Journal of Family Business Strategy最新文献

Succession is often a critical event in the lifecycle of any organization. Consequently, an extensive body of literature explores family firm succession, and includes studies on integrated succession frameworks. Notwithstanding the large, illuminating body of literature, we believe that family firm succession is worth a fresh reexamination and consolidation to translate the findings into a powerful planning and communication tool, especially as all firms are facing a ‘new normal’ and their leaders are seeking novel perspectives and approaches amidst the COVID-19 disruption. We thus offer a systemic and systematic framework for family firm succession planning, incorporating ideas from the technology intelligence literature. Since relationship building can ease the succession process and relationships are built through communication, we also present a succession roadmap as a communication tool that can assist in making this process part of the regular business routines.

Job benefits can raise employee satisfaction and thus contribute to a firm’s overall success. However, little is known about how job benefits impact employee satisfaction across different forms of organizations. In this study, we argue that family and non-family firms differ in their social exchange systems and that the fit between the prevalent social exchange system and three types of job benefits (i.e., job benefits of care, status, and life quality) offered to employees influences the extent to which job benefits affect employee satisfaction. We build on a dataset of 2,180 German family and non-family firms gathered from an online employer review platform (Kununu) to test our hypotheses. Results show that job benefits of care lead to more employee satisfaction in family firms, while non-family firms profit more in terms of employee satisfaction from job benefits of life quality. Counterintuitively, we find that job benefits of status lead to higher employee satisfaction in family firms. We contribute to the knowledge on family firms as employers as well as job benefits and employee satisfaction.

Family businesses exhibit a strong commitment to address societal challenges and social ills with direct consequences for the neighborhoods, cities, and regions where the businesses are located. In this article, we link these community-minded activities to the idea of civic wealth creation (CWC), a term that captures the local flavor of many positive social change efforts being launched to improve and empower communities. Because of their high degree of community embeddedness (CE), that is, the extent to which an organization is associated with, relies on, and perceives a commitment to its community, we argue that family businesses are especially effective civic wealth creators. To illustrate, we present two examples of the CE–CWC relationship—Bush Brothers & Company in the U.S., and a cluster of Mittelstand companies in Attendorn, Germany. We discuss the practical implications of CE for family businesses and address several future research avenues for investigating CE and the CWC of family firms.

In the present study we argue that a more fine-grained perspective, taking into account different situations of family members’ involvement and the actual implementation of HRM practices and policies, is needed to provide an accurate picture of family firms as employers. Our study is carried out on a unique sample of 849 family firms in Italy and focuses on the conditions and consequences of adopting mutuality-promoting HRM practices in the family business context.

While evidence that contradicts a discipline’s hard core assumptions is essential to scientific progress, its accumulation is made difficult by the protective nature of the middle range theories that protect it. For this reason, progress tends to be most common in response to external shocks that expose the limitations of traditional ways of thinking. Given the impact COVID-19 has had on our collective understanding of business (family or otherwise), we propose that evidence against the hard core has reached the point where new thinking is necessary if we are to advance the field in productive ways. As the authors in this special issue demonstrate, such progress can be made by leveraging our intellectual roots in the social sciences. By looking to fields such as anthropology, sociology, jurisprudence, political science, and economics for inspiration, these authors use the current crisis as an opportunity to envision the future of family business scholarship.

Family firm research has made substantial progress in recent years, contributing, for instance, to knowledge on family firm succession, innovation, and performance. In this essay, it is proposed that some important – ‘grand’ – questions become increasingly salient and need to be answered by family business scholars. These include the following: How exclusive is socioemotional wealth (SEW) to family owners, and which elements (if any) could be transferred to other settings? What are the different ways that family members can create value for their family businesses in the 21^st century? What is the 21^st century ‘version’ of a family, and what roles do other individuals, such as close friends, play? Each of these questions is motivated based on practical observations and examples from prior studies and some initial thoughts and insights are provided, with the hope of encouraging fellow researchers to find answers to the questions.

The aspiration to thrive in the long run is among the most distinctive traits of family firms. On the one hand, a long-term view can spur the family firm to plan and secure its human resources (HR), thereby attracting local employees seeking stability, and retaining them for decades. On the other hand, low employee turnover can be a barrier to innovation, which is needed to survive and compete in the long run. Nevertheless, numerous family firms are renowned for being simultaneously excellent employers and outstanding innovators. Therefore, how can a long-term oriented family firm nurture its employees while pursuing innovation? We conducted a longitudinal case study on Carl Schlenk AG, a fourth-generation family firm consistently awarded for both its HR management (HRM) and innovation initiatives. Our investigation led us to identify distinct family firm characteristics of credibility, solidarity, and loyalty which engender a unique virtuous cycle of reciprocal reinforcement between sophisticated HRM and innovation practices, ultimately fostering mutual gains for the family firm and its employees. We offer contributions to HRM and innovation management research in the context of family firms and beyond.

The Covid pandemic has brought about major changes in the global business environment in which family firms operate. As a result, researchers studying these firms have a golden opportunity to leverage these changes as they study fundamental questions related to the changing roles of institutions, the social role of technology, the contribution and changing nature of ownership, and the social role of the firm. These changes also are likely to alter family firms’ culture and identity. Examining these issues will enrich our theory building while providing more evidence-based guidance on how to attain and sustain resilience as family firms pursue international entrepreneurship.

Human resources are paramount to family firms and to families in business because they are essential for achieving human flourishing and building family businesses that last for generations. Despite the increasing focus on HR in recent years, our understanding of the drivers, processes, and outcomes of family firm HR practices is still in its infancy. As a result, the development of useful theory has opportunity to grow. The aim of our Special Issue is to demonstrate the power of the mutual gains perspective to advance actionable insights around HR issues in family business scholarship and practice. Toward this aim, this Special Issue presents five research articles that have taken the mutual gains perspective to heart in their own ways, making significant contributions not only to the family business field but also to the HRM domain and beyond. Inspired by, but also going beyond the articles in this Special Issue, we develop concrete ideas and questions that flesh out new developments and possibilities on the horizon, using the following question as a leitmotiv: “How can family business research and practice help create healthy, flourishing family firms for flourishing people (family and nonfamily), taking into account the heterogeneity of family firms and families in business?”