Sources of Heterogeneity in Family Firms: An Introduction (original) (raw)
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Harvard Deusto Business Research, 2021
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Governance as a Source of Family Firm Heterogeneity
Journal of Business Research, 2018
Heterogeneity among family firms has become an important research topic. This special issue of Journal of Business Research contributes to the literature on family firm heterogeneity by specifically focusing on variations in governance. In this introductory article, we suggest that governance-particularly family involvement in firm ownership and management, and decisions concerning human resource practices-is a primary source of family firm heterogeneity. Dimensions of family firm governance are discussed, and four empirical studies are featured that focus on how governance influences the international entry, knowledge sharing, financial performance, and human capital of the family firm. We extend the contributions of these studies by exploring research opportunities related to heterogeneity in family firm goals, governance, and resources.
Family Firm Heterogeneity and Governance: A Configuration Approach
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Family involvement in ownership and management of business varies significantly within family firms. Although the literature recognizes the diversity in family firms, it remains unclear what governance mechanisms are most appropriate to achieve prioritized performance goals of different types of family firms. By combining two established categorizations of family involvement in firm ownership and management, nine types of family firms are identified. Drawing on the configuration approach, we theorize the governance mechanisms likely to most efficiently address the incentive systems, authority relations, and norms of legitimization in each of these types of family firms.
Toward a Typology of Family Firm Corporate Entrepreneurship
Journal of Small Business Management, 2017
Family involvement in business creates idiosyncrasies in firm behavior that promote long‐term, often transgenerational, strategic logics that ostensibly align with the motivations and outcomes of corporate entrepreneurship. Interestingly, extant research provides only minimal insight into the heterogeneous nature of corporate entrepreneurship orientations pursued by family firms. To better understand this heterogeneity, we bridge arguments within the family business literature to develop a typology of corporate entrepreneurship in family firms. Our findings provide a reconciliatory approach to this literary diversity and suggest that the varied corporate entrepreneurship orientations of family firms are impacted by the duality of a family's distinct intention to pursue transgenerational succession and the firm's unique capabilities to acquire external knowledge—calling into question the antecedents, modes, and outcomes underlying the strategic impetus of family firms to engage in corporate entrepreneurship.
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Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2008
An important distinction between family and nonfamily firms and among different types of family firms is the manner in which strategy is formulated and implemented. These differences in strategic behaviors can cause variations in firm performance. Understanding the nature of these differences and how the family form of organization drives them therefore contributes to the development of a strategic management theory of the family firm, a unifying theme of the series of special issues published in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice to date. This article briefly reflects on the progress made in understanding the strategic differences of family firms in this ongoing series and discusses the contributions of the articles and commentaries contained in this fifth special issue on theories of family enterprise.
Journal of Managerial Issues, 2017
Family firms are the most prevalent form of business organization in the world. This special issue of the Journal of Managerial Issues seeks to advance knowledge about the strategic and behavioral issues and processes aimed to accomplish the transgenerational economic and non-economic goals of these firms. Taking a strategic management perspective, this article starts with a brief overview of family business studies, summarizes the articles in this issue, and discusses future research opportunities to create usable knowledge on this ubiquitous organizational form.
Strategic Behavior in Family Firms
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Previous research emphasizes that the participation of the family in business operations is the source of resources and capabilities that conditions the strategic behavior of the family firm. This influence has been recognized as “familiness.” However, this definition is contextualized from static reasoning that ignores the effect of family dynamics on the behavior and value generation of the family-owned business. Prior literature has recognized that the family influence has a dynamic character based on the idiosyncratic process of knowledge management that manifests itself in the company, dynamic familiness. This family capability is shaped by family organizational routines through the family influence and aims to increase its knowledge portfolios for the strategic use of its resources. This chapter addresses the relationship between family influence and the process of learning and knowledge management. The analysis of this relationship allows assessing how family influence can pr...
Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2024
This study empirically investigates the relationship between family governance and innovativeness in family firms, along with the moderating effects of a family's commitment to the firm and whether members of the founding generation are still involved in firm activities. Recent work has highlighted the lack of research into the different effects of generation involvement (i.e., that of founding or succeeding generations) on family firm outcomes. Drawing from agency theory, our focus on how governance influences firm innovativeness in relation to family commitment and generation involvement aims to fill this research gap related to family firm heterogeneity. Employing a sample of 332 family firms across multiple countries and industries, we use moderated regression analysis to find that family commitment and founding family generation involvement strengthen the relationship between family governance and firm innovativeness. Additionally, when family members from the founding generation are no longer involved, firms with a strong family commitment enhance the relationship between family governance and firm innovativeness more than firms with weaker family commitment. Our findings contribute to agency theory by providing boundary conditions within a family firm context, including the extent of family commitment and if the founding generation is still involved in the family business with these moderators influencing the family governance to firm innovativeness relationship.