Digitalization and entrepreneurial firms' resilience to pandemic crises: Evidence from COVID-19 and the German Mittelstand

While stressing the relevance of context, the organizational resilience literature has so far not extensively examined resilience in times of healthcare crises such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Parasite Stress Theory of Values suggests that such pandemic crises have detrimental impacts on entrepreneurial activity due to social distancing and its effects on interaction, collaboration, and innovation. However, alternatives to personal contact now available thanks to digitalization, have not yet been examined. We expect entrepreneurial firms with more digitalized business models to show higher resilience to pandemic crises, especially those highly affected by globalization and more for non-family businesses than for family businesses. Based on a survey of German Mittelstand firms in the midst of the crisis induced by COVID-19, our findings broadly support our expectations and thus help qualify the Parasite Stress Theory of Values and contribute to a better understanding of organizational resilience in times of pandemic crises.

Family ownership during the Covid-19 pandemic

A growing literature is devoted to understand how companies react to major external shocks. Contributing to this research, we study how the presence of families in corporate ownership and leadership affected the reaction of firms to the Covid-19 pandemic. Using data from Italy, we find that family firms exhibited higher market performance and operating profitability than other firms during the pandemic period. This result is stronger for companies without relevant minority investors and with multiple family shareholders. Delving into the mechanisms, we show that the outperformance of family firms is driven by a more efficient use of labor and a lower drop in revenues. Collectively, our results expand existing research by showing how family ties shape the response to adverse events.

Stewardship as process: A paradox perspective

Long-term stewardship is usually represented as a stable structural condition and portrayed as a source of competitive advantage to firms (including family businesses) that use it as a mode of governance. Less is known about how organizations engage with stewardship as a process. We embrace a process approach to report a case study about the unfolding of stewardship in a multi-business family group. We conclude that stewardship is a process marked by critical tensions and paradoxes; by exploring the nature of these we uncover further dimensions and responses to the paradoxes of stewardship.

Family business research: Reviewing the past, contemplating the future

This paper reviews articles published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues (JFEI) from 2010 to 2019 and considers future research opportunities. The JFEI articles utilize theories and conceptual frameworks from several social science fields, to help readers understand the importance of including both the family and business in any discussion of family businesses. The literature review addresses four family business topical areas: (1) household and business economics, (2) business continuity and succession, (3) managerial and adoption strategies, and (4) values and goals. These JFEI articles have focused on differentiating family businesses from other types of businesses; explaining the unique interface between the family and the business; and identifying the characteristics (i.e., demographics, adjustment strategies, continuity, capitals, and values and goals) for family business survival and success. In the future, family business researchers have the opportunity to better understand the impact of community resources and climate; more carefully assess the challenges of women, minorities, and immigrants; understand the role of cultural capital; and explore the impact of innovation during rapidly changing times, such as those created by the pandemic.

Price perception and price appearance on repurchase intention of Gen Y: do brand experience and brand preference mediate?

The study examines the effect of price perception and price appearance on Gen Y's repurchase intention towards snack products of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), along with the mediating roles of consumers' brand experience and preference. A survey method for data collection in the study used with a structured questionnaire, in which the respondents were requested to give their responses to the experiment conducted on local specialty snack products produced by SMEs. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was used to analyze the hypothesized relationships in the research model. The findings show that all the direct effects in the proposed model have a significant effect, except for the relationship between price perception and brand preference that there is no significant effect. Similarly, the mediating roles of consumer brand experience and consumer-based brand preference proved to have a significant effect. Finally, the implications of this study will be discussed further.

Board effects on innovation in family and non-family business

This paper contributes to the corporate governance and innovation literature by providing empirical evidence with respect to the influence of composition of the board and its leadership structure on innovation. Also, this study seeks to investigate if such influence differs when comparing family and non-family business. Data were collected from 86 Spanish companies of innovative sectors from 2003 to 2014. The results show that innovation is affected positively by board size, especially in the case of family businesses, and gender diversity, especially in non-family businesses. Similarly, findings also point out that duality is better than the independence of functions in the case of non-family businesses. Finally, obtained results support that independent directors have a negative impact on innovation and such negative influence is even stronger in family firms. These findings contribute to an inconclusive literature regarding board effects on innovation, highlighting different recommendations depending on whether the companies are family businesses or not.

