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The purpose of this paper is to explore how family firms in general, and founder- and descendant-led firms in particular, espouse long-term oriented goals of continuity, perseverance and futurity in their narratives.

Primary data from 11 founder-led and 13 descendant-led family firms from Austria was collected in a narrative setting for a better understanding of their long-term orientation. Content analysis via the help of atlas.ti was employed.

Findings suggest that family firms anchor decision-making with a constant awareness of their past, incorporate anticipation in decision-making and exhibit patience for investment. However, even though family firms jointly emphasize a long-term orientation, they approach it differently. Founder-led family firms put the founder and its family central to business decisions, emphasize idea development and admit their own mulishness. Descendant-led family firms attempt to maintain the business over generations, believe in the importance to develop new projects and target a sturdy development of the firm.

Family firms often have been accorded a certain long-term strategic orientation. However, what is missing from prior research is a more nuanced understanding of the LTO construct, as well as the heterogeneity of family firms in this regard. The findings contribute to extant research by showing how LTO is expressed in family firm narratives, providing a better understanding of the LTO construct, an omnipresent characteristic frequently used in family firm literature.

This study aims to map the development of research on family business in tourism and hospitality and provides insights into the key contributors, key areas and current dynamics, and suggests future research directions in the field.

This study uses the Web of Science (WoS) database to identify the 124 articles published in the theme. The study uses bibliometric indicators such as the co-citation network, word co-occurrence network to analyze the publication and citation structure using Science of Science (Sci2), OpenRefine, and Gephi.

The top authors, top journals and major themes are recognized using bibliometric techniques. The study identifies six keyword clusters: entrepreneurship, innovation, and empirical collaborating with tourism, hospitality, and family business. The country-wise collaboration indicates the lack of research in the eastern hemisphere of the world. The co-authorship shows studies shared among individuals of a few organizations. The trends from bibliographic coupling depict the evolution of research.

The scope of data collection for the network analysis is limited to the WoS. Incorporating papers from other databases might provide different network structures and insights.

The study is the first of its kind in the theme of family businesses in tourism and hospitality and will contribute to the literature by identifying future research directions.