the perceptions and attitudes of Latin American business graduates toward working in such firms. In an experimental study that uses job advertisement stimuli, we found that communicating family ownership positively influences career development’s perceptions of firm prestige. Large (vs. small) firm size also has a positive influence on job seekers’ perceptions of firms. Importantly, both firm prestige and career development positively influence the attraction of working in family firms. In this paper, we discuss the differences in the results among countries and professional vs. nonprofessional job positions advertised. The results have several implications for family firm owners and managers.

Organizational ambidexterity —the ability to simultaneously engage in exploration and exploitation— is an important characteristic of firms that are interested in pursuing continuity. One of the prevalent goals of family firms is continuity. Thus, there is great interest in understanding ambidexterity and the factors that promote this behavior within family firms. Although there is some research that has explored this topic, there is a limited understanding regarding which family factors drive ambidexterity, how they influence it, and the role of the context in this process. We conducted a study with 21 Latin American family firms to better understand the family factors that play a role in the strategic orientation towards ambidexterity of family firms and the conditions under which these family factors matter. Our findings indicate that family maturity and family social responsibility are two family factors that drive the ambidextrous orientation of family firms when they help the family business develop dynamic capabilities. Additionally, the institutional context also influences how business families implement and use these capabilities to enhance their ambidextrous orientations. We discuss the implications of our findings for theory and future research.

This paper examines the role of women in family business. Prior studies suggest that in Latin America the contribution of women in family business remains largely hidden, often relegated to a supportive role. Drawing on an entrepreneurial stewardship perspective, this study challenges that perception, paying close attention to the contribution of women to family business continuity. This study relies on a multiple case study design, and uses a critical approach to examine family businesses in rural areas of Honduras. We find that gendered norms are fluid, as women’s roles are multi-faceted being simultaneously influenced by household and family business logics. Thus, the contribution of women emerges specifically in terms of embracing a stewarding role, nurturing resilience, and shaping family and business networks. What our findings point to is that the contribution of women to the continuity of family businesses in Latin America, previously perceived as invisible and/or disguised, is enacted through a formal and visible managerial role, as well as an informal and discreet stewarding role. Implications for theory and practice, as well as opportunities for future research, are offered.

This editorial introduces the special issue on “Family Business in Latin America”. We argue that the cultural context plays an important role as a source of heterogeneity of family firms. Thus, in this introductory piece, we describe the Latin American cultural context and explain how and why it creates a unique environment that requires family firms to behave differently. We build on past research as well as on the four articles published in this special issue. The goal is to stimulate further research on Latin American family firms, what makes them unique, and what we can learn from this context that may be useful in other cultural environments.

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.