research paper on family business

Journal of Family Business Management

Issue(s) available: 43 – From Volume: 1 Issue: 1 , to Volume: 14 Issue: 4

• Issue 4 2024
• Issue 3 2024
• Issue 2 2024
• Issue 1 2024
• Issue 4 2023
• Issue 3 2023
• Issue 2 2023
• Issue 1 2023 The Future of Family Business: marketing challenges in times of crisis
• Issue 4 2022
• Issue 3 2022 Family Business in Tourism and Hospitality
• Issue 2 2022
• Issue 1 2022
• Issue 4 2021
• Issue 3 2021 Enhancing policies and measurements of family business: Macro, meso or micro analysis
• Issue 2 2021
• Issue 1 2021
• Issue 4 2020 Cross-cultural and entrepreneurial strategies towards new family business performance: An Asian context
• Issue 3 2020
• Issue 2 2020
• Issue 1 2020
• Issue 4 2019
• Issue 3 2019
• Issue 2 2019
• Issue 1 2019 New Insights on SMEs: Finance and Family SMEs in a Changing Economic Landscape
• Issue 3 2018
• Issue 2 2018
• Issue 1 2018
• Issue 3 2017
• Issue 2 2017
• Issue 1 2017
• Issue 3 2016
• Issue 2 2016 Family business governance: role, relevance and impact
• Issue 1 2016
• Issue 2 2015
• Issue 1 2015
• Issue 2 2014
• Issue 1 2014
• Issue 2 2013
• Issue 1 2013 Taking a hard look at soft issues in family business
• Issue 2 2012
• Issue 1 2012
• Issue 2 2011
• Issue 1 2011

The role of in-laws in family business continuity: a perspective

The purpose is to provide a brief summary on the current research development regarding the role of in-laws in family firms’ continuity. Additionally, I provide a perspective on…

Managing a Gen-Z workforce – what family firms need to know: a perspectives article

This paper highlights the opportunities and challenges for family firms in managing Generation Z (Gen-Z) employees. This perspective article explores several considerations for…

Corporate entrepreneurship and family businesses: a perspective article

Family businesses play a pivotal role in the world’s economy, contributing to 70% of its GDP. Their success in the current environment demands the enactment of entrepreneurial and…

Psychological ownership in family firms: a perspective article

This article explores psychological ownership (PO) in family firms (FFs); its impact on interpersonal relationships, attitudes and behaviors within the organization; and its…

Internal communication and family business: a perspective article

Family businesses require internal communication (IC) to guide and provide direction, and the unique nature of involving both family and nonfamily employees add complexity…

Generation Alpha and family business: a perspective article

This paper discusses the key features of Generation Alpha from the perspective of their implications for future family business.

Money education in the business family: a perspective article

The primary aim is to renew academic discourse on financial education in business families. It emphasizes the need for effective financial literacy programs to foster a healthier…

Regional development and family business: a perspective article

This perspective article aims to summarise the understanding of the link between regional development and family business and explore potential pathways for further investigations.

Entrepreneurial resilience (ER) and family business: a perspective article

This paper highlights the need for future studies researching the subject of resilience in family firms on different levels.

AI-driven sustainability brand activism for family businesses: a future-proofing perspective article

Artificial intelligence (AI) and sustainable business represent the irrefutable future of all forward looking businesses in the world today. In this perspective article, the…

African family dynamics and family business – a perspective article

Despite the potential benefits of family businesses, their dynamics present peculiar challenges that hinder the realisation of their full potential. This paper sought to assess…

Analysis of trends that turn an entrepreneurship idea into a family business: an article in perspective

This article examines some of the trends that allow to understand and analyze the evolution of the idea of entrepreneurship to become a family business.

First (latent) generation and family business: a perspective article

Family businesses are characterized by the simultaneous presence of the family and the business system. The literature analyses sporadically the family support during the creation…

Key drivers of green innovation in family firms: a machine learning approach

This study aims to find the key drivers of green innovation in family firms by examining firm characteristics and geographical factors. It seeks to develop a conceptual framework…

From tradition to technological advancement: embracing blockchain technology in family businesses

Despite the rapid advancement of blockchain technology across various sectors, scholarly research on its application within family businesses remains significantly underdeveloped…

Job crafting and entrepreneurial innovativeness: the moderated mediation roles of dynamic capabilities and self-initiated AI learning

This paper investigates the moderated mediation roles of dynamic capabilities and self-initiated AI learning between job crafting and entrepreneurial innovativeness among…

Innovating with heart: family firms' decision to automate with emotional responsibility

The paper aims to explore how family involvement influences family firms (FF) decisions to innovate in automation (i.e. artificial intelligence, big data and robotics). Automation…

Women on board and financial distress: channeling effect of family firms

This study seeks to evaluate gender diversity within family members and analyze its effects on financial distress in firms listed in Vietnam.

Tacit knowledge sharing in a Lebanese family business: the influence of organizational structure and tie strength

This study explores the influence of organizational structure on relationship formation and tacit knowledge sharing within a family business context.

Female directors' representation and firm carbon emissions performance: does family control matter?

This study investigates whether female board representation reduces carbon emissions in French-listed companies. It also analyzes to what extent and in what direction family…

Exploratory analysis of the antecedents of failure in family businesses: cases from Catalunya

Family businesses (FBs) are considered an essential type of entrepreneurship that impacts economic growth. However, statistics show that after a period of performance they…

Family business culture: a strategic resource and driver of firm performance

Through a resource-based theoretical lens, we elucidate conditions under which family business culture (FBC) amplifies the positive effects of high-performance work systems (HPWS…

Organisational learning in family firms: a systematic review

Organisational learning (OL) is a critical capability family firms (FFs) need in order to adapt to an increasingly turbulent environment. Given the uniqueness of FFs and their…

Narratives of and for survival in family firms: family influence on narrative processing

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…

Artificial intelligence and family businesses: a systematic literature review

This paper examines the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) within family businesses, focusing on how AI can enhance their competitiveness, resilience and sustainability…

Understanding customer’s post-M&A intentions and behaviors: the role of the family business brand and previous reputation of the acquiring firm

Mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are a critical time for organizations and their consumers. For the company, there are many financial and non-financial risks. For customers, it…

Attenuating workplace cynicism among non-family employees in family firms: influence of mindful leadership, belongingness and leader–member exchange quality

Drawing on mindfulness theory, this study attempts to gain insights into whether leader-mindfulness (LM) influences workplace cynicism (WPC) among non-family employees (NFEs…

Evolved leader behaviours for adopting lean and green in family firms: a longitudinal study in Indonesia

This longitudinal study focuses on the specific behaviours of both top and other leaders in family firms that are implementing lean and green practices in order to contribute to…

Beyond profit in family businesses: ESG-driven business model innovation and the critical role of digital capabilities

This study aims to analyze the interaction between environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices and digital capabilities in promoting business model innovation (BMI) in…

An investigation of the masculinity of entrepreneurial orientation in family business

Miller (2011) revisited his influential 1983 work on entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and remarked that its underlying drivers are fully open to debate, fresh scholarship and…

Fair play in family firms: examining the perceived justice of performance management systems

This study examines the intricate relationship between family influence and perceived justice in performance management systems within family firms. Recognizing the unique…

We don’t fire! Family firms and employment change during the COVID-19 pandemic

By investigating the reactions of family businesses to COVID-19 pandemic this article aims to explaining how family firms are capable to preserve employment during hardship.

A systematic literature review on home-based businesses: two decades of research

The research identifies literature on Home-Based Businesses (HBBs) from 2000 to August 2023, focuses on their economic roles, challenges for entrepreneurs and success strategies…

The perceived effect of digital transformation and resultant empowerment on job performance of employees in the fitness family business

The impact of technological transformations in all sectors is undeniably significant, especially in fitness family business. The aim is to examine the digital transformation…

Facilitating corporate sustainability integration: innovation in family firms

The purpose of the study is to understand the relationship between family-driven innovation and the incorporation of corporate sustainability in German family firms.

Uncovering the research trends of family-owned business succession: past, present and the future

The succession phenomenon in family-owned businesses (F-OB) determines their future viability and success. This study aims to provide insight into key research areas related to…

A decision-making framework in family-owned hotels for evaluating and selecting suppliers and strategic partners

This paper presents a comprehensive decision-making framework designed for family-owned hotels, specifically focusing on evaluating and selecting suppliers and strategic partners…

Directing the future: artificial intelligence integration in family businesses

This study explores the integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) within family businesses. It seeks to understand how family-owned enterprises navigate the adoption of AI…

Family firms and the collaborative advantage: unveiling innovation efficiency across partnership types

Based on the resource orchestration perspective, this paper aims to examine whether family firms are more efficient in their collaboration for innovation process than non-family…

Family firms in government lobbies

Although the outcomes arising from firms’ interaction with policymakers is a developed theme, family firms’ political credentials and lobbying remain unexplored. To ignite this…

“All employees are equal … but some are more equal than others”. Role identity and nonfamily member discrimination in family SMEs

This paper aims to investigate if, under which conditions, and with which consequences, nonfamily members have the perception of being discriminated against as a consequence of…

Factors affecting succession planning in Sub-Saharan African family-owned businesses: a scoping review

This scoping review investigates the factors influencing succession planning in Sub-Saharan African family-owned businesses.

Exploring the uncharted influence of family social capital in entrepreneurial ecosystems

The purpose of this research is to develop theory, thereby attending to the existing knowledge gap regarding the impact of family firms on entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs)…

Balancing work and family when family is work: a reconceptualization of work–family integration, burnout and detachment in family business

Building from calls for greater interdisciplinary research in interpreting family business phenomena, we integrate research on work–family conflict, detachment and burnout from…

The African philosophy of Ubuntu and family businesses: a perspective article

This perspective article underscores the importance of conducting studies that examine the African philosophy of Ubuntu among indigenous African family businesses. The article…

Are family businesses more gender inclusive in leadership succession today? A perspective article

Through this exploration, this article seeks to contribute to facilitate a greater female participation in power and leadership positions in the context of succession by…

Dynamic capabilities and family businesses: a perspective article

The individual perspective of dynamic capabilities and family firms could be useful to shed light on the relationship between these topics, considering not only the heterogeneity…

Evaluation of the performance of Spanish family businesses portfolios

The primary objective of this study is to analyze the performance and risk characteristics of portfolios composed of Spanish family businesses (FBs) when sustainability and…

Sustainability performance disclosure and family businesses: a perspective article

The deeper understanding of the disclosure of external and internal dynamics of family firms necessarily places the issue of sustainability as one of the most pressing needs from…

Nurturing family business resilience through strategic supply chain management

The study aspires to enhance comprehension of the intricate interplay between supply chain management (SCM) and resilience in family businesses, thereby offering valuable insights…

Sustainability in family business settings: a strategic entrepreneurship perspective

Family business sustainability is a critical issue. This study considers if adopting a strategic entrepreneurship orientation can support the sustainability of a family business.

The influence of family firm CEOs’ transformational leadership on employee engagement: the mediating role of psychological safety

This study aims to unravel a potential determinant of employee engagement in family firms. In particular, we focus on the role of the CEO by studying the influence of CEO…

Entrepreneurial orientation and socioemotional wealth as enablers of the impact of digital transformation in family firms

The research aims to investigate how digital transformation (DT), entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and socioemotional wealth (SEW) impact the financial performance of family firms…

Relationship between the implementation of formal board processes and structures and financial performance: the role of absolute family control in Colombian family businesses

We investigate the effect of the adoption of formal board structure and board processes on firm performance in Colombian family firms, in a context where firms can choose specific…

Integrating UN Sustainable Development Goals into family business practices: a perspective article

This paper explores the potential for family businesses (FBs) to play a pivotal role in advancing the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It seeks to…

Intersecting bonds: a perspective on polygamy's influence in Arab Middle East family firm succession

The aim of this study is to explore and elucidate the influence of polygamy on the succession dynamics of family businesses in the Arab world, offering insights that may be…

Environmental responsibility of family businesses: a perspective paper

This perspective paper explores ongoing research into stimuli that promote environmental responsibility in family business contexts. It also delineates emerging patterns and…

Factors affecting high-quality entrepreneurial performance in small- and medium-sized family firms

The purpose of this paper is to measure the high-quality entrepreneurial efficiency of family-owned small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) while exploring the potential…

Exploring the effect of family control on debt financing within large firms: a transnational study in emerging markets

This paper aims to analyze the effect of family control and influence dimension of the socioemotional wealth (SEW) on capital structure of large listed firms in the North African…

Importance of traditions and family business at Christmas: a quantitative analysis of practices and values in Portugal

Christmas is the most consumed event of the year, always full of traditions, namely family ones, which are very significant. In this way, it is intended to find out the importance…

Intra-family communication in challenging times and family business: a perspective article

This perspective article highlights the importance of future research that explores how intra-family communication in family businesses was affected during challenging times such…

Navigating the path of family business research: a personal reflection

This article provides a personal response to the questions raised by Ratten et al . (2023) on what family business researchers have learnt about the family business field and tips…

European family business owners: what factors affect their job satisfaction?

This research aims to better understand the factors and determinants that shape the job satisfaction of European family business owners.

Financial management and family business: a perspective article

This study aims to review major themes and findings of research into financial management of family business and to suggest new directions for future research.

Conceptualizing recourses as antecedents to the economic performance of family-based microenterprise – the moderating role of competencies

The development of family-based microenterprises has attracted the attention of regulators, microfinance institutions and other stakeholders in either developing or least…

The adoption of governance mechanisms in family businesses: an institutional lens

Despite agreement on the importance of adopting governance structures for developing competitive advantage, we still know little about why or how governance mechanisms are adopted…

Migrant family entrepreneurship – mixed and multiple embeddedness of transgenerational Turkish family entrepreneurs in Berlin

By combining manifold approaches from migrant entrepreneurship and family business studies, the purpose of the paper is to shed some light upon the contextual features of…

Encouraging consumer loyalty: the role of family business in hospitality

The aim of this paper is to understand the importance of consumer loyalty in the specific context of Hotel Family Business. This study proposes a conceptual model to examine how…

No hard feelings? Non-succeeding siblings and their perceptions of justice in family firms

Family farms, in which business and family life are intricately interwoven, offer an interesting context for better understanding the interdependence between the family and…

Next-generation leadership development: a management succession perspective

This research study focusses on the succession challenges in small-medium outboard marine businesses of Malaysian Chinese family ownership. The founder-owners face challenges in…

Promoting family business in handicrafts through local tradition and culture: an innovative approach

The purpose of the study is to investigate the potentiality and dimensions of promoting handicraft family business practices in handicraft as well as the extent to highlight the…

Family entrepreneurial resilience – an intergenerational learning approach

The purpose of this paper is to explore leadership succession in families in business. Although there is a vast amount of research on leadership succession, no attempt has been…

Embeddedness and entrepreneurial traditions: Entrepreneurship of Bukharian Jews in diaspora

The purpose of this paper is to explore how entrepreneurship traditions evolve in diaspora.

