Search results

This article shows that business family and family business research is dominated by reductionist and biased concepts of culture that are in sharp contrast with recent advances in anthropology and the broader social sciences that would allow for more fine-grained analyses.

Through an inbound theorizing approach, state-of-the-art anthropological and sociological concepts of culture are introduced to family business research.

The resulting interdisciplinary update unveils that prevailing concepts of culture in family business research confuse cultures with countries or nations and neglect the processual constitution of culture.

The article advocates a research agenda emphasizing the social construction and reproduction of culture as well as the need to systematically draw on findings from anthropology and sociology so as to allow for better cross-cultural comparisons in the field of family business research.

Resilience of long-lived family businesses has been widely acknowledged but the mechanisms enabling longevity need to be further investigated. This can be done by examining how narratives about crisis situations are processed in family firms.

Based on narrative interviews, this qualitative study examines how crisis situations have been dealt with and narrated by long-lived German family firms.

Narratives of survival can have a strengthening effect so they become also narratives for survival. The analysis reveals how the constructive management of crises contributes to emotional attachment, identification and commitment and also strengthens resilience and longevity.

The study contributes to narrative identity theory by answering calls for narrative analysis and capturing the influence of narratives on family firms and business families. The discussion of the findings leads to the narrative processing model showing how past crises are processes to gain identity and resilience in the future and how the business family can influence this process.

This conceptual article aims to contribute to the design of a theory of family-influenced firms by a framework for the management of business-family dilemmas.

It combines systemic principles with the tetralemma, a tool from ancient Indian logic that families and businesses can use to manage and reframe dilemmas without dissolving the dilemmatic tensions or blurring their boundaries.

In applying the tetralemma, the article offers a range of suggestions, such as observing business and family as two discrete, yet codependent, social systems and envisioning conceptual and methodological imports from codependency research and therapy into family business research and practice.

The article proposes a framework for the selective and flexible navigation of family-business tensions without dissolving them or blurring their boundaries.

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

The resilience and longevity of family firms can be boosted through narrative accounts of their history. Stories detailing how they navigated past crises provide a platform for addressing present and future challenges through such as family cohesion, allegiance to family values, shared commitment, effective communication and the contributions made by key individuals.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.