Journal of Family Business Strategy最新文献

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?”

We examine the behavior of family firms during the COVID-19 pandemic through the lens of Miller and Le Breton-Miller’s (2005) “4C model” of continuity, community, connection, and command. We show how some family firms embracing temporally and socially extended priorities have excelled along these Cs and conducted themselves as exemplary citizens during the COVID crisis. By contrast some family firms with more restricted priorities have behaved in ethically disreputable ways. We discuss the contingencies that affect these forms of behavior and suggest why family firms may be subject to both positive and negative ethical extremes.

We juxtapose the executive recruitment decisions of family and non-family firms. We hypothesize that hiring preferences toward executive candidates differ between family and non-family firms. We test our predictions against field data from executive recruitment processes involving family and non-family firms. Drawn from an executive hiring company, the sample includes 166 candidates in 56 selection processes on behalf of 42 client companies (28 family firms). Our results indicate that family firms prefer to hire managers with strong functional competence and leadership skills, whereas non-family firms prefer to employ managers with more pronounced market knowledge. Despite these differences, both types of firms are drawn to performance-oriented candidates, i.e., individuals with a strong focus on client and result orientation. For researchers and practitioners alike, our study demonstrates the importance of understanding the distinct hiring requirements of family firms when they professionalize.

Employee downsizing is a crucial choice that transcends the firm’s boundaries and has profound social implications. While the topic has been on researchers’ agenda for a long time, literature is still looking for a finer understanding of downsizing in family firms, which are the majority of employers worldwide. Using the Socio-Emotional Wealth perspective, this study explores the contingency effect of sales internationalization strategy on the relationship between family firm status and employee downsizing. Based on a large sample of private Spanish firms, our results reveal that the negative effect of family firm status on downsizing is mitigated at higher levels of export intensity, global focus and when export is done directly.

This study aims to identify the key success factors of the two dominant types of family firm diversification strategies: product and international diversification. Drawing on the extant family business literature, we study how factors at the firm level—performance vulnerability, generational stage, and management professionalization—combine to determine the choice and, more importantly, the success of the family firm’s diversification strategy. Our empirical study is conducted on a new proprietary dataset collected for 102 unrelated product and international diversification decisions of large, closely held German family firms. While both theory and practice often regard product and international diversification strategies as two means to the same end (such as growth, risk diversification, firm survival, and family employment opportunities), we find that they are anything but perfect substitutes. In fact, the results of the fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis highlight that the conditions leading to successful product diversification differ significantly from those for successful international diversification, particularly with regard to the family’s involvement in the management of the firm. Based on our results, we derive practical recommendations for family business owners considering product and/or international diversification strategies.

Many young entrepreneurship and family business scholars reside in management departments. However, too often these departments do not recognize publications on entrepreneurship and family business as equivalent to publications in management journals. Such arguments around journal quality are more than simply esoteric debates. Indeed, the acknowledgement of entrepreneurship/family business journal quality is critical since young scholars’ progress to tenure and promotion around the world hinges on publications in high quality journals. However, since scholars in business are evidence-based we argue that academics’ views can be shifted. Therefore, we initially present evidence on three facts about the entrepreneurship journals whose domains partially include family business. We should shift the view of management scholars on these journals’ quality. We then discuss the implications of these arguments for the dedicated family business journals and how they also can enter the top tier of academic publications.