Sustainable reverse logistics scorecards for the performance measurement of informal e-waste businesses

Many countries depend on businesses in reverse chains to tackle the environmental pollution caused by the tremendous amount of e-waste. Furthermore, due to the domination of informal businesses in many developing countries, environmental rules are not considered during operation, and these violations tend to affect public health adversely. The government in these developing countries finds it difficult to manage and utilize e-waste due to insufficient resources properly. The existing performance measures are only appropriate for implementation in developed countries with the inability to assess informal e-waste businesses in developing countries. Therefore, to address this gap, this research proposes sustainable reverse logistics scorecards (SRLS) to identify informal e-waste businesses' performance. Data were obtained through in-depth interviews with eleven experts, questionnaire survey with one hundred eighty-six informal e-waste businesses in Indonesia using the snowball sampling method and by measurement identification using the statistical descriptive analysis such as mean, geometric mean, mode, and sign-test median including experts' confirmation. The results showed that there are twenty-two parameters from six perspectives namely financial, stakeholders' value, internal business processes, innovation and growth, environment, and social. These parameters can be used as a performance measurement following government regulation and adjusting the motivation, strategy, capability, and activities of informal e-waste businesses. They are also useful for practical assessment and decision purposes, such as process safety and economic impact evaluation of businesses with the ability to create job opportunities, satisfy employees, and provide persuasive incentives. The balance between environment, welfare, and e-waste management is realized through SRLS. We suggested that other researchers use these parameters to assess the performance of informal e-waste throughout Indonesia and the government considered these parameters to assess them before deciding to collaborate for handling e-waste problems.

Role of institutions in shaping corporate governance system: evidence from emerging economy

Corporate governance (CG) is often split among rule and principle-based approaches to control in idiosyncratic institutional contexts. This split is often primed by the types of institutional conformations, their potencies, and the complementarities within them. Drawing on the theoretical foundation of institutional theory, this study theorizes CG practices and structures as institutionally resoluted and directed and explores the key institutional determinants of good CG practices in an emerging economy. Based on qualitative method, this study presents eight specific antecedents of good corporate governance practices in weak institutional settings (Pakistan). In particular, the study explores the extent to which certain underlying formal and informal institutional determinants, such as the auditing, political, legal, board, shareholders awareness, voting, culture and values play a determining role in corporate governance. This study advocates how each of these precursors must be implied, enunciated and hitched, on the basis of pertinent institutional peculiarities, in order to address contextual corporate governance challenges. This study contributes to the institutional theorizing of good corporate governance, by paying attention to the context, efficacy (instrumentality) and legitimacy (symbolic) in expounding the good corporate governance practices in an international business environment.

Optimizing the equity reassignment process: A novel application for family businesses

Purpose

This paper aims to support the equity reassignment process of large family business conglomerates, which can be complex due to both the nature and number of companies involved and specific owner requirements. Addressing these issues is especially important in the context of family businesses, since a successful reassignment might resolve and prevent family conflicts.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper presents a model that determines the optimal reassignment in terms of a specific owner's preferences. This model can also handle different types of requirements, including accounting for equity and intra-loan partition between owners and controlling for liquidity, capital structure, and transaction costs. The model also considers risk diversification for each member's fortune by considering the uncertainty involved in the future value of each firm, which can change at any point depending on industry and market conditions. The methodology not only finds the optimal solution in terms of a specific target, but it allows for post-optimal analysis so that owners can obtain important insights in terms of the costs involved in adding each requirement to the model.

Findings/Results

The model was successfully applied in a real case study. The tool played a primary role in identifying a new equity distribution for a family holding structure composed of 4 members and 26 companies. In the first step, the model derived an optimal solution in terms of the target chosen by the owners, but it did not fully satisfy all members. However, owners were able to come to a decision regarding final reassignment after doing a sensible post-optimal analysis.

Originality/value

Previous research has focused on analyzing the special characteristics of family-run businesses and how they differ with respect to non-family-run businesses in terms of performance, governance, and management, among other things. However, this paper is the first referring to the process of ownership reassignment and to use an optimization model in its methodology. It is also the first study that bridges the gaps between the disciplines of portfolio optimization, corporate finance, and family business.