Family equity as a transgenerational mechanism for entrepreneurial families

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of family equity creation and its role for transgenerational entrepreneurship.

Retaining the adolescent workforce in family businesses

The purpose of this study is to critically explore the linkage between adolescent work, parent–child relationships and offspring career choice outcomes in a family business…

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• Associate Professor Vanessa Ratten

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• Associate Professor Vanessa Ratten La Trobe University - Australia [email protected]

Associate Editor

• Professor Beatriz Casais Universidade do Minho - Portugal
• Jerónimo García-Fernández Universidad de Sevilla - Spain
• Dr Konstantinos Koronios University of Peloponnese - Greece
• Professor João Leitão Universidade da Beira Interior - Portugal
• Joseph Johnson Emerald Publishing - UK [email protected]

Journal Editorial Office (For queries related to pre-acceptance)

• Sonal Aherkar Emerald Publishing [email protected]

Supplier Project Manager (For queries related to post-acceptance)

• Preethi Vittal Emerald Publishing [email protected]

Editorial Advisory Board

• Jannett Ayup González Universidad Autònoma de Tamaulipas - Mexico
• Sergio Barile University of Rome “'La Sapienza” - Italy
• Robin Bell University of Worcester - UK
• Zografia Bika University of East Anglia - UK
• Isabel C. Botero University of Louisville - USA
• Richard Boyatzis Case Western Reserve University - USA
• Andrea Calabro IPAG Business School - France
• Mark Anthony Camilleri University of Malta, Msida, Malta
• Anna Carmon Indiana University-Purdue University - USA
• Francesca M. Cesaroni University of Urbino Carlo Bo - Italy
• Ranjan Chaudhuri Indian Institute of Management Ranchi - India
• Jim Chrisman Mississippi State University - USA
• Andrea Colli Università Bocconi - Italy
• Joshua J. Daspit McCoy College of Business, Texas State University - USA
• Josiane Fahed-Sreih Institute of Family and Entrepreneurial Business, Lebanese American University - Lebanon
• Shelley Farrington Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University - South Africa
• Birgit Feldbauer-Durstmüller Johannes Kepler University Linz - Austria
• Feranita Feranita Taylor's University - Malaysia
• Laura Galloway University of Edinburgh - UK
• Martin Hiebl Johannes Kepler University Linz - Austria
• Paul Jones Swansea University
• Andreas Kallmuenzer Excelia Business School - France
• Giacomo Laffranchini University of La Verne - USA
• Sankaran Manikutty Indian Institute of Management - India
• Laura E. Marler Mississippi State University - USA
• Nasina Mat Desa Universiti Sains Malaysia - Malaysia
• Stefan Mayr Johannes Kepler Univerity on Linz - Austria
• Mike Mustafa University of Nottingham - UK
• Atanas Nik Nikolov Kennesaw State University - USA
• Rosmini Omar Universiti Teknologi Malaysia - Malaysia
• Johann Packendorff KTH - Royal Institute of Technology - Sweden
• Mauricio Silva Glasgow Caledonian University - UK
• Gregorio Sánchez Marin University of Murcia - Spain
• Syed Awais Tipu University of Sharjah - United Arab Emirates
• Georgios Tsekouropoulos International Hellenic University - Greece
• Natalia Vershinina Audencia Business School, Audencia Nantes School of Management - France
• Demetris Vrontis University of Nicosia - Cyprus
• Yong Wang University of Wolverhampton - UK
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Calls for papers

Artificial intelligence and family business.

Submit your paper here! Introduction Artificial intelligence has become a topical issue for many family businesses due to the uncertainty around ...

Sustainability and family business

Submit your paper here! Introduction Sustainability and how companies and institutions implement social, economic and environmental practices for...

JFBM Call for Perspective Articles

Submit your article here! Deadline: 30 October 2023 Authors are invited to write a perspective article on a topic related to famil...

Thank you to the 2022 Reviewers of Journal of Family Business Management

The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2022 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has been able to publish such high...

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Calling for expression of interests in being a associate or regional editor for the Journal of Family Business Management. To be considered you should have published on family business management. ...

Call for Special Journal Issue Proposals

Deadline: July 30th 2023 As the new Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Family Business Management, I am calling for new special journal issue proposals that develop ideas around new and emerging topics related to...

Seeking new editorial review and advisory board members

Associate Professor Vanessa Ratten, La Trobe University - Australia, Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Family Business Management As the new Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Family Business Management, I am...

Thank you to the 2021 Reviewers of Journal of Family Business Management

The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2021 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has been able to publish such high...

Family Business: Systems, Identity and Brand

This virtual issue will run from 1st September 2022 - 30th September 2022. Business identity and brand matters and, for family businesses, that brings a distinct set of challenges aroun...

Thank you to the 2019 Reviewers for the Journal of Family Business Management (JFBM)

The academic process as we know it could not exist without the service you provide. We are grateful for your continued support of the journal: Haya Al-dajani Keanon Alderson Wassim Aloulou Carlos Arbesú Daniel...

Literati awards

Journal of Family Business Management - Literati Award Winners 2023

We are pleased to announce our 2023 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper Investigating Social Capital, Trust and...

Journal of Family Business Management - Literati Award Winners 2022 

We are pleased to announce our 2022 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper Enhancing policies and measur...

Journal of Family Business Management - Literati Awards 2021

We are pleased to announce our 2021 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper A dynamic capabilities approa...

Journal of Family Business Management provides unrivalled coverage of all aspects of family business, offering a unique focus on behavioural and applied research in family firms, particularly considering the impact of research on policy and practice.

Aims and scope

Journal of Family Business Management (JFBM) is a refereed journal publishing since 2011. JFBM provides broad and unrivalled coverage of all aspects of family business. JFBM offers a unique focus on behavioural and applied research, particularly considering the impact of research on policy and practice; it aims to communicate the latest family business research and knowledge worldwide for the benefit of scholars and family business practitioners. Other articles unique to JFBM are our ‘In conversation with’ series which provides insights from practicing family business advisors about how they are using theory in their practice now. JFBM aims to stimulate dialogue between scholars and practitioners in a timely manner.

The family business arena is dynamic. Family business owners, managers, and practitioners need to be aware of changing management approaches, processes and strategies which allow them to respond to global competition in an increasingly chaotic world, while keeping in mind the unique character, culture, and attributes of family owned businesses.

Journal of Family Business Management is endorsed by the Family and Smaller Enterprises Research Group at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh; the Center for Family and Small Enterprises at the University of Texas at Tyler in the United States; and the International Centre for Families in Business in the United Kingdom.

Editorial objectives

Journal of Family Business Management (JFBM) is a refereed journal publishing since 2011. JFBM provides broad and unrivalled coverage of all aspects of family business. JFBM offers a unique focus on behavioural and applied research, particularly considering the impact of research on policy and practice; it aims to communicate the latest family business research and knowledge worldwide for the benefit of scholars and family business practitioners. JFBM eagerly solicits work from new scholars and in particular encourages early stage scholars to consider submitting a literature review summary, a new type of scholarly article explained in a document entitled a new type of literature review, which JFBM is pioneering. Other articles unique to JFBM are our ‘In conversation with’ series which provides insights from practicing family business advisors about how they are using theory in their practice now. JFBM aims to stimulate dialogue between scholars and practitioners in a timely manner.

Editorial criteria

JFBM publishes original, interdisciplinary, empirical, conceptual, and theoretical research on all aspects of family business. This includes research articles; high quality case studies highlighting particular successes or problems in processes or techniques; literature review summaries; ‘research notes’ providing short, digestible information of current research projects and debate; book reviews and/or evaluation of other literature in the field; and practitioner commentaries providing a practitioner view of research developments; conceptual papers; viewpoint papers. All rigorous research methods including quantitative, qualitative and mixed methodology articles are welcome.  All articles will be expected to include implications in regards to society and more importantly policy.

Systems of approach and methodological concerns

Although we are an interdisciplinary journal, we seek to publish articles from the perspective of social and behavioral science. Such disciplines include management, organizational behaviour, psychology, economics, and sociology. We also seek to publish articles from the perspective of practitioners, such as family business owners, consultants, and service providers. We publish articles that use any research methodology seeking the proliferation of knowledge in the realm of family business management. All forms of empirical findings; qualitative, quantitative, or mix-methodologies are welcome.  We will consider research that is conducted on all sizes of family firms from micro/small to large.

Scope/coverage

The coverage of the journal includes, but is not limited to:

• Generational differences
• Gender issues
• Family dynamics
• New/best practice and interventions
• Policy effects and issues
• Work-life balance; hours worked, vacation/time, burn-out, guilt, workoholism
• Strategic planning and organizational changes in family firms
• Corporate governance and strategy in family business
• Impact of family dynamics on management behaviours
• Organizational structures
• Family business decision making
• Belief Systems in the family enterprise religious, political, or philosophical (congruent/discordant)
• Performance
• Top management team
• Financial issues, financial management
• Resource allocation and leveraging
• International family-owned business
• Ethics; norms, mores, and morality issues
• Human capital, social capital
• Skill acquisition in the family enterprise – training, performance, feedback, growth, and expertise
• Ethnicity and transnational cultures
• Globalization trends
• Communication
• Conflict prevention/avoidance
• Succession planning

Key Benefits

• JFBM is the only journal which brings together thought leadership and applied research conducted by and with practitioners and the academic community and leading actors in the family business arena. Of particular interest are articles jointly written by practitioners and academics in the field, which offer invaluable insights into a diverse range of subjects. A main goal is narrowing the scholar/practitioner gap.
• Combining rigour through strict peer review, with relevance through a theory-into-practice ethos, JFBM is an essential resource for all involved in this dynamic area.
• JFBM is the only publication in the field to publish broad-based behavioural research in the field of family business studies.
• The journal provides a high quality outlet for academic articles on the subject of contemporary issues in family business in three key areas: trends and topical issues; strategy and management; global issues and influences and will inform, and be informed by, practice.
• The journal provides an innovative and accessible forum for young researchers in this field, publishing a number of ‘research notes’ and ‘literature reviews in brief’ in each issue.
• 'Practitioner Forums' allow family business owners and service providers to discuss what is relevant and needed to advance the field through real world application.
• Each issue will include book reviews enabling both scholars and practitioners to benefit from a succinct overview. Readers will benefit from having both a scholar and a practitioner review the same book and highlight comparisons and differences.

What does the field of research think about JFBM?

Family businesses have been substantial contributors to the world economy since time immemorial. They account for the majority of new ventures and small and medium-size enterprises. Even among large firms, family businesses dominate most economies throughout the world. Given the ever-evolving nature of families, societies, and economies, the significance of family businesses is likely to increase rather than decrease in years to come. Researchers are just beginning to appreciate the need to understand the behaviors and performance of family businesses. They are also just beginning to appreciate how exciting and interesting family businesses are to study. It will be interesting to see what is uncovered about family businesses in the years to come. Professor Jim Chrisman, Mississippi State University, United States  

Latest articles

These are the latest articles published in this journal (Last updated: July 2024)

Exploring the uncharted influence of family social capital in entrepreneurial ecosystems

Uncovering the research trends of family-owned business succession: past, present and the future, fair play in family firms: examining the perceived justice of performance management systems, top downloaded articles.

These are the most downloaded articles over the last 12 months for this journal (Last updated: July 2024)

The Influence of Family Dynamics on Business Performance: Does Effective Leadership Matter?

Generation ai and family business: a perspective article., family firm performance: the effects of organizational culture and organizational social capital.

These are the top cited articles for this journal, from the last 12 months according to Crossref (Last updated: July 2024)

The relationship between the use of technologies and digitalization strategies for digital transformation in family businesses

Family entrepreneurship: a perspective article, women entrepreneurs in transport family business: a perspective article..

This title is aligned with our responsible management goal

We aim to champion researchers, practitioners, policymakers and organisations who share our goals of contributing to a more ethical, responsible and sustainable way of working.

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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Entrepreneurship and family role: a systematic review of a growing research.

• Department of Social Psychology and Anthropology, University of Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain

In recent years, research on the family role and entrepreneurship has increased noticeably, consolidating itself as a valid and current subject of study. This paper presents a systematic analysis of academic research, applying bibliometric indicators, and cluster analysis, which define the state of research about the relationship between family role and entrepreneurship. For this purpose, using three well-accepted databases among the research community: Scopus, Web of Science, Business Source, a total of 92 articles were selected and analyzed, published between 1989 and 2019 (until March). A cluster analysis shows five main areas of literature development: (1) cultural dimension and geneder issue; (2) family business and succession; (3) parental role models and entrepreneurial intentions; (4) entrepreneurship and self-employment; (5) family support and women entrepreneurs. Findings also show how this is a relatively recent field of study, with a multidisciplinary character.

Introduction

Entrepreneurship is a determining factor of economic development ( Thurik, 2009 ; Hessels and van Stel, 2011 ; Audretsch et al., 2015 ), social and structural change ( Acs et al., 1999 ; North, 2005 ). Entrepreneurship not only contributes to the economic and social growth of a nation, but also stimulates the development of knowledge ( Shane, 2000 ), technological change ( Acs and Varga, 2005 ), competitiveness and innovation ( Parker, 2009 ; Blanco-González et al., 2015 ). In fact, the European community has promoted numerous actions aimed to improve and develop the entrepreneurial attitude of European citizens toward Business venture, focusing on aspects that are essential for creating a corporate identity. However, the levels of entrepreneurial activity in some European countries are still low. According to the latest international study of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), published in 2018, Europe has the lowest TEA (Total Entrepreneurial Activity) of all regions in all age studied. This is a concerning result, especially in it's current crisis period.

Entrepreneurial activity is not just about discovering new ideas and possibilities ( Shane and Venkataraman, 2000 ), but also intentional planning, developed through the cognitive processing of internal and external factors ( Del Giudice et al., 2014 ). Intention is a cognitive process that precedes the effective involvement of the individual in any type of activity ( Liñán and Chen, 2009 ), and in particular, entrepreneurial intention is closely linked to business world ( Moriano et al., 2012 ) and has become a rapidly evolving research sector in the international scene ( Liñán and Fayolle, 2015 ).

