Entrepreneurial families in business across generations, contexts and cultures

Entrepreneurship in family firms: an updated bibliometric overview

Research on entrepreneurship in family firms has grown exponentially over the past two decades. Due to the various theoretical perspectives and contexts found here however, this body of research remains fragmented, with a unified understanding of the current state of knowledge and the opportunities for future research in the field continuing to lack. In this study, we address this gap by conducting an updated bibliometric analysis of the research on entrepreneurship in family firms. Here we integrate two different bibliometric methods to provide a more comprehensive picture of the field, unveiling its intellectual foundations and current research discourses and how these two are related. To do this, we first conduct a co-citation analysis clustering the intellectual foundations of the research on entrepreneurship in family firms. Second, a bibliographic coupling of recent publications from 2010 to 2021 provides a transparent structure of current research discourses. Third, analyzing which intellectual foundations are primarily cited in each current research stream unveils the dominant theoretical paradigms in the current state of research. Analyzing 570 published studies, we identified four intellectual foundations of entrepreneurship in family firms: socioemotional wealth (SEW), entrepreneurial orientation, family-embedded resources, and agency theory. The current research can be clustered into seven main discourses: entrepreneurial motivation, gender and success, entrepreneurial orientation, individual and firm-level characteristics, the family embedded network, family firm internationalization, and family heterogeneity. An integrative network diagram provides an overview of the research field’s development while also identifying the gaps to be addressed by future research.

Family social capital as a driver to leverage challenged transgenerational entrepreneurship

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to unveil the key role of family social capital (FSC) as a driver for transgenerational entrepreneurship (TE) in the specific contexts of challenged successor-driven entrepreneurship.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper adopts a multi-case study methodology. Guided by three theoretical propositions, three TE case studies are analyzed. Drawing on ten in-depth interviews with at least three different informants from each intra-family succession case study, evidence about this particularly complex phenomenon was obtained.

Findings

The paper highlights the effect of FSC as the key familiness driver to leverage challenged successor-driven entrepreneurship. The paper underscores the systemic and dynamic network of multiple exchanges required to construct successor’s own pool of knowledge resources and to support familiness and thus the competitive advantage of the family firm (FF).

Practical implications

Different scenarios are illustrated, and specific lessons are provided for successors and families that face TE opposition in intra-family succession, regarding the restoration of damaged FSC and involving non-family stakeholders in the successor-driven entrepreneurship. In these cases, opposition to successor-driven entrepreneurship may help to develop successor’s leadership abilities.

Originality/value

Focusing on a specific intra-family succession context where successor-driven entrepreneurial initiatives face stakeholder opposition, the paper highlights the specific role played by FSC in the successor knowledge construction in specific contexts of challenged intra-family succession.

Family members as hybrid owner-managers in family-owned newspaper companies: handling multiple institutional logics

Purpose

This article aims to increase the understanding of the role of individual actors and arenas in dealing with multiple institutional logics in family firms.

Design/methodology/approach

This study follows a case-study approach of two family-owned newspaper companies. Based on interviews and secondary sources, the empirical material was analysed focussing on three institutional logics, that is, family logic, management logic and journalistic logic.

Findings

First, the authors show how and in which arenas competing logics are balanced in family-owned newspaper companies. Second, the authors highlight that family owners are central actors in the process of balancing different institutional logics. Further, they analyse how family members can become hybrid owner-managers, meaning that they have access to all institutional logics and become central actors in the balancing process.

Originality/value

The authors reveal how multiple institutional logics are balanced in family firms by including formal actors and arenas as additional lenses. Therefore, owning family members, especially hybrid owner-managers, are the best-suited individual actors to balance competing logics. Hybrid owner-managers are members of the owner families who are also skilled in one or several professions.

Succession in Family Business: An Analysis through the Concept of Conatus

RESUMO Objetivo: objetiva-se, com este artigo, introduzir algumas contribuições do conceito de conatus para a pesquisa sobre sucessão em empresas familiares. Métodos: a sucessão tem sido uma das temáticas mais discutidas no campo de estudos sobre empresas familiares. O presente trabalho, de natureza teórica, procura agregar contribuições a essa literatura, compreendendo a dinâmica da sucessão através da exploração do quadro teórico-conceitual desenvolvido por Bourdieu. Resultados: o conatus pode ser interpretado como um projeto cultivado pela família e que deve ser perpetuado para e pelas futuras gerações. Assim, a compreensão da sucessão a partir deste conceito permite, dentre outras possibilidades, apreender as particularidades da transmissão do projeto construído pelo fundador para as gerações sucessoras da família, que seriam os responsáveis por perpetuar ou não o conatus. Conclusão: o conceito de conatus, posicionado no âmbito do quadro teórico-analítico mais amplo trabalhado por Bourdieu, oferece alternativas para a compreensão e a explicação da sucessão em empresas familiares de uma forma mais consistente e aproximada da realidade observada nesses processos, fornecendo fundamentos que podem contribuir para a elucidação de perspectivas ainda pouco exploradas na literatura sobre esse tipo de organização.

Sucessão em Empresas Familiares: Um Olhar a partir do Conceito de Conatus

RESUMO Objetivo: objetiva-se, com este artigo, introduzir algumas contribuições do conceito de conatus para a pesquisa sobre sucessão em empresas familiares. Métodos: a sucessão tem sido uma das temáticas mais discutidas no campo de estudos sobre empresas familiares. O presente trabalho, de natureza teórica, procura agregar contribuições a essa literatura, compreendendo a dinâmica da sucessão através da exploração do quadro teórico-conceitual desenvolvido por Bourdieu. Resultados: o conatus pode ser interpretado como um projeto cultivado pela família e que deve ser perpetuado para e pelas futuras gerações. Assim, a compreensão da sucessão a partir deste conceito permite, dentre outras possibilidades, apreender as particularidades da transmissão do projeto construído pelo fundador para as gerações sucessoras da família, que seriam os responsáveis por perpetuar ou não o conatus. Conclusão: o conceito de conatus, posicionado no âmbito do quadro teórico-analítico mais amplo trabalhado por Bourdieu, oferece alternativas para a compreensão e a explicação da sucessão em empresas familiares de uma forma mais consistente e aproximada da realidade observada nesses processos, fornecendo fundamentos que podem contribuir para a elucidação de perspectivas ainda pouco exploradas na literatura sobre esse tipo de organização.

Family-managed firms and employment growth during an economic downturn: does their location matter?

Purpose

This study investigates the relationship between family-managed firms and firm employment growth by considering the effects of location and economic crisis as moderating variables.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses random-effect models on a large panel dataset of Spanish manufacturing firms covering 2003 to 2015 to estimate the joint effects of municipality size and economic crisis on firm employment growth.

Findings

The analysis reveals a positive association between family-managed firms and employment growth. However, this association is not uniform across space and time. When it considers location, the study finds that municipality size positively affects employment growth in family-managed firms but not in non-family firms. Additionally, while the study reveals that both firm types experience negative employment growth during the early stage of the global economic crisis (2007–08), it also finds that family-managed firms located in small municipalities downsize less than their non-family counterparts.

Originality/value

This study provides new evidence on the resilience of family-managed firms during economic crises, particularly those located in geographically bounded settings, such as small municipalities. When an adverse event, such as an economic crisis, jeopardizes employment levels, the embedded and trust-based relationships, between a family firm and its community leads them to prioritize employees' claims. However, family-managed firms' commitment to preserve jobs in small municipalities cannot be maintained over the long term; this effect disappears if the economic crisis is protracted. This study sheds new light on family-managed firms' distinctive behavior toward with local communities.