Maria José Parada

Institutionalizing the Family Business: The Role of Professional Associations in Fostering a Change of Values

The authors examine the role played by a voluntary professional association as a carrier of mimetic and normative institutional pressures in the institutionalization of new governance practices among family businesses. They observe how a change in guiding values within family businesses is led by an institutional champion actively involved in the professional association. This institutional champion bridges the gap between micro-level change at the firm level and the professional association’s macro-level discourse. This study makes several contributions to both family business research and institutional theory.

Narratives: a powerful device for values transmission in family businesses

Purpose – This paper seeks to shed light on how core values are successfully transmitted in family businesses via narratives.Design/methodology/approach – A qualitative‐interpretive approach is used. Data were collected through in‐depth interviews made to 17 family members from three family businesses of different ages, sizes, industries, and generations in control. The richness of these interviews, besides its depth and length, emerges from the complete picture formed by the comparison of the stories told by different generations.Findings – Results suggest that narratives are a powerful device for transmitting values through generations. By telling stories, family businesses are able to build identity and shared meanings which led to successful performance in terms of revenues, reputation, shared identity, and continuity of the family business history.Research limitations/implications – This paper is exploratory. Further studies focusing on failure in transmitting values could enhance and expand emerging...

Developing next generation leaders for transgenerational entrepreneurial family enterprises

This illustrative book considers the interface of business structures, contexts, and leadership building blocks to explore the contingent nature of leadership development in transgenerational entrepreneurship. Longitudinal case studies of 27 family firms in nine different countries provide a rich, global selection of leadership development insights by examining the role of values, professionalization, leadership style and other contingent factors.

Building family business identity through transgenerational narratives

Purpose n n n n nThe purpose of this paper is to understand how family businesses (FBs) build their collective identity through transgenerational narratives. The authors examine the processes through which organizational meanings are socially constructed through narratives about individuals who are closely linked to the organizations (and their family). n n n n nDesign/methodology/approach n n n n nBased on qualitative research, the authors study a 180-year old Spanish Pharmaceutical FB. Using longitudinal data, the authors analyze the narratives of six family members and two non-family executives. The authors use open-ended questions to allow interviewees to elaborate their own stories, following previous studies using extended narratives that leave the stage to the narrator. n n n n nFindings n n n n nFindings based on the stories of the eight interviewees (voice) suggest that the FB identity was initiated by the founder’s way to grow the business (fictionality). In turn the family shaped the identity of the FB, being reshaped by the stories arising from next generations’ entry into the business (reflexivity). While the FB identity reflects that of the owners, this identity is enduring but dynamic (temporality), not only shaped by the business family behind, but also conditioned by the environment. n n n n nOriginality/value n n n n nThe authors contribute to the growing literature adopting a narrative method to study phenomena in FBs. Thanks to the richness of the empirical material, a narrative method is particularly suited – and novel – for understanding collective identity, a crucial organizational resource that is closely linked to leadership in the FB.

Corporate Governance in Family Businesses Across Generations: Exploring Intergenerational Issues

The presence of different generations in family businesses creates intergenerational issues that affect the dynamics of their governance structures. Bringing together literature on family business governance with studies of intergenerational relationships, we contribute to our understanding of governance structures and relationships in family businesses. We illustrate these dynamics through a qualitative approach using an in-depth, longitudinal case study of a 180-year-old family business, which we followed for 10 years. We focus on intergenerational and intertemporal dilemmas faced by the family throughout the generations, focusing on a shift away from ethical toward economic interests, as both family and business have grown in complexity.

Family firms in Ibero-America: an introduction

Purpose n n n n nThis paper highlights the importance of understanding family firms in different contexts. The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the characteristics and behavior of family firms in Ibero-America, and their contribution and fit to the broader field of research. Based on the five articles in this special issue, this paper attempts to give an overview of their main contributions. n n n n nDesign/methodology/approach n n n n nThis paper explains in a contextual and analytical way the contributions of five papers that focus their attention on Ibero-American family firms, by linking them to the current research in the field and finding their fit within the broader field of family business. Tackling different topics, these five papers discuss about the comparison between family vs non-family businesses, innovation in family firms, and governance in family firms n n n n nFindings n n n n nFindings suggest that there is a need to stimulate research in family business in Ibero-America, especially Latin America, regarding family business dynamics, the different roles of the family within the enterprise, family governance, and the role of women. With regards to innovation the cultural and economic context play an important role in how they perform innovative activities. n n n n nOriginality/value n n n n nThis paper contributes to further understanding family firms by discussing the importance of the context and by linking all five papers with the broader literature in family business. The introduction also discusses topics worth to be further researched in Ibero-America.

Developing next generation leaders

Transgenerational entrepreneurship is defined as the ‘processes through which a family uses and develops entrepreneurial mindsets and family influenced capabilities to create new streams of entrepreneurial, financial, and social value across generations’ (Habbershon, Nordqvist, and Zellweger, 2010: 1). Developing next generation leaders lies at the heart of transgenerational entrepreneurship as it squarely focuses attention on those individuals – family or nonfamily members – who alone, or in collaboration, are responsible for the success and longevity of a family enterprise. This book aims to understand the pathways used by enterprising families around the world to develop next generation leaders. We set out to explore how leadership becomes an enduring source of advantage that is less dependent upon who is in a formal role and relies more upon the process by which the family’s core values shape and build the next generation of leaders. When leadership development is considered as an underlying process, generational transitions become less rigid and episodic, thereby potentially less disruptive. Continuous shifting of roles and ongoing development of the current and next generations becomes an enduring source of advantage. In practical terms, our interest was to understand how the next generation members are introduced to the business and what it stands for. How do they become aware of the key decisions and defining moments of the past and the influences of those decisions on current practices? How do they become involved in entrepreneurial activities and decisionmaking of their family business? What opportunities – inside and outside the business – prove useful in their development and growth as responsible owners? These are but a few of the types of research questions explored in this book. Scholars affiliated with the Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) project were invited to develop chapters to enhance