Currently, in the literature there are two different theoretical approaches which attempt to clarify why some individuals are more inclined toward an entrepreneurial career when compared to others: the first analyzes personality traits ( Zhao and Seibert, 2006 ; Rauch and Frese, 2007 ; Leutner et al., 2014 ; DeNisi, 2015 ), the second focuses on environmental and behavioral factors ( Peterson, 1980 ; Aldrich, 1990 ; Baum et al., 2001 ). Specifically, researchers study the importance of some individual traits as factors predetermining to perform entrepreneurial activities such as high levels of self-efficacy ( Krueger et al., 2000 ; Zhao et al., 2005 ; Lee et al., 2011 ; Rasul et al., 2017 ), risk propensity ( Schwartz and Whistler, 2009 ; Tumasjan and Braun, 2012 ; Yurtkoru et al., 2014 ), tolerance to ambiguity, and uncertainty ( Hmieleski and Corbett, 2006 ; Schwartz and Whistler, 2009 ; Arrighetti et al., 2012 ), metacognitive abilities and individual abilities ( Kor et al., 2007 ; Dickson et al., 2008 ; Liñán et al., 2011 ), locus of control ( Battistelli, 2001 ; Gordini, 2013 ), as well as creativity ( Hamidi et al., 2008 ; Smith et al., 2016 ; Biraglia and Kadile, 2017 ); the environmental and behavioral focuses refers to the Social Learning Theory ( Bandura, 1986 ), according to which, individuals learn certain skills from other people, which act as models. Specifically, the term “role model” emphasizes the individual's tendency to identify with other people occupying important social and the consequent cognitive interdependence of skills and behavior patterns ( Gibson, 2004 ).

In this scenario, the role of the family in guiding young people toward choosing an autonomous/entrepreneurial job becomes important ( Fraccaroli and Vitali, 2001 ; Odoardi, 2003 ); the social network is an important intangible resource for the development of their business activities ( Presutti et al., 2011 ); in particular, the perception of the family support influences, in the university students, the choice of career in general ( Henderson and Robertson, 2000 ) and specifically the business one ( Türker et al., 2005 ; Taormina and Lao, 2007 ; Zellweger et al., 2011 ; Laspita et al., 2012 ).

This evidence is not enough proof. For example, some researchers have not found a statistically significant relationship between entrepreneurial parenting role models and children's decision to choose an entrepreneurial career ( Rodriguez et al., 1999 ; Kim et al., 2006 ), other studies, instead, have found a negative effect, especially in situations of failure of the family business ( Scherer et al., 1989 ; Mungai and Velamuri, 2011 ).

Taking into consideration the ideas exposed above, we conducted this systematic review to analyze the relationship between the role of the family and the entrepreneurial process. Specifically, we aim to answer the following questions:

1. What is the temporal development of research on the relationship of the role model in entrepreneurship?

2. Who are the most productive authors, countries and journals?

3. What are the thematic areas that have been most studied by researchers?

Furthermore, to reduce the risk of bias to a minimum, we applied a series of bibliometric indicators. Bibliometric indicators are defined as a rigorous set of statistical and mathematics methods to be applied to documents and other patterns of knowledge ( Pritchard, 1969 ). It is a method widely used in the literature as it provides an overview of academic research, through the identification of the main trends in a given field of study ( Martínez-López et al., 2018 ). Many bibliometric revisions regarding entrepreneurship have been conducted ( Cabeza-Ramírez et al., 2017 ; Baier-Fuentes et al., 2019 ). However, specifically to the relationship between family role and entrepreneurship, our research did not generate any results. The only existing revisions take into consideration the family, understood as a family business ( López-Fernández et al., 2015 ).

In the following section we explain the methodology for systematic analysis, and we will report the main results. In the final part, we present the conclusions that can be drawn from our analysis, its limitations, as well as reflections for future developments.

Materials and Methods

In this article, we review the literature on the family role in entrepreneurial capacity using the systematic analysis method as “explicit, rigorous and transparent methodology” ( Greenhalgh et al., 2004 , p. 582). In this sense, we collected the publications until March 2019 and extracted the most relevant results, through the application of statistical methods.

To reduce the risk of bias, during the selection phase of the articles, we used a mechanism established in the literature, the PRISMA method ( Liberati et al., 2009 ; Urrútia and Bonfill, 2010 ), which allows to make the work replicable ( Lourenço and Jones, 2006 ; Pittaway and Cope, 2007 ).

In order to search for relevant articles, we used three databases: Scopus, Web of Science and Business Source, without defining a specific publication period. The selection of these items was made on basis that are considered the most powerful databases in existence. Specifically, Web of Science because it is the oldest database of citations, dating back to 1900, and provides strong coverage in international research ( Li et al., 2010 ), guaranteeing the highest quality; Scopus, on the other hand, with 27 million abstracts, is the largest database of scientific literature ( Burnham, 2006 ); Business Source as a third database, as it provides a repertoire on entrepreneurial, business, and economics sciences literature.

Initially, within each database, we applied the Boolean search terms “famil * role,” “famil * support,” “parent * role,” “parent * support,” and “entrepren * ” to identify all the publications that contained the keywords in the title of publications, author of key words or abstract. After eliminating all the duplicate articles, a total of 192 documents were identified over a period of time between 1989 and 2019. All 192 abstracts were read to ensure that the document deals with our construct. When a doubt arose, the entire document was read to confirm this.

As far as the inclusion/exclusion criterion is concerned, we have only considered journal articles since they are scientific knowledge ( Podsakoff et al., 2005 ), written in English or Spanish language, and containing a direct relationship between the family (parental) role and entrepreneurship. On the contrary, were excluded: chapters of books and conference papers, publications that did not make any connection between the two constructs, or that analyzed the role of family members other than the parental couple (for example, possible partners or brothers), and all articles written in a language other than English or Spanish. For example, we have excluded the article by Fernández Robin et al. (2017 ) because they mention “the role of the family” in the abstract, but they refer specifically to housewives for women and how entrepreneurship and of family assistance seem incompatible, or the article by Logan (2014) , as it analyzes the relationship between family and entrepreneurship, but refers to the support received from the partner or spouse.

A total of 92 articles were analyzed in this study (Annex 1 in Supplementary Material ).

Figure 1 shows the flow Diagram of the study according to the recommendations of the PRISMA method.

Figure 1 . PRISMA 2009 flow diagram.

Different types of indicators have been used.

Specifically, we analyzed year of publication, the productivity of authors, countries and journals, research area (e.g., Social Science, Business and Management, Economic etc.), type of research and sample. In addition, in order to measure the impact on productivity and on citation of an author's publications and journals we used the h -index ( Hirsch, 2005 ). In this sense, as underlined by Gaviria-Marin et al. (2018) , it is an important bibliometric indicator that is commonly used by researchers given its ease of interpretation.

To analyze the most investigated thematic areas, was used the analysis of the co-occurrence of the authors' keywords, through the VOSviewer software version 1.6.10 ( Van Eck and Waltman, 2010 , 2014 ). It is a bibliometric technique that allows graphic representation, identification and classification of clusters in a strategic matrix associated on the basis of similarities and dissimilarities (distance-based maps). Moreover, while the qualitative analysis of the literature can be affected by the subjectivity of the author, this method allows to overcome this problem, becoming an instrument of undisputed and consolidated analysis ( Vallaster et al., 2019 ), used in presently ( Valenzuela et al., 2017 ; Martínez-López et al., 2018 ).

In Table 1 we show a summary of the main methodological features of the study.

Table 1 . Characteristics of the bibliometric study.

Figure 2 illustrates the growth, during the period 1989–2019, of the family role and entrepreneurship publications in the international scene. Research has experienced great development in recent years, in fact, since 2011, the interest in topics concerning the relationship between family and entrepreneurship has increased significantly, recording the most profitable peak of publications in 2017. Although only the first 3 months of 2019 are included in the data set, 4 articles had already been published during this period.

Figure 2 . Evolution of publications.

This increase in publications in recent years may suggest a continuous evolution of family role in entrepreneurship as current and still valid research trend topic.

In order to analyze the trend of research in the family/parent support and entrepreneurship constructs, we used the dimensions obtained from cluster analysis. Figure 3 shows the progress of the research from 1989 to 2019. As noted, the constructs are associated with different fields of research, emphasizing the multidisciplinary character.

Figure 3 . Article published by cluster by year.

For example, over the years, the trend of research interests has changed. From the interest shown by the literature toward the cultural and social dimension (cluster 1—red line) and toward the individual personological characteristics of the entrepreneur (cluster 4—yellow line), in recent years the dimension that has received the most attention is the family one. The two most in-depth research themes, with a peak of interest between 2017 and 2018, are: the influence of parental role models and the educational dimension in the development of entrepreneurial intentions (cluster 3—turquoise line), and the importance of family support (cluster 5—purple line), especially in developing countries and disadvantaged groups, such as female entrepreneurship.

Furthermore, in the year 2019 it would seem that there is a potential recovery for the theme of family businesses as factors of economic development, but clusters 2 and 3 would still seem to be actual.

Afterwards, we analyzed the productivity of scientific journals, generating a list of 92 articles. For the purposes of our analysis, we have considered journals with a minimum of 3 publications on the subject, classifying them from the most productive to the least productive. As can be seen from Table 2 , the scientific journal that has more active the role of the family in the entrepreneurial process is International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research ( n = 6 articles; h -index = 44).

Table 2 . Article with the most publications on the subject.

The analysis also revealed the multidisciplinary nature of the research area. Most publications ( n = 71) are related to business and management research, but others come from psychology and social sciences ( n = 14), economics ( n = 6), and engineering ( n = 1).

We performed as well an analysis to identify the authors who, are considered most influential in the development of this field of study. In the 92 articles that were part of the bibliometric study, a total of 239 authors were found (2.59 authors per article). 90.9% contributed with only one work on the subject, which shows that it is a highly dispersed field, probably due to its multidisciplinary nature.

This interpretation gained more strength after verifying that only 8 authors participated in two or more articles, as shown in Table 3 . The first 3 authors with 4 articles are Kaciak, E. (h-index = 8); Memili, E. (h-index = 13), and Welsh, D. (h-index = 14).

Table 3 . Authors with the greatest number of articles published.

Were also analyzed the countries where the research field of our object of study is more developed ( Figure 4 ). Therefore, for the purposes of this analysis we have considered only countries with a minimum of 3 publications. The United States is the country with the largest number of publications ( n = 20), followed by India ( n = 9), and Canada ( n = 7). The United Kingdom ( n = 6) and Spain ( n = 5) follow, in fourth and fifth place of the rank, and represent the two most productive countries in Europe in terms of research on the role of the family and entrepreneurship.

Figure 4 . Publications of countries.

Finally, we conducted an analysis on the nature of the research and the type of sample. The quantitative analysis is the most used in the selected studies (69.6%), using a variety of analysis techniques: descriptive ( n = 34) logistic, linear and hierarchical regression ( n = 22); confirmatory, using Structural Equation Modeling ( n = 14); correlation ( n = 17); t -test ( n = 6); univariate ( n = 5); and multivariate ( n = 4). Qualitative studies ( n = 19), on the other hand, the ones less frequently used are: observation ( n = 3), case studies ( n = 5), interviews ( n = 6), in-depth interviews ( n = 8), and focus group ( n = 1), representing only 20.7% of the studies. Most of the articles applied more than one analysis technique. Finally, four articles (4.4%) used a mixed method (quantitative and qualitative research).

The results are summarized in Table 4 .

Table 4 . Nature of research and type of sample.

Descriptive statistics and regression analysis are the most commonly used techniques in the reviewed articles, followed by correlation analysis and confirmation analysis through Structural Equation Modeling. The latter was mostly used, especially in more recent articles.

As for the type of sample used, the studies with entrepreneurs prevailed in 59.9% of the analyzed articles (of which 26.7% were female entrepreneurs), while the studies that analyzed students accounted for 30.5%. 7.7% of the studies considered other types of samples that do not fall into the categories previously explained.

En general, to identify the state of research on the relationship between family role and entrepreneurship, proceeded the co-occurrence analysis with one occurrence per keyword, for a total frequency of 237 authors' keywords grouped in 25 clusters.

As shown in Figure 5 , the stronger relationships are graphically represented by larger circles and labels. The research topics most closely examined by scholars deals with entrepreneurship, family support and entrepreneurial intent.

Figure 5 . One co-occurrence for keywords. Source: VOSviewer version 1.6.10.

For the purposes of the study, we have narrowed the field, performing a co-occurrence analysis with a minimum of three occurrences for keyword, for a total of 22 authors' keywords. The mapping and grouping provides a general review of the research in the context of entrepreneurial literature and in Figure 6 are shown the five most relevant clusters. Each cluster is represented by a different color that highlights the relationship between them while the distance between the clusters provides information on the intensity of the relationship ( Van Eck and Waltman, 2010 ).

Figure 6 . Three co-occurrence for keywords. Source: VOSviewer version 1.6.10.

Cluster 1: Cultural Dimension and Gender Issue (7 Items)

The occurrence of 21.8% of the keywords studied is associated with the red cluster formed by the following keywords: culture, women, female entrepreneurship, entrepreneurialism, gender, social capital and students.

The cultural dimension is one of the key elements for the family background and entrepreneurial process. According to some authors ( Li, 2007 ; Gurel et al., 2010 ; Castillo-Palacio et al., 2017 ) the social and family context in which the individual growths, shapes his creative thinking, predisposes him to innovation and risk perception, develops social capital, generates value, thus creating cultures that encourage more entrepreneurship and autonomy than others.

As suggested by Zhao et al. (2012) there are two different theoretical explanations about the role that culture plays in business world. The first one, of a psychological nature, acting at the individual level ( Hayton et al., 2002 ) and presupposes that culture acts on the skills and abilities of individual, modifying the behavior. The second line, based on institutional theory, considers culture as a substratum of the community, so some societies are more likely to promote entrepreneurial processes.

Several authors use this prospective to analyze entrepreneurial activity in different contexts, for example, Welsh et al. (2018) , applying institutional theory, compared women entrepreneurs in Morocco and Turkey. Other studies have focused on other business contexts ( McIntosh and Islam, 2010 ; Ramadani, 2015 ), predominantly Islamic ( Anggadwita et al., 2015 ; Mohd Rhouse et al., 2016 ), and Middle Eastern cultures ( Bastian et al., 2018 ).

From this point of view, the cultural dimension is closely related to the “woman” variable and more generally to the “gender issue” because, as several studies have shown ( Freytag and Thurik, 2007 ; Sengupta et al., 2013 ), behavior is often a consequence of different socio-cultural values that are taught and learned since youth and that last over time, which also applies to entrepreneurial behavior ( Hofstede, 2001 ; Eid, 2006 ).

Indeed, despite the positive aspects of entrepreneurship understood as a career accessible to all and economically advantageous, a more in-depth analysis shows that there are many cultural obstacles ( Ahl and Marlow, 2012 ), especially for women.

Specifically, the gap between male and female entrepreneurship has been explained by various theories, among which the most exhaustive is the “Social Role Theory” developed by Eagly (1987) . According to this explanation, the male group is configured as the ideal for the entrepreneurial field ( Bird and Brush, 2002 ), while women consider entrepreneurship less as a career path ( Ahl, 2006 ).

Rubio-Bañón and Esteban-Lloret (2016 ) conducted a research to analyze the possible differences between male and female entrepreneurs in 55 different countries, considering cultural factors as among the most relevant hindrances for entrepreneurship ( Bosma and Kelley, 2018 ). The observed results do not yet confirm that cultures with a higher rate of masculinity lead to a greater gender gap in female entrepreneurship rates. Other research has shown that in communities with high virility, women can share and take ownership of these cultural values and be more motivated toward an entrepreneurial career.

Indeed, the relationship between gender and cultural beliefs is still unclear: some studies have shown that women are pursue less an entrepreneurial career ( Chen et al., 1998 ; Gupta et al., 2005 ). Other studies, instead, suggest that in cultures considered to be stereotypically masculine, women are more inclined toward entrepreneurial activity ( Mueller and Conway Dato-on, 2008 ; Cardozo Crowe, 2010 ).

The cultural component, as a substrate of a society, comes into play with the variable “students,” in fact, as the literature shows, it is important to adopt policies that support entrepreneurial development at school.

The promotion and enhancement of the “entrepreneurial culture” has become an important component in the initiatives and in the offer of services for students. Universities are called to accept this challenge to prepare students for the acquisition of entrepreneurial skills and competences that allow them to cope with the multiplicity of today's society, in constant evolution and change ( Bygrave, 2004 ).

Promoting student entrepreneurship means making them more aware of their future, in the field of business, to translate ideas into actions.

This cluster shows a relationship with the main terms of the analysis: entrepreneurship and family support, because cultural factors pass through the micro-social dimension of society, including the institutions that live in that community. Social agencies like the school, but also the family, have the task of creating an entrepreneurial-supportive environment that can encourage entrepreneurial activities in students, helping to develop an entrepreneurial culture ( Roffe, 1999 ). Supporting this point of view, many authors ( Pruett et al., 2009 ; Al-Harthi, 2017 ) agree that regardless of the type of person, different strategies can be used to motivate the students in choosing an entrepreneurial career, encouraging them to work independently and to expose them to entrepreneurial success stories that can serve as models for the acquisition of skills, technical knowledge and relevant know-how.

Cluster 2: Family Business and Succession (4 Items)

The green cluster consists of the following keywords: family business, succession, economic development, and Arabia Saudita, which constitute the 12.1% of the occurrences.

The authors agree that the factor that distinguishes family and non-family businesses is the intention to transfer the control of the company to its following generation ( Chua et al., 1999 ), a factor that also contributes to economic growth in the developing countries (and also in advanced economies).

The intertwining of family firms and business has a profound impact on entrepreneurial experiences, especially for children, it is so influential that it is considered by Rogoff and Heck (2003) , together with human capital and education, as the oxygen that fuels the entrepreneurial fire.

Family businesses are important, not only from a financial point of view, but also because provide long-term stability in the labor market because of the responsibility they show to communities, since they convey values and knowledge. All these factors are valuable instruments of change to counteract the current financial crisis. As highlighted in the final report on family businesses, conducted in 2009 by the European Commission, at European level, more than 60% of existing businesses are family-run. “Most SMEs (especially micro and small enterprises) are family businesses and a large majority of family companies are SMEs” ( European Commission, 2009 , p. 4).

However, the successor's intention to continue their family's business depends on whether their parents are willing to support them, contributing to the development and success of their family activities ( De Massis et al., 2014 ). In fact, despite the undoubted importance that family succession has from an economic and social point of view, international studies have shown that the newer generation has low interest as well as intention to work in their parents' business ( Zellweger, 2017 ). According to the Sieger et al. (2016) , conducted in 50 countries, 8.8% of the 122,000 university students intend to start their own business, but only 2.7% want to be part of the family business. A model of “employee first, then founder” emerges 5 years after studies, in which 38.2% intend to found a business, but only 4.8% consider themselves as employee in their own family business ( Sieger et al., 2016 ). Similar results were achieved by Zellweger et al. (2011) , who found that the possibility of being able to inherit the family business does not make it a desirable choice. The successors tend to feel confident about their skills and knowledges, but appear pessimistic about the succession because they considered themselves less autonomous.

In the current context, characterized by an aging population and the desire of many entrepreneurs to transfer the family business to their children, this result is worrying ( Garcia et al., 2018 ).

The performance of those who enter the family business is better when perceived family responsibility as strong, this result highlights the strength of family expectations in positively influencing members' performance ( Dawson et al., 2015 ).

One of the very few studies on the succession of daughters in the family business, conducted by Overbeke et al. (2013) , examined the factors that may contribute to this generational shift. The results revealed that family support and leadership tutoring are the most important elements.

Parental support in family businesses is very important not only in the succession phase, but also when the company is consolidated, for example, based on data from 228 entrepreneurs, Marshall et al. (2018) found that the active involvement of the family creates a common destiny among members that favors resilience for an entrepreneur, compared to the owners of non-family businesses.

It is important to understand that the factors that influence the intentions of the members of the next generation to undertake an entrepreneurial career requires a systemic analysis that also considers the behaviors of their parents ( Nordqvist and Melin, 2010 ) and the perception that children have of this support ( Garcia et al., 2018 ).

Cluster 3: Parental Role Models and Entrepreneurial Intention (4 Items)

The third cluster associates the following keywords: entrepreneurial intention, entrepreneurship education, parental role models and self-efficacy. The 22.6% of keywords are related to this cluster which emphasizes the importance of entrepreneurial education, parental role model and self-efficacy for entrepreneurial intention development.

Historically, intentions have been considered as the antecedent of behavior ( Ajzen and Fishbein, 1977 ; Ajzen, 1991 ). The meta-analysis by Sheeran (2002) conducted on 422 studies, showed that the correlation between intentions and behavior explains 28% of the variance in behavior. For this reason, much of the literature has been interested in studying the factors influencing intentions. In this regard, in recent decades, great importance has been attached to the positive influence played by role models in improving the intentions of choosing an entrepreneurial career. Bosma et al. (2012) found that 54% of a sample of 292 entrepreneurs had a role model (20% in the pre-start-up phase, 10% in the post-start-up phase and 24% in both phases), in addition, one-third of the sample stated that they would not have founded their company without this role model.

The positive influence of role models on entrepreneurial intentions has been empirically analyzed in various cultural contexts. A German study by Chlosta et al. (2012) showed that parental role models increased the likelihood of individuals becoming self-employed. Urbano et al. (2011) , instead, established that individuals with the same ethnicity can act as a model, encouraging other individuals in the community to create new businesses. The study conducted by Pablo-Lerchundi et al. (2015) showed that the profession carried out by parents influences the entrepreneurial intentions of students, who were more likely to choose an entrepreneurial career if their parents were entrepreneurs than children of public officials. In recent years, the impact of role models on entrepreneurial process was confirmed in different professional categories, as in academic entrepreneurs ( Fernández-Pérez et al., 2015 ) and active entrepreneurs ( Bosma et al., 2012 ; Fritsch et al., 2012 ).

Self-efficacy has also been considered an important factor that increases the intentions to undertake a certain behavior, especially if associated with a positive attitude toward this behavior ( Markham et al., 2002 ). Relationship between self-efficacy and parental role models as well as attitudes toward entrepreneurship have been established in numerous studies. For instance, Carr and Sequeira (2007) in a research conducted on 308 individuals, found direct and indirect effects of previous family exposures on entrepreneurial intention, through the mediation of perceived family support and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. BarNir et al. (2011) , which indicated the positive influence of role models on entrepreneurial intention and the role of mediation exercised by self-efficacy, arrived at the same conclusion. Similar studies were conducted for female university students ( Sahinidis et al., 2019 ). Laviolette et al. (2012) found that role models positively influence entrepreneurial intentions by increasing self-efficacy, provided that such models are positively perceived by individuals, so as to enable them to identify themselves.

Furthermore, role models also play a key role in entrepreneurial training processes, positively influencing the development of entrepreneurial skills ( Heinonen and Poikkijoki, 2006 ). Entrepreneurship education, effectively, influences on the intention of undertaking autonomous activities through two objectives: creating and spreading knowledge ( Perreira and Da Silva, 2003 ) and encouraging students to develop skills in human capital ( Gupta and York, 2008 ). The importance given to the role of education in the entrepreneurial process is underlined by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) which dedicated the special theme of 2008 to Entrepreneurship Education and Training.

In the literature there are studies that explain how perceived family support can come into play in this process. For example, in a research by Denanyoh et al. (2015) emerged that university support, structural support and emotional support of the family are important factors that influence the entrepreneurial intention of students in Ghana. The same result emerges from a study conducted by Bignotti and le Roux (2016) which found that entrepreneurship education and family support positively influence students' need for achievement and entrepreneurial intentions. In another study conducted, Laguía et al. (2019 ) found that the perceived family support and university support are positively associated with entrepreneurial intentions in students. Furthermore, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial education moderate the relationship between support and entrepreneurial intention.

At the same time, the research emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship education as a possible tool that, based on skills and knowledge useful to the subjects in order to achieve greater self-confidence and security, could lead to overcoming the gap between men and women in the entrepreneurial field (gender bias).

Entrialgo and Iglesias (2017) , on a sample of 338 students found that the role models and entrepreneurship education have a greater positive influence on attitudes toward entrepreneurship in women compared to men.

Exposure to parental role models and entrepreneurship education can be used as tools to reduce the negative prejudicial effects, in general and those related to female entrepreneurship in particular, improving attitudes toward an autonomous career choice.

Cluster 4: Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment (4 Items)

The co-occurrence of 25% of keywords is related to the fourth cluster that shows the greatest number of connections in the map. The following words are part of this cluster: entrepreneurship, self-employment, entrepreneurs, and personalities ( Figure 7 ).

Figure 7 . Relations of the yellow cluster. Source: VOSviewer version 1.6.10.

Entrepreneurship is considered instrumental to economic growth and technological development ( Fellnhofer and Kraus, 2015 ; Nowinski and Haddoud, 2019 ), as an important source of employment in developed and developing countries ( Kuratko, 2005 ). It is not just a factor of economic growth aimed at creating new jobs; it also constitutes a useful personal development tool contributing to the resolution of social issues by promoting a society capable of attributing the correct value to the entrepreneurial mind, and by fostering development of positive attitudes in achieving objectives that concern the community. For example, according to The European Commission (2003) , it is a state of mind and a process aimed at creating and developing economic activity by combining willingness to take risks, creativity and innovation.

For the reasons mentioned above, discovering which factors, at the micro and macro level, can lead people to pursue an entrepreneurial career, in recent decades has been the one of the central theme of scholars. In particular, studies conducted on the characteristics of potential entrepreneurs tend to focus, especially on the importance attributed to personality traits (this explains the strong relationship between the words “entrepreneurship” and “personality”), but also, albeit with less strong relationships, to the resources accumulated from education and experience (educational and family background) ( Serneels, 2008 ) and specific behavioral models ( Liñán and Fayolle, 2015 ), which is why, in our analysis, it represents the construct with more relationships with other clusters .

The study of the phenomenon of entrepreneurship can be divided into two phases. In the initial stages of the research, the psychological literature has focused on the study of the personality and the motivations that push a subject to undertake this choice and that can lead to a possible work and personal success ( Boyd and Vozikis, 1994 ). Caird (1993) , in an attempt to trace a profile of the typical entrepreneur, offered a synthesis of the results of the researches that have used psychological tests on entrepreneurs, it is necessary to underline that the poor homogeneity of the entrepreneurial population represents a critical aspect for this survey. For this reason, currently, the focus has shifted to the interaction between socio-economic and cultural reality, and decision-making behaviors capable of influencing a chain of events on different levels (personal, family, and economic) ( Shane, 2003 ; Rauch and Frese, 2007 ). What we are witnessing, in fact, is a decentralization of personal characteristics and a greater attention to complex behaviors acted along different phases of the entrepreneurial process. However, the effects of the cultural-family component have not yet been fully clarified ( Ucbasaran et al., 2008 ). Research on the creation of new businesses has focused mainly on the importance of higher education and employment, with a limited emphasis on education received in the family. This could be the explanation about the challenging why it is so difficult to establish clear links between the role of the family and the potential entrepreneurial spirit.

Cluster 5: Family Support and Women Entrepreneurs (3 Items)

Finally, the fifth cluster in purple shows the closeness and strength of connection in the words family support, women entrepreneurs and India. Together with cluster four, it represents the heart of this analysis, which is why even if the number of keywords related to this cluster is low (18.5% of the occurrences) it is the second cluster with the greatest number of relationships with others ( Figure 8 ).

Figure 8 . Relations of the violet cluster. Source: VOSviewer version 1.6.10.

In most societies, especially in developing countries, women's access to entrepreneurship is difficult. The possible explanations have been analyzed in the literature and, although with some socio-cultural differences, they can be summarized as follows: poor social background and lack of support family; conflicts family/care responsibilities; inadequate training; lack of institutional and social interest; consequences of male domination in society and socio-economic discrimination ( Kibas, 2006 ; Mutuku et al., 2006 ; Lockyer and George, 2012 ; Raghuvanshi et al., 2017 ). In recent years, many researchers have analyzed female entrepreneurship and associated limitations ( Gautam and Mishra, 2016 ; Raghuvanshi et al., 2017 ).

For example, in our analysis, several studies have underlined the importance of family support, when external support systems are limited, especially economically disadvantaged countries or in the case of female entrepreneurship ( Pearson et al., 2008 ; Chang et al., 2009 , 2012 ).

Family support is important with particular reference to women entrepreneurs ( Neneh, 2017 ; Welsh et al., 2018 ), particularly for those who may not have access to other networks during the business development process ( Greve and Salaf, 2003 ), but also in finding the right balance between family duties and working. In this direction, are the results of a research conducted by Heilbrunn and Davidovitch (2011) with 11 Israeli women entrepreneurs. The support perceived by the family can be even more valuable in the case of entrepreneurial families, because they become models for aspiring entrepreneurs during the process of preparing for the adventure, influencing entrepreneurial intentions ( Ahmed et al., 2012 ; Edelman et al., 2016 ; Zhu et al., 2017 ).

As a result, the study also confirmed the positive influence of family members, in terms of support, in the strategic management process. In fact, family members act as positive educational models, which can contribute to starting a business and successful management ( Steier, 2003 ; Arregle et al., 2007 ), through knowledge and values that are handed down to the children become their human and social capital.

In addition, family members can provide the entrepreneur with a financial start capital of family finances (for example, in the initial phases) or help obtain external funding sources ( Aldrich and Cliff, 2003 ; Anderson et al., 2005 ). Furthermore, they can offer the necessary work and support that can be useful for creating and managing a business ( Teixeira, 2001 ; Karra et al., 2006 ).

We could fundamentally highlight two types of family support, emotional/relational, and economic/financial, both a vital resource for supporting entrepreneurship, and useful for both entrepreneurial and economic growth ( Shen et al., 2017 ). In this sense it is wise to expect that emotional support is important especially in developing intentions, as a source of encouragement for those who have no direct experience and can rely on the resources of their families.

While the economic one comes into play, especially in the start-up phase of a business, a transition from intention to behavior, which affects a larger slice of the population.

In line with Aldrich and Cliff (2003) , the family plays a key role in the children's enterprise, not only economically, but also by providing knowledge for new initiatives (for example, advice on how to start a business). Sometimes, even “new ideas” ( Dyer and Handler, 1994 ).

Through this work, we carry out a systematic review of the literature on the role of the family in the entrepreneurial process, using different types of bibliometric indicators and cluster analysis.

In the research and selection phase of the articles, we have used various databases of proven utility, such as Scopus, Web of Science and Business Source. Several conclusions emerged from our analysis.

From the results of the bibliometric indicators, it is a relatively recent area of study, but in continuous evolution, considering that the first articles date back to the year 1989, and from a multidisciplinary field of study, which as shown by the analysis of scientific journals, it is mainly linked to the business and management field, and even if in a smaller number, also to social and psychological sciences, economics, and engineering.

Moreover, as shown in Figure 6 , research on the role of the family in entrepreneurial activity has grown considerably, especially over the last decade with the United States of America being the country with the most publications on the topic ( n = 20).

The review also reveals that the scientific journals with the greatest number of publications on the subject is the International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior and Research ( n = 6), while the most productive author is Kaciak Eugene ( n = 4).

Regarding the analysis structure, the most important result is the fact that it is a field of study with non-sharply outlined borders that lacks systematization, probably due to its multidisciplinary character. Indeed, 90.9% of researchers contributed with only one work, this result acquired a greater intensity when it was verified that only 8 authors participated in two or more articles from the examined databases.

As for the cluster analysis, five themes have been highlighted which try to better explain the relationship between family role and entrepreneurship. Specifically, we found: (1) cultural dimension and gender issue, (2) family business and succession, (3) parental role models and entrepreneurial intention, (4) entrepreneurship and self-employment, (5) family support and women entrepreneurs.

Furthermore, the analysis also found that most of the research focused on different themes.

The cluster that obtained the highest percentage of co-occurrences is the yellow one, associated with the following keywords: entrepreneurship, self-employment, entrepreneurs, and personalities, and is also the cluster with the greatest number of relationships with other clusters, especially with family support and exposure to parental role models, emphasizing once again the importance that family has in the entrepreneurial process. On the contrary, the cluster with the lowest percentage of co-occurrences keywords is related to family business, succession, economic development, and Arabia Saudita.

This result could be a good starting point for future research, as it suggests that there are many opportunities to increase and further develop knowledge about the relationship between the role of the family and entrepreneurship. For example, it might be useful to reflect on the possible role that exposure to parental role models plays in corporate succession and analyze any differences through the comparison between entrepreneurial and non-entrepreneurial families. Future research could analyze how and why exposure to models of parental role, or support perceived by family members, has a different influence in different cultures and contexts, especially in disadvantaged contexts, making clear reference to Hofstede's cultural dimensions. It could reflect on why, some contexts, families emotionally support the new generations, promoting entrepreneurial behavior, even in females, while others do not, even if both belong to a stereotypically considered patriarchal culture at the macro level.

Some limitations should be noted. First, in this study, only peer-reviewed articles are considered, eliminating other types of documents, such as book chapters and conference papers. Although this is considered important for the purposes of reliability and quality of the results, it can represent a limit as part of the scientific contributions has been neglected limiting a more detailed knowledge on the research object.

Furthermore, it should be stressed that there is a tendency to mention journals that have open access. There are also journals that can be accessed through payment and that publish articles in languages other than English and Spanish. These are limitations that the reader should consider.

From a purely methodological point of view, some considerations must be made. This article focuses on a group of bibliometric indicators to examine the articles published in the selected databases. Alternative objective analysis techniques and different databases could be useful to provide a systematic description of the literature and to analyze each relevant topic concerning the support of the family from a different point of view, in order to adequately understand the research evolution and propose future research directions in a more accurate way.

Moreover, as regards cluster analysis, even if it is considered a reliable scientific method widely recognized by scholars ( Rafols et al., 2010 ) because it offers an immediate and simple interpretation of the information and the contextualization of a specific one research field, even for non-experts, the boundaries between the various clusters are not always clearly interpreted. This could derive from the fact that the same article can be part of different clusters if it contains keywords that are part of several clusters. For this reason, the mappings should not be considered as tools that provide unequivocal answers to emerging problems, but heuristic methods useful for opening plural perspectives in order to give information about a given field of research.

Furthermore, as pointed out by Rafols et al. (2012) , the analysis through maps is very complex in studies on innovation, business, and management as it provides a limited number of significant relationships that take into account the amount of keywords considered (for example, only 22 keywords were generated in this study). This result may be a limitation considering the multidisciplinary nature of the research field and the high fragmentation that characterizes specialized literature.

This study sought to define the boundaries of existing research and at the same time to bring new perspectives of future research, through theoretical and methodological suggestions, aiming to be useful for the development and discovery of new fields of study, expanding the knowledge about the relationship between family support and entrepreneurship. This is an important aspect, not only for academic research and for professionals, but for the agents responsible to promote the entrepreneurial spirit in the community, important as it emerged also in our analysis, at the micro and macro level, for human, social, and economic growth.

Author Contributions

In the contribution for this survey we describe in detail the following: GC has selected all the useful information for this review. BH-S has provided interesting details on the subject. JS-G examined the final document and the methodological protocol. The authors have decided to approve the final work and take full responsibility for the originality of the research.

This research was funded by the Board of Education of the Junta de Castilla y León (ref J424), Spain.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

We thank the Chair of Entrepreneurs University of Salamanca for supporting the research and monitoring of all activities.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02939/full#supplementary-material

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Keywords: entrepreneur, family support, parent role, literature review, role models

Citation: Cardella GM, Hernández-Sánchez BR and Sánchez García JC (2020) Entrepreneurship and Family Role: A Systematic Review of a Growing Research. Front. Psychol. 10:2939. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02939

Received: 19 July 2019; Accepted: 11 December 2019; Published: 10 January 2020.

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Copyright © 2020 Cardella, Hernández-Sánchez and Sánchez García. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Brizeida Raquel Hernández-Sánchez, brizeida@usal.es

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

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Contextualizing employment outcomes in family business research: current findings and future research avenues

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• Stefano Amato   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-4724-5668 1 ,
• Rodrigo Basco 2 &
• Nicola Lattanzi 1  

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The empirical evidence of family business phenomenon in terms of employment outcomes is contradictory highlighting the micro–macro gap in the existing research. To address this contradiction, our study disentangles the role of context in family firms’ employment outcomes. To do so, we conduct a systematic literature review of 67 articles focusing on three employment-related outcomes—namely, growth, downsizing, and quality of labour—published in peer-reviewed journals from 1980 to 2020. Based on a two-by-two framework to classify this extant research, we unpack what we know about family firms and employment outcomes and where we can go from here. We highlight three main findings. First, current research is context-less since has mainly focused on the firm level in one context (i.e., region or country) and there is a lack of studies comparing family firms’ employment outcomes in different contexts and explicitly measuring the effects of contextual dimensions on family firms’ employment outcomes. This context-less approach could explain the conflicting results and lack of theoretical predictability about the family effect on employment across contexts. Second, the lack of understanding of the context in which family firms dwell highlights the need for future research to focus on context by theorizing about employment outcomes—that is, measuring context and its interactions with family- and job-related variables. Third, there is a need to further explore, analyse, and theorize on the aggregate effect of family firms on employment outcomes at different level of analysis (e.g., local, regional, and national).

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1 Introduction

Recent decades have witnessed a surge of anecdotal stories and fact-based news (e.g., Schwartz 2020 ) showing the special commitment of family firms to their stakeholders, and specifically toward their employees. The main assumption is that family involvement in the firm results in certain specificities such as family oriented goals (Williams et al. 2019 ), long term orientation, nepotism culture, and social capital which affect the way human resources are managed (Jeong et al. 2021 ). This factual information also has a scientific counterpart, reflected in the increasing number of research articles trying to unveil the effect of family involvement in the firm’s role as employer regarding job creation, downsizing, and quality of employment. However, the empirical evidence is still contradictory. For instance, while at the firm level, most empirical research has found that family firms are able to grow in terms of employment (Becchetti and Trovato 2002 ) and downsize less during economic crises (Lee 2006 ), at the aggregate level, family firms are related to less developed regions (Chang et al. 2008 ) and to economic entrenchment based on political rent seeking as an impediment of economic growth (Morck and Yeung 2004 ). This contradiction brings to the fore the micro–macro gap in the family business phenomenon in terms of employment outcomes.

Following Bamberger’s thesis ( 2008 ), we argue that the aforementioned micro–macro gap is due to the failure of research efforts to move from a simple contextualization approach to context theory approach (Krueger et al. 2021 ). That is, the positive or negative influence of family involvement in firms in terms of employment could depend on the context in which family firms’ dwell. More specifically, we propose that context may help shed new light on why, when, and where the dark or bright sides of family firms emerge because context can boost or hinder (Johns 2006 ) the family’s influence on employment outcomes. In dealing with this gap, we follow Gomez-Mejia et al. ( 2020 ) and James et al. ( 2020 ) to argue that context has been overlooked across levels of analysis when explaining the phenomenon of employment outcomes within family business research.

To begin this debate, we conducted a systematic literature review on employment outcomes in family business research by focusing on a two-by-two framework based level of analysis and meaning of context. In so doing, we classified 67 published articles in peer-reviewed journals from 1980 to 2020 to answer the following research question: What do we know about family firms and employment outcomes and where can we can go from here?

Our article contributes to the family firm debate in several ways. First, it attempts to incorporate the dimensions of context and level of analysis in family business research to explain why and how employment outcomes vary across space and time. In this sense, we identify an alternative source for family firm heterogeneity to improve our understanding of how different contexts may shape the way family firms are owned, governed, and managed in terms of employment outcomes. While family involvement in economic activities seems to be the raison d'etre for family business scholars, they cannot ignore how contexts constrain or enable the phenomenon itself.

Second, the contextualization of family business research offers the opportunity to challenge the current theoretical approaches (e.g., agency theory and stewardship theory, among others) to test the validity of their theoretical predictions not only in particular family business samples but also across contexts, thereby making theory more context sensitive. This step is important for family business research to gain external legitimacy by developing an inverse contribution path (Pérez Rodríguez and Basco 2011 )—that is, by generating contributions in the family business field that can be spread into the main research field. Third, we conclude that applying a context theorizing approach—that is, allowing context to play a more important role in family business research at the firm and aggregate levels—may help analyse, describe, and predict employment outcomes for family firms. Further, our framework can be used as a template to analyse what we know and where to go for other family business–related topics. In this sense, the proposed approach is a tool for developing further the current theory-building process in family business by closing the micro–macro gap in current research.

Finally, beyond the aforementioned academic contributions, our article offers a new perspective to interpret family firms that could be useful for both family firm and policymakers. For business families, our research puts family businesses’ connections with their employees into perspective by considering context. This perspective is important not only for local but also for international firms that operate in different institutional and geographical settings to understand their strategies and consequences related to employment. For policymakers, particularly those who develop and implement public policies to stimulate employment in certain areas or mitigate the social costs of downsizing in adversity (e.g., business cycle fluctuations), our review could contribute to their understanding of how economic actors (i.e., family firms) react to public policy stimuli (Basco and Bartkevičiūtė 2016 ).

In the following sections, we first describe the conceptual background. We then explain the methodology used to carry out our systematic literature review. Following that, we synthetize the literature based on our conceptual framework and present the main findings. Finally, we suggest future research directions.

2 A framework to bridge the micro–macro gap

While family business scholars have focused on describing the distinctive behaviour and performance between family and non-family firms and among different types of family firms, current research has been mainly disconnected from macro- (Krueger et al. 2021 ) and micro (De Massis and Foss 2018 ) foundations to explain such distinctive behaviour and performance. Following the debate about micro–macro gap in management (Aguinis et al. 2011 ), and specifically in family business research (Gomez-Mejia et al. 2020 ), we propose a two-by-two framework with the purpose of delimitating the boundaries of our study enabling us to further explore the content of current research. In this sense, with the two-by-two framework, we attempted to segment and classify extant knowledge in sub-categories of homogenous groups of research during the collection process, frame our interpretations in sub-categories after analysing the retrieved articles, and visualize future research lines to bridge the highlighted micro–macro gap.

Basically, the framework combines two dimensions. First, the level of analysis represents the focus of research at the firm or aggregate level. The firm level of analysis focuses on the influence of family involvement on firms’ employment outcomes—that is, on firms’ creation (i.e., growth) and destruction (i.e., downsizing) of jobs as well as quality of employment. Conversely, the aggregate level of analysis focuses on exploring the role of family firms from a supra-organizational perspective—that is, by assuming territories with administrative and symbolic boundaries as the unit of analysis. In particular, the aggregate level enhances our understanding of the ways family firms contribute to or hamper employment at the industrial, local, and regional levels in which they are situated. In other words, the primary aim of exploring the aggregate level of analysis is to understand family firms’ collective role in terms of the growth, reduction and quality of employment.

Second, the meaning of context represents the extent to which context is implicitly or explicitly incorporated into research to understand how it affects or is affected by the family firm phenomenon (Bamberger 2008 ; Gomez-Mejia et al. 2020 ; Krueger et al. 2021 ). There are two different meanings of context. First, the “context as container” which does not consider explicitly the geographical, cultural, and institutional dimensions potentially affecting the phenomenon under study. For the context-as-container meaning, there are two approaches. The context-by-sampling approach is a research strategy aimed at investigating the phenomenon under study in a specific contextual setting and the context-by-comparing approach entails comparing the phenomenon under study in different contextual settings. Second, the “context as covariate” is when research accounts for some contextual dimensions that may influence the phenomenon under study. The context-as-covariate meaning is related to the context-by-theorizing approach, which embraces the interaction between context (by measuring it) and the phenomenon under study.

Table 1 summarizes the conceptual framework combining level of analysis and meaning of context to form four possible combinations (quadrants) of research. Quadrant A (firm level and context as a container) includes research that investigates family firms in a specific contextual setting shaped by institutional, social, cultural, and territorial factors (context by sampling approach) or research that includes family firms in different contextual settings with the aim of highlighting heterogeneity of family firms in different institutional, social, cultural, and territorial contexts (context by comparing approach). Quadrant B (firm level and context as a covariate) entails the recognition and measurement of contextual dimensions that shape or are shaped by the family firm (context by theorizing approach).

The last two quadrants in the second column are related to the aggregate level of analysis. Quadrant C (aggregate level and context as a container) integrates research focusing on the aggregate family firms’ effect on creating or downsizing employment but in one specific contextual setting (context by sampling approach) or using more than one contextual setting to compare the aggregate family firms’ effect on creating or downsizing employment (context by comparing approach). Quadrant D (aggregate level and context as covariate) considers context as situational opportunities or constraints that can be measured to determine their impact on family firm employment or a representative group of family firms and their contributions to employment outcomes at the industry, local, regional, or aggregate level (context by theorizing).

3 Methodology

We decided to conduct a systematic review of the literature as a rigorous scientific procedure to minimize researcher bias in the process of addressing our research questions: What do we know about family firms and employment outcomes and where can we can go from here? For this purpose, we adopted the methodological approach suggested by Tranfield et al. ( 2003 ). The proposed systematic selection process (Denyer and Tranfield, 2009 ; Jesson et al. 2013 ) is advantageous because it enables relevant contributions to be identified by means of explicit and reproducible selection criteria. Following Hoon and Baluch ( 2020 ), our consolidated interrogation approach in the emerging field of family business studies looks for commonalities and confirming consensus to bridge the micro–macro gap around the topic of employment outcomes.

First, in the planning stage, we created a preliminary protocol Footnote 1 to identify material related to employment outcome in main stream research fields (such as management research field) and in family business field in particular (mainly literature reviews and articles describing the evolution of the field). Based on this first approach and on the current debate in the family business literature around the topic of context, the Soleimanof et al. ( 2018 ) article and the recently published article by Gomez-Mejia et al. ( 2020 ), we identified the preliminary research gaps around context and level of analysis to approach the systematic literature research on employment outcomes.

Second, during the initial stage, we conducted an unbiased search for published peer-reviewed journal articles solely written in English from January 1980 to the end of December 2018. We chose 1980 as the official starting point because Dailey and Reuschling’s ( 1980 ) article is the first contribution dealing with family firms and employment outcomes. We searched in the following databases: Business Source Complete (EBSCO) and Scopus. It is important to highlight that we searched for an extensive range of keywords in titles and abstracts to identify the relevant contributions. The main keywords at the end of the planning stage had two categories: family business and employment. The keywords related to family business were necessary to define the boundary of our search into the family business field. The keywords related to employment are integrated into three sub-dimensions: growth, downsizing, employment quality. For the context we do not define any specific keyword because it has to be analysed within the articles investigating employment outcomes in family business research.

Specifically, we adopted the following keywords: 1) family firms OR family business OR family-owned business OR family enterprise OR family owner and 2) employment growth OR downsizing OR retention OR termination OR layoff OR turnover OR employment quality OR wages OR employee relationship OR regional employment OR national employment. Based on our definition of employment outcome, we focus on employment outcomes to capture the results or effects of family firms as economic actors in creating or destroying employment and in influencing the quality of employment at the firm and aggregate levels. While the firm level is related to success (employment growth), reputation (downsizing), and satisfaction (working preferences and employee relationships) as one specific dimension of firm performance (Richard et al. 2009 ), the aggregate level is related to regional/national performance and regional/national resilience.

Additionally, to ensure adequate coverage, we also manually scanned major family business journals, international business journals, and entrepreneurship journals. Footnote 2 The aforementioned procedures yielded 227 articles. Once duplicate articles were eliminated (59 articles in total), we read the title, abstract, and introduction of each retrieved article to determine its relevance for the purpose of our research. In total 47 articles were removed at this step. Then, after reading the remaining articles in their entirety, we removed 74 articles we judged to lack substantial relevance for our study. In particular, we discarded both conceptual articles and those that do not explicitly explore the relationship between family firms and employment outcomes. Footnote 3 At the end of this process, we obtained a final sample consisting of 67 articles, as shown in Table 2 .

Even though the first retrieved paper was published in 1980, the area under investigation only became of interest in 2009. However, the topic did not acquire importance in the family business field until 2012; thus, more than 70% of the retrieved papers were published between 2011 and 2020. With reference to the distribution of the selected articles by journal, more than half of the contributions selected (23 of 44 articles) belong to the area “Entrepreneurship and small business management” in the Association of Business Schools (ABS) ranking. In particular, Family Business Review and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice account for nearly 12% and 9% of the sample, respectively, followed by Journal of Family Business Strategy and Small Business Economics , which account both for 6% of the total of contributions selected.

Finally, during data analysis and data synthesis, we analysed the content of all the retrieved articles thoroughly following a two-step method. First, two co-authors of this article were independently responsible for classifying the retrieved papers using our proposed framework described in Sect.  2 . In case of any divergence of opinion in the classification process, the third author was called upon to settle it. Second, we summarized each article using a predefined coding scheme consisting of the methods (i.e., type of analysis, sample composition, and country of analysis), theoretical framework (used for explaining the relationship between family firms and growth in term of employment and the definition of family firm used), level of context, employment measure, and the main findings. Finally, to analyse the articles in each quadrant, several meetings were conducted where thorough debate was carried out. These meetings served to define the structure and narrative to describe the existing evidence and, from there, future research in each quadrant.

4 Literature review on family firms’ employment outcomes

In this section, we describe and interpret the results of our systematic literature review and classification, focusing on each of the quadrants of the conceptual framework for the micro–macro approach in family business (see Table 1 ).

4.1 Firm level

4.1.1 context as a container—firm level.

Most the research in family business falls in this quadrant (Quadrant A in Table 1 ) and to better understand its content we re-organize the retrieved article in two sub-groups based on how the context was interpreted: context by sampling (those articles that use one single country) and context by comparing (those articles that use two or more countries)

4.1.2 Context by sampling

There are 39 articles (almost 60% of the retrieved articles—see Table 3 ) contextualizing the relationship between family firms and employment at the firm level by sampling the phenomenon of analysis in a specific country. While developed countries represent the prominent research context (e.g., the United States, Italy and Belgium), only two studies cover emerging economies (e.g., China, Korea). In these contributions, family dimensions, as a micro-context, are more important than the meso- and macro-contexts implicitly defined by the origin of the sample. Regarding family dimensions, most of the articles use the demographic approach when measuring family involvement (e.g., family owned, family managed, family controlled, and generation involved) (Basco 2013 ) to capture family effects on employment outcomes, while only two articles (Ensley et al. 2007 ; Khanin et al. 2012 ) focus on essence dimensions (e.g., culture) of family involvement.

Regarding the theoretical background, while there are several articles that rely on a data-driven approach to explore and explain employment outcomes in family and non-family firms (e.g., Bassanini et al. 2013 ; Bennedsen et al. 2019 ), the rest of the articles focus on two important specificities of family firms that may affect employment outcomes. First, the internal familiness emerging from the interrelationship between the family and the firm (e.g., Rutherford et al. 2008 ) make family firms unique in their behaviour toward their employees because of the family’s long-term perspective (e.g., Blanco-Mazagatos et al. 2018 ), the close involvement of the family in the firm (e.g., Powell and Eddleston 2013 ), and the family’s commitment (e.g., McLarty et al. 2018 ). Most of these studies are related to well-stablished theories applied to family businesses, such as upper echelon theory (Pittino et al. 2019 ), stewardship theory (Neckebrouck et al. 2018 ), and behavioural agency theory (Gomez-Mejia et al. 2018 ). Second, the external relationship between the family firm and its surroundings is based on identity theory and related concepts, such as social identity (e.g., Barnett et al. 2009 ) and social embeddedness (e.g., Khanin et al. 2012 ), among others. The latter are related to family owners’ image, sense of pride, and community ties, all of which enable family firms to achieve different employment outcomes from that of non-family firms. Even though family business scholars have highlighted the importance of familiness in its effect on employment outcomes, this external relationship is gaining in importance, so future research should combine both theoretical streams to achieve a holistic perspective of the phenomenon.

Next, we analyse the contributions of the retrieved articles by considering three main clusters of employment outcomes: employment growth, downsizing, and employment quality. First, most of the articles rely extensively on employment growth as the general measure of firm performance (Eddleston et al. 2013 ) and corporate social responsibility (e.g., Block 2010 ). The empirical evidence shows conflicting results for the relationship between family involvement dimensions (e.g., ownership, management, governance and succession) and firm employment growth. The family ownership dimension is one of the main determinants affecting employment growth for listed family firms (Amore et al. 2017 ), family-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (Becchetti and Trovato 2002 ), and venture capital–backed family firms (Martí et al. 2013 ) in the United States, Italy, and Spain, respectively. However, the aforementioned relationship is negative for the case of family entrepreneurial start-ups in the context of Denmark (Coad and Timmermans 2014 ). In disentangling the family effect by considering family ownership, family management, and family generation (Astrachan et al. 2002), whereas Rutherford et al. ( 2008 ) did not find evidence that family involvement affects employment growth in the US context, in a sample of Belgian family firms, Pittino et al. ( 2019 ) find that increased generational involvement in ownership positions affects firms’ employment growth.

To address the contradictory results emerging from studies exploring the direct effect of family involvement on employment growth, an alternative research path focuses on conditional effects (moderation and mediation as a contingency approach). For instance, the impact of family ownership on firm growth may be more complex depending on firm-specific characteristics. From this perspective, Bjuggren et al. ( 2013 ) reveal that family ownership negatively influences the probability that a firm will be have high-growth, but this negative effect disappears when a longer time period is considered. Additionally, succession is another determinant of employment growth. Based on a sample of small and medium Austrian family firms, Diwisch et al. ( 2009 ) find that firms that plan their succession have higher employment growth than firms that lack a formal succession plan. However, the effectiveness of succession planning may depend on the generation involved. For instance, Eddleston et al. ( 2013 ) reveal that succession is more conducive to growth for the first, third, and later generations. Unlike previous studies, mediating variables explain the different propensity of family and non-family firms to grow in terms of employment. For instance, Ensley et al. ( 2007 ) show that, compared to their non-family counterparts, pay dispersion in top management teams produces stronger negative behavioural dynamics that adversely affect employment growth. An additional example of mediation is presented by Stenholm et al. ( 2016 ), based on a sample of Finnish firms, who find that the relationship between innovation and employment growth is mediated by entrepreneurial activity only in family firms.

Beyond the different academic perspectives (e.g., management, family business, business economics) used to investigate the phenomenon, several theories have been applied to interpret the relationship between family involvement and employment outcomes. There are two main theoretical justifications. First, there is an external link between the firm and its surroundings created by family involvement. The presence of this connection is supported by complementary approaches, such as social identity theory and social capital and stakeholder perspectives. According to these approaches, family firms are deeply embedded in their local surroundings because of their connections with the community over time, resulting in social pressure to contribute to the future wellbeing of the community itself (Bassanini et al. 2013 ; D’Aurizio and Romano 2013 ). Second, there is an internal link between family and firm created by the interaction between family and business systems. The presence of this link is supported by the resource-based view, stewardship theory, and the socio-emotional wealth approach. From this perspective, the renewal of family bonds through dynastic succession leads family firms to proactively engage employees as internal stakeholders (Cennamo et al. 2012 ).

An alternative group of dependent variables in the articles retrieved is downsizing. Most empirical evidence on this topic shows that that there is a negative association between family involvement and the likelihood of downsizing, at least in the United States (Block 2010 ; Stavrou et al. 2007 ), France (Bassanini et al. 2013 ), Germany (Kappes and Schmid 2013) and Denmark (Bennedsen et al. 2019 ). The main theoretical rationale for explaining this finding comes from social identity theory (Block 2010 ), stakeholder theory (Stavrou et al. 2007 ), and the socio-emotional wealth approach (Colombo et al. 2014 ). Unlike non-family firms, family owners are more likely to care about their social identity and reputation in the community they are embedded in and thus tend to avoid reputation-damaging behaviour, such as layoffs. In other words, the relationship between family firms and their employees seems to be driven by normative commitment and moral principles rather than merely financial considerations (Stavrou et al. 2007 ). A number of contributions show that the relationship between family firms and employee turnover is mediated by different factors. For instance, Hu and Schaufeli ( 2011 ) reveal that job insecurity (i.e., past downsizing and current remuneration) affect turnover intentions via employee wellbeing (i.e., burnout and work engagement). Further, based on a sample of family-owned businesses, Khanin et al. ( 2012 ) find that family-business embeddedness and work centrality reduce family employees’ turnover intentions by magnifying their job satisfaction. More recently, Vardaman et al. (2019) show that friendship ties between family and non-family members negatively influence non-family employee turnover indirectly through organizational identification. However, the negative association between family firm status and turnover is contingent on firms’ size, with only small family firms showing distinctive behaviour toward employees (Kölling 2020 ).

Finally, further evidence suggests that, despite having less incentive to downsize, family firms are associated with low-quality employment resulting in lower salaries than non-family firms in France (Bassanini et al. 2013 ) and higher voluntary turnover in Belgium (Neckebrouck et al. 2018 ). Indeed, there is also evidence showing that job insecurity (Hu and Schaufeli 2011 ) in China, disaffection (Khanin 2013 ) in the United States, a low employee relationship orientation in firms (Cameron et al. 2009 ) in Australia, and superior employment prospects elsewhere (Mahto et al. 2020 ) affect employees’ turnover intentions in family firms. However, the empirical evidence of employment quality in family firms is contradictory. It was found that some employment practices such as reciprocity is particularly strong in family firms whereby family ties can cross the family domain to encompass non-family employees (Vardaman et al. 2018 ). For instance, evidence shows that embedding familiness into human resources practices is an effective way to improve employee retention in the Chinese (Deng 2018 ), Austrian and Hungarian (Pittino et al. 2016 ), and North American contexts (Khanin et al. 2012 ). However, the perceived inequity stemming from the asymmetric treatment of family and non-family members may reduce the benefits of human resource practices on firms’ performance (Madison et al. 2018 ).

We can conclude that aside from differences stemming from the definition of family firm used (i.e., the way the family firm concept is activated/defined to distinguish family firms from non-family firms), current research has focused on determining whether family involvement (captured using demographic or essence dimensions) in the firm affects employment outcomes (i.e., growth, reduction or quality of employment). Current evidence shows that while family firms generally seem to downsize less than their non-family firm counterparts, their effect on employment growth and employment quality is less evident. This evidence could be explained by the lack of theoretical predictability across contexts. That is, even though these findings make important contributions, the limitation lies in the fact that these results are context-less, implying a lack of generalizability. In our analysis of the next two quadrants at the firm level, we explain and interpret the extent to which family business scholars have overcome this context-less limitation.

4.1.3 Context by comparing—firm level

Only four articles (equal to 6% of the retrieved articles—see Table 4 ) contextualize the relationship between family firms and firm employment by comparing family and non-family firms operating in different geographical areas. The articles in this quadrant mostly stress the role of the location of the family firm in exploiting the competitive advantages derived from family involvement in the firm. Specifically, these studies address the question of whether the surrounding socio-economic environment influences family and non-family firm employment outcomes differently. The contributions in this quadrant focus on the urban/rural location of family firms in Sweden, and their conclusions are consistent: family firms exhibit better employment growth than non-family firms in rural areas (Backman and Palmberg 2015 ; Baú et al. 2019 ; Karlsson 2018 ). This research line follows the theoretical rationale of social capital approach (Arregle et al. 2007 ; Pearson et al. 2008 ), the resource-based view of the firm (Barney 1991 ), and the local embeddedness/regional familiness perspective (Basco 2015 ; Stough et al. 2015 ), suggesting that family firms located in rural areas are better positioned to acquire, allocate, and manage valuable tangible (e.g., financial capital) and intangible resources (e.g., human capital) that positively affect employment growth.

Despite the importance of context for firm behaviour and employment, only the aforementioned studies attempt to compare employment outcomes, specifically employment growth, based on location. Even though these results regarding the urban–rural location of family firms align, all of the firms studied are located in the same country. Indeed, these findings set a precedent for Swedish policymakers (Basco and Bartkevičiūtė 2016 ), but that does not mean that these results can be generalized. Another limitation of these studies is related to how they measure location by focusing simply on different categorizations of urban–rural areas, which is a rough measure of socio-spatial context. There are so many assumptions (e.g., the type of embeddedness in local municipalities) when categorizations of urban–rural areas are used to explain the mechanisms behind these contexts and the advantages or disadvantages between family and non-family firms. The econometric exercises in these studies oversimplify reality by failing to measure the socio-economic dynamics occurring in these settings, so most of the conclusions are taken for granted. In the next quadrant at the firm level, we explore how current research overcomes some of the aforementioned limitations by measuring context.

4.1.4 Context as a covariate

There are 19 articles (29% of the retrieved articles—see Table 5 ) measuring context and its impact on the relationship between family firms and employment outcomes (Quadrant B in Table 1 ). Most of these studies adopt a cross-country approach in investigating the impact of context in the relationship between family firms and employment outcomes. The most common strategy in these articles consists of using contextual dimensions as moderator variables in the main relationship between family involvement (demographic or essence variables) and employment outcomes. The interpretation of context in this quadrant applies the multi-embeddedness framework for family firms (James et al. 2020 ) by discriminating between different contexts, such as the family (e.g., Amore et al. 2017 ), the meso-context (e.g., industry, labour market, or region) (e.g., Bach and Serrano-Velarde 2015 ), and the country (Chen et al. 2014 ). Each of these contexts combines existing family business approaches (e.g., socioemotional wealth) with mainstream theories, such as institutional theory (van Essen et al. 2015 ) and occupational choice theory (Block et al. 2018 ). Following the structure presented for Quadrant A, we next analyse the contributions of the retrieved articles by considering three main clusters: employment growth, downsizing, and employment quality.

First, as in Quadrant A, most of the articles focus on employment growth and their contributions lie in revealing the contingent effect of context on the relationship between family involvement and employment growth. Regarding the micro-context, while Bjuggren et al. ( 2013 ) find that the negative relationship between family involvement and employment growth disappears for medium and large firms in Sweden, particularly when a longer time period is considered, Ernst et al. ( 2012 ) find that firm age seems to play a role in employment growth in the Netherlands. In particular, they show that a non-linear relationship exists between family involvement and employment growth across firm age. We did not find any articles measuring the meso-context, such as industry, to contextualize family involvement and employment outcomes, which indicates an opportunity for future research. Finally, regarding the macro-context, the research mainly focuses on formal institutional contexts and economic crises. For instance, in the United States, Lee ( 2006 ) find that family management fosters employment stability during economic slowdowns. More recently, based on a sample of Spanish firms, Amato et al. ( 2020 ) found that during crises, family firms located in small municipalities have higher employment growth than their non-family counterparts located in the same socio-spatial settings. In a cross-country study, Chen et al. ( 2014 ) find that the quality of the regulatory environment negatively moderates the relationship between family ownership and firm employment growth. In another cross-country analysis, Ellul et al. ( 2018 ) find evidence of the “substitutability hypothesis” between unemployment insurance offered by the government and that offered by firms. In particular family firms have been found offer more employment protection than non-family firms but only in countries with less generous national insurance policies. Finally, Bennedsen et al. ( 2019 ) found that family firms show less labour volatility, particularly in countries with fewer labour market regulations, wherein implicit insurance is most valuable.

The second most important group of articles explores downsizing. Regarding the micro-context, in a study of French family firms, Bach and Serrano-Velarde ( 2015 ) find that CEO transition in dynastic firms is associated with less workforce reduction than in non-dynastic firms. Regarding the meso-context, employment in less sensitive to unanticipated sales and value-added shocks from industry in the Swedish (Bjuggren 2015 ) and French contexts (Sraer and Thesmar 2007 ). With regard to the macro-context, Kim et al. ( 2020 ) study in the United States reveals that family firms are less likely to downsize, particularly when located in less populated areas, where the negative externalities resulting from massive layoffs would be higher. Finally, in a multi-country study, van Essen et al. ( 2015 ) find that family firms are more resilient (i.e., less likely to downsize) than non-family firms both before and during crisis periods.

The final group of articles covers employment quality related to wages and turnover. Regarding the micro-context, maritally-led firms have lower employment turnover than family and non-family firms in Italy (Amore et al. 2017 ). Moreover, leadership style, mediated by psychological ownership, is found to play an important role in explaining turnover intesntions among employees in German family firms (Bernhard and O’Driscoll 2011 ). In terms of the meso-context, Bach and Serrano-Velarde ( 2015 ) show that low wages are more common among dynastic family firms and are even more common in presence of the fictional labour market and conflictual labour-employer relations of the French context.

To sum up, our knowledge in this quadrant goes a step further than in the previous quadrants by attempting to measure context at micro-level (e.g., context in which couples work), meso-level (e.g., sales shock at the industry level), and macro-level (e.g., economic crises) to determine their impact on the relationship under study. This quadrant provides more information about when the direct general relationship between family involvement and employment growth (reported in Quadrant A) is positive and negative. In other words, context is interpreted as a moderator dimension that affects the strength and/or the direction of direct relationship and overcomes the conflicting empirical evidence emerging between family involvement and employment outcome (Quadrant A). In other words, context can better explain the nuances of the relationship and thus to make generalization from the results more accurate. The importance of context is also valid for downsizing and measures of employment quality. For instance, even though the research on contextualizing confirms the conclusion made in Quadrant A that family firms downsize less than non-family firms, this conclusion is even more apparent during economic crises. At the same time, family firms are less likely to reduce salaries, which seem to be lower than in non-family firms. Theoretically, the most important contribution of this quadrant is to show how theoretical predictions and the behaviour of the phenomenon itself (e.g., family firm) react to external dimensions at the micro-, meso-, macro-levels. Nevertheless, even with the steps to integrate context in the current research, the methodological approaches have hardly advanced. For instance, with the exception of Block et al. 's study ( 2018 ), there is no research using multi-level modelling to consider the nested nature of the data.

4.2 Aggregate level

4.2.1 context as a container—aggregate level.

There are four studies (6% of the retrieved articles—see Table 6 ) at the aggregate level of analysis (Quadrant C in Table 1 ), which are exploratory in nature and use a data-driven approach. The first three, Astrachan and Shanker ( 2003 ); Bjuggren et al. ( 2011 ); and Andersson et al. ( 2018 ), estimate the economic impact of family firms in terms of workforce employed and GDP generated in the US and Swedish economies, respectively. In both studies, the whole estimation process is constrained by the definition of family firm. In the US economy, family businesses account for nearly one-third of the workforce employed if a broad definition of family firm is adopted. Similarly, in the Swedish economy, family firms contribute about one-fourth or one-fifth of the workforce based on the ownership criterion adopted (20% or 50% of family ownership). More recently, by drawing on official data covering the population of workplaces, workers, and their relatives in Sweden, Holm et al. ( 2018 ) assess the magnitude and composition of in-house kinship ties. The scholars find a negative association between kinship ties in workplaces and population density. Family firms, which represent a particular type of kinship tie, are particularly common in small marketplaces. However, all these findings come from one single country—Sweden—and they cannot be extrapolated to other developed and developing countries.

Even though this line of research is important for describing the employment role of family firms at country level, any conclusions may be premature because of the lack of comparable measures to identify the phenomenon of study across contexts (e.g., local, regional, and national) and the lack of reliable performance measures to understand the impact of family firms at aggregate level (e.g., aggregate measures of productivity, innovation, or exportation). Additionally, there is no research analysing and comparing the effect of family firms on aggregate employment in two or more municipalities, regions, or countries. Therefore, the most promising future research line for the family business field and subsequent contributions to policymaking is likely to come from this quadrant. Following Basco ( 2015 ), the unresolved question that emerges is whether the mere presence of family businesses is good or bad for growth and development at local, regional, and national level.

4.2.2 Context as a covariate—aggregate level

There is only one article exploring the extent to which family firm aggregate employment creation is affected by contextual dimensions (Quadrant D in Table 1 ). Mueller and Philippon ( 2011 ) found that the prevalence of family ownership is higher in countries in which labour relationships are hostile. This result is in line with the theoretical conception that the quality of the formal institutional environment (i.e., the effective laws, rights, and regulations) enhances ownership concentration and also the ownership held by families as mechanisms to guarantee large investors’ rights (Table 7 ).

The single article in Quadrant D shows the scarce cross-fertilization of family business studies with more mature disciplines conducting research at meso- and macro-level such as international business and regional studies among others. More research in this quadrant could enhance our understanding of the role that family firms play in different contexts and how the context boosts or hinders their contribution to employment creation. The lack of research on contextualizing aggregate outcomes suggests several possibilities for future lines of research, which we shall discuss in more detail in Sect.  5 .

As a visual summary, Fig.  1 provides an integrative model of the relationship of family firm dimensions, contextual dimensions, level of analysis, and employment outcomes.

Integrative model of family firm dimensions, contextual factors, and employment outcomes

5 Future research: Where can we go from here?

Our literature review considers how context and level of analysis have been used to understand the relationship between family firms and employment outcomes. We use our micro–macro framework in family business research to present the future research avenues summarized in Table 8 .

5.1 Firm level

5.1.1 context as container, 5.1.1.1 context by sampling.

Even though the evolution and consolidation of the family business field in recent decades have affirmed its legitimacy (Pérez Rodríguez and Basco 2011 ), such research still struggles to operationalize the concept of family firm and to understand the importance of heterogeneity. In this sense, the operationalization of the family firm should not only discriminate between listed and non-listed firms but should also consider differences between lone-owner, family-owner, and family-managed firms. Research into the heterogeneity of family firms could reveal new insights into firm employment outcomes by questioning whether different types of firms have different effects on job creation, downsizing, and employment quality. Indeed, future studies should explain how and why these differences occur.

Second, beyond the operationalization itself, most of the research presented in Quadrant A is built on several assumptions (internal or external link, as discussed in the previous section) to explain a positive or negative effect of family involvement dimensions on employment outcomes. These assumptions, such as family identity and social embeddedness at local level (identity theory, social identity theory, and the socioemotional wealth approach, among others), have hardly been tested, and these assumptions remain underexplored. Future research should distinguish demographic dimensions related to family involvement in the firm, which are important for differentiating family firms from non-family firms and types of family firms, from essence dimensions, which account for the intrinsic behavioural consequences of family embeddedness in the firm and their link with society. In other words, the mere condition of being a family firm does not necessarily guarantee a connection and identification with the territory in which both the family and the firm are located. The importance of both dimensions of family involvement could unpack assumptions about what really drives family firms to have better or worse effects on employment outcomes.

Third, the employment outcome measures used in current research are limited in quantity (new measures are needed beyond classical employment growth or downsizing) and quality (to capture working environments, flexibility, and working culture, for instance). In this sense, future studies should expand outcome measures by using alternative measures to capture different aspects of the phenomenon, such as the extent to which family firms resort to temporary employees or temping agencies. On the other hand, beyond the effect of family involvement on employment per se, it is important to relate these measures to alternative performance measures, such as productivity (e.g., Barbera and Moores 2013 ). Therefore, future research should address the question of how employment outcomes in family firms are transferred to firm performance measures. For instance, possible areas of investigation might be how downsizing affects labour productivity and how family firms deal with losses due to labour inefficiencies. Along the same line, the lens used to theorize the relationship under study could define why and how family involvement in the firm is linked to different employment outcomes. We can expect that not all employment outcomes measured will be affected with the same intensity or in the same direction.

Fourth, as discussed in the previous section, the studies on family firms and firm employment have mainly been conducted in developed countries. Hence, future research could explore the relationship in emerging, developing, and transitional countries and in different cultural/regional settings. Therefore, extending the current research agenda beyond developed countries could be a first step towards a better understanding of the nuances of the effect of family involvement on employment outcomes as it is difficult to imagine that family involvement in economic activities follows the same patterns in developed and emerging economies (Basco 2018 ). This research effort could help test and validate theoretical predictions across contexts and at different periods of time to challenge mainstream theoretical approaches. Consequently, the aim is not only to test to what extent theoretical predictions work across contexts, but also to explain why they don’t work out and how context and time either boost or constrain theoretical assumptions and relationships.

5.1.1.2 Context by comparing

This approach represents an opportunity to introduce context into family business research by comparing what happens with the phenomenon in different municipalities, production systems (e.g., industrial districts, clusters, innovative milieu ), regions, or countries. While the simplest methodological approach is to have samples covering different countries (macro-level), regions, or local productive systems (meso-level) to compare the effect of family involvement on firm employment across contexts, since the unit of analysis (i.e., family firm) is nested within different higher-order contextual dimensions (e.g., regions or countries), a multi-level approach (hardly used in family business research) would prove extremely useful in investigating the importance of context in the relationship under study.

Comparative exercises should be linked to theoretical lenses to justify the need for the comparisons, to hypothesize about the differences, and explain the differences and similarities of family firms across contexts. Choice of the appropriate theoretical approach should be based on the contextual level at which family firms are compared. For example, while comparisons of family firms across countries could use institutional theory (either from the economic perspective (North 1990 ) or from the sociological perspective (DiMaggio and Powell 1983 ) to justify that formal and informal institutional contexts frame individual, family, and firm behaviour, interregional comparisons of family firms may rely on approaches coming from regional studies, such as the territorial embeddedness (Hess 2004 ) and corruption-trust theory (Rothstein 2013 ), among others, that have emerged in the cross-fertilization between family firm and regional research.

Country-level comparison represents the first alternative for future research in this quadrant. Such research could use employment outcomes (e.g., downsizing) and compare family firms operating in different culturally distant contexts because informal institutional context, particularly the prevalence of different cultural values (e.g., collectivistic versus individualistic), could affect the relationship between family firms and their employees. Besides cultural aspects, formal institutional contexts differ in the degree of unionization in labour markets. Therefore, a possible research line could compare the employment decisions of family and non-family firms in countries with different union structures. Consequently, this line of research could challenge the current status quo of institutional theory to refine the theory by providing evidence of the relationship between different institutional settings and specific family firm behaviours because the latter are heterogeneous across contexts.

Beyond the country level, future comparative studies should consider alternative contextual levels, such as regional or industrial levels. Future research should consider regions as potential demarcations of family firm behaviour in terms of employment outcomes. Since economic activities and productive resources are unevenly distributed across space, different geographical areas are likely to have different degrees of well-being (Capello 2011 ) and competitiveness (Camagni and Capello 2013 ). Hence, comparing family firms located in different regional contexts would shed new light on how family firms’ employment behaviour and outcomes are affected when regional resource endowments are considered. On the other hand, the industry in which a firm operates could serve as a demarcation of family firms and employment outcomes. As a result of continuous structural change and new technological paradigms, sectors of the economy undergo profound transformations in the composition of the workforce, labour relations and hiring and firing policies (Pilat et al. 2006 ). From this perspective, future research should investigate how family firms operating in different sectors cope with sectorial transformations (e.g., Industry 4.0 paradigm) and the resulting employment implications.

The main limitation of this quadrant is that such comparisons may lead to assumptions regarding context. For this reason, the most important movement for family business research is to measure context by applying a context theorizing approach.

5.1.2 Context as covariate

5.1.2.1 context by theorizing.

The most important step for future research is to go beyond contextualizing the phenomenon and attempt to measure context, which may help connect family variables and contextual variables at different levels to explain firm employment outcomes. In this sense, the contingency approach could be used to provide theoretical justification for the importance of context as a conditional dimension (Bamberger 2008 ; Johns 2006 ) that either moderates or mediates the relationship between family firms and employment growth. Future research will need to measure institutional, socio-spatial and temporal context to capture contextual nuances (Camagni and Capello 2013 ) that can constrain or ease the relationships under study by considering the micro-, meso-, and macro-levels.

Regarding the micro-context, it is time for family business research to capture family measures (e.g., type of family, size of the family, and ethnicity) to contextualize family involvement and firm employment outcomes at the micro-level. The limitation of today’s research in family business is the assumption that families are homogenous. However, the actual context in which family firms are embedded is the family, and not all families are the same (Stangej and Basco 2017 ). This homogeneity assumption has to be broken down because family business research risks losing its connection with its roots—the family itself—which gives meaning to the field. Therefore, future studies should explore how family, as a context, affect firm behaviour, specifically employment outcomes. This line of research opens the possibility to explore family theories beyond traditional family system theory, such as family developmental theory, social exchange theory, ecological theory, and feminist family theory.

Regarding the meso-context, the future of family business research lies in exploring the impact of the local social and economic environments in which firms operate. This line of research brings proximity dimensions -namely spatial, social, cognitive, and institutional proximity- into the analysis that could better explain how family firms operate in their close environment and what role family firms play at the local and regional levels –i.e., the regional familiness approach (Basco 2015 ). For instance, it might be worth investigating the effect of social proximity on family firms’ employment decisions. Indeed, it is in local communities characterized by close, reciprocal, and trust-based relationships that family firms are particularly likely to behave differently from their non-family counterparts. Family firms’ strong territorial identity and deep emotional connection with their home locality (Kim et al. 2020 ) may unveil further aspects in terms of employment practices. Additionally, future research could analyse social-spatial context alongside the temporal one. So far, investigations of family firms’ employment choices during adversity (e.g., economic downturns, pandemics, and natural disasters) with respect to the communities they are located in have been fairly limited (Amato et al. 2020 ). Hence, it would be instructive to shed new light on whether and to what extent family firms respond to downsizing during tough times in different ways depending on their localization. From this perspective, the lens of spatial embeddedness could prove extremely useful (Hess 2004 ). In addition to exogenous shocks that force firms to reduce their workforce, demand volatility is another external pressure that may lead firms to prefer more flexible working options, such as temporary staff. Hence, future research should investigate whether external volatility affects family firms’ reliance on temporary employees.

Finally, at the macro-level, an additional future line of research could be to explore the effect of institutional context (formal and informal) on firm employment. More specifically, this line of research, which traditionally relies on institutional theory to justify potential differences of firms across contexts, lacks both theoretical and empirical clarity regarding what and how contextual dimensions affect the phenomenon under investigation. Exploring the formal institutional context in more detail could help researchers generate a communication channel with policymakers by dismantling the assumption that one policy will affect all economic actors in the same way. For instance, research could measure how family and non-family firms react to changes in labour market flexibility and the effect on employment restructuring, such as layoffs. On the other hand, the cultural context may affect how family firms behave and react to their environment because the family is an agent of cultural change and generation in society. From this perspective, the moderating effect of national cultural dimensions in the relationship between family involvement and employment outcomes could prove highly beneficial.

5.2 Aggregate level

5.2.1 context as a container, 5.2.1.1 context by sampling.

The aggregate level of analysis has received less attention than the firm level, and only a few articles have attempted to measure the impact of family firms on aggregate local, regional, and national employment outcomes. Hence, future research should explore how family firms contribute to aggregate employment (e.g., regional employment growth) and should analyse the conditions under which family firms are able to maintain, boost, or reduce employment at local, regional, or national level. Even more, this type of study should use longitudinal data to capture the creation and demise of family firms and changes in employment variables.

Dismantling the aggregate effect of family firms could be a step forward in understanding the role family firms play in local, regional, and national employment. Following the call made by Basco ( 2015 ) and Stough et al. ( 2015 ), there is room to investigate how and to what extent family firms are able to alter the regional processes—namely, spillovers, information exchange, learning, social interactions, competition, and institutional dynamics—underlying regional employment outcomes. Qualitative studies could help in describing and explaining the regional mechanisms that family firms alter, create, or transform to produce effects on aggregate employment outcomes. Additionally, following previous research focusing on country level (Astrachan and Shanker 2003 ), more empirical descriptive studies are needed at the local, regional, and national levels to capture the presence of family firms and employment generation across contextual settings and time. Both qualitative and quantitative studies are needed to understand the prevalence and importance of family firms in different contexts.

5.2.1.2 Context by comparing

Comparative studies are an extension of the previous quadrant but analyse the density of family firms and aggregate employment outcomes in two or more contexts. This is a natural step towards determining similarities and differences in the phenomenon under study that may be linked to context.

While previous studies have shown that heterogeneous industrial structures and differences in human capital are the main factors contributing to regional disparities in employment growth (Saito and Wu 2016 ; Simon 1998 ), it would be worth exploring the condition of the firm (i.e., family or non-family) in explaining these differences. Future steps in this direction should consider two important inter-related paths. First, it is necessary to theorize and test the link between family firms and context to understand their effect on local, regional, and national aggregate patterns of employment. Current theorizing is focused on the family’s embeddedness within geographical space, which assumes a particular socio and emotional connection between the family and the economic/social environment (Backman and Palmberg 2015 ; Basco 2015 ; Stough et al. 2015 ) based on the concept of proximity (e.g., spatial, social, organizational, and cognitive), but this assumption has not been empirically tested. Second, we need more explorative empirical studies to understand the phenomenon, which may ultimately lead to improvements in theory. The main reason for moving the aggregate level forward lies in the possibility of creating databases with micro-level information that is also representative at regional level.

5.2.2 Context as a covariate

5.2.2.1 context by theorizing.

In terms of contextualizing at the aggregate level, future studies should explore how and to what extent family firms contribute to aggregate employment outcomes by considering the context in which this relationship is a moderator dimension. Based on our contingent interpretation of context, we expect that institutional, spatial, and temporal contexts explain when family firms have an effect on aggregate employment outcomes. Research in this quadrant represents the ultimate level of context theorizing, which attempts to measure which facets of context really moderate the aggregate relationship between family firms and employment. The fields of regional studies and international business have developed scales to measures institutional, spatial, and temporal contexts that can be used in family business research. In this sense, local, regional, and national contextual measures do not seem to be a problem; instead, it is difficult to find longitudinal micro-data that is locally and regionally representative across countries. Hence, future research should focus on collaborating with regional, national, or supra-national organizations (e.g., the European Union) to produce more reliable data on the family business phenomenon across regions and countries.

An important topic in this quadrant is related to local and regional resilience. In regional studies, the concept of resilience, which has attracted growing interest since the international financial crisis, refers to a region’s ability to absorb economic disturbances, generally reflected as downward changes in the region’s employment level during a shock (i.e., resistance) or some years after it (i.e., recovery) (Boschma 2015 ; Eriksson and Hane-Weijman 2017 ). Extant research has shown that several factors could explain why a shock is unevenly distributed both within and across regions, such as higher diversification of industry (Eriksson and Hane-Weijman 2017 ), higher stock of human capital (Mazzola et al. 2018 ), and higher physical accessibility and connectivity (Giannakis and Bruggeman 2017 ), among others. In regional studies, however, family firms seem to be a missing factor of regional resilience. As a result of their unique characteristics, such as their long-term orientation in decision making (Huybrechts et al. 2011 ), non-economic goals (Basco 2017 ), and embeddedness in the community (Dekker and Hasso 2016 ), family firms may represent an additional, a hitherto hidden, source of regional resilience.

6 Conclusion

Most of the existing research on family firms has focused on the family’s effect on firm behaviour and performance (Yu et al. 2012 ), and the results have been contradictory in terms of employment outcomes at the firm and aggregate levels. We conjectured that these contradictory results stem from of the context-less research in the family business field at different levels of analysis. To address this limitation, we carried out a systematic literature review of 67 published papers in peer-reviewed journal from 1980 to 2020, and developed a framework to classify, analyse, and interpret current knowledge by incorporating three different approaches to contextualize the family firm phenomenon combining two different levels of analysis (i.e., the firm and aggregate levels). Our approach enabled us to map what we know about family business and context in terms of employment outcomes, and what future research areas could be explored further. We summarize our main findings in four takeaway findings.

First, most of the existing family business research on employment has focused on the firm level in one specific context—that is, in one particular regional or national setting. In these studies, the micro-context—namely, family dimensions—is more relevant than the meso- and macro-contexts implicitly defined by the origin of the sample. Additionally, there is a lack of studies comparing family firms in different contexts. This indicates the need for comparative studies to better understand differences and similarities between family and non-family firms across spatial context. We conclude that family business research is context-less because most of the research in this area has used context in post hoc interpretations to contextualize results, and these interpretations are based on speculative assumptions or represent the boundaries for understanding the phenomenon itself. In this sense, the future of family business studies lies in closing the micro–macro gap by measuring context at different levels to interpret family business behaviour and employment outcomes. This stream of research offers a way to unveil nuances among family firms from both a phenomenological perspective and theoretical development one (Reay and Whetten 2011 ).

Second, in line with the theoretical development, future research has to introduce context in its institutional, socio-spatial, and temporal dimensions to explore the contingent effect—that is, researchers must develop context-contingent theory. This is a necessary step toward integrating theory of the family firm to “explain and predict not only the interaction between family and business systems at the individual and family firm levels but also the interaction between family firms and the environment at the aggregate level” (Basco 2015 , p. 260). In pursuing this aim, the context theorizing approach should go beyond simple contextualization (i.e., defining the contextual boundaries that restrict theoretical generalization) by specifying and measuring the nature of the contextual forces and explaining the mechanisms that operate to constrain or enable the occurrence of a particular relationship between family firms and employment outcomes.

Third, there is a real need to better explore, analyse, and theorize on the effect of family firms on employment outcomes at the aggregate level. For this purpose, it is necessary to enlarge the unit of analysis by incorporating the actor (i.e., family firms) with space (i.e., the physical-relational entity with which the actor interacts) and time (Gomez-Mejia et al. 2020 ; James et al. 2020 ; Stough et al. 2015 ). This movement in the family business field requires multi-disciplinary research to embrace alternative theoretical perspectives from the fields of economic geography, regional science, and urban economics. By doing this, the family business field is likely to develop and expand its external legitimacy (Pérez Rodríguez and Basco 2011 ) to new research fields beyond its current connections with management and strategic research. In so doing, family business research would expand the boundaries of its core knowledge by introducing context as a dimension for future investigations. Research at aggregate levels is important for unpacking the role family firms play in the places where they live, endure, and thrive and therefore their contribution to local, regional and national development.

The preliminary protocol contains a list of actions to approach the topic of employment in the field of family business. For instance, the first action was to look for articles which explain the evolution of the family business field and summarize the most important ideas. The second action was to look for literature review articles in the management, business, and entrepreneurship fields related to employment and summarize the main ideas. The rest of the actions were more operative to narrow down our knowledge of family business and employment. The protocol was not a rigid instrument but an adaptive instrument. For instance, when we discovered the importance of context we incorporated new actions to integrate this information to our debate.

The following journals were included in the manual research process: Academy of Management Journal , Academy of Management Review , Administrative Science Quarterly , Journal of Management , Strategic Management Journal , Organization Science , Journal of International Business Studies , Journal of World Business , Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice , Journal of Business Venturing , Journal of Small Business Management , Small Business Economics , International Small Business Journal , Family Business Review , Journal of Family Business Strategy , Journal of Family Business Management , Journal of Management Studies, and Asia Pacific Journal of Management .

Besides duplicates, the main criteria used to disregard papers from those originally retrieved was the lack of evidence along one of the three dimensions under investigation (e.g., employment growth, downsizing and quality of labor) and the absence of any explicit attempt to explore the influence on employment outcomes at both firm and aggregate level.

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Amato, S., Basco, R. & Lattanzi, N. Contextualizing employment outcomes in family business research: current findings and future research avenues. Manag Rev Q 72 , 531–604 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11301-021-00226-9

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Family business succession and innovation: a systematic literature review

Juliana r. baltazar.

1 Universidade da Beira Interior & NECE Research Unit, Covilhã, Portugal

Cristina I. Fernandes

2 University of Beira Interior & NECE Research Unit in Business Sciences, Covilhã, Portugal

3 Centre for Corporate Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

Veland Ramadani

4 South East European University, Tetovo, North Macedonia

5 Max van der Stoel Institute, Tetovo, North Macedonia

Mathew Hughes

6 Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

This study systematizes and classifies the state-of-the-art of knowledge about innovation and succession in family businesses. Our systematic literature review details the existing knowledge and establishes new points of departure for future research. This research analyzes 32 articles retrieved from the Web of Science database and makes recourse to bibliographic coupling through the VOS viewer software to identify the main lines of research on the theme of innovation and succession in family businesses before advancing new topics for future research. The results identify and classify the prevailing theoretical foci in this domain to: (i) Impact of Succession on Innovation; (ii) Succession and Sharing of Knowledge; and (iii) Obstacles to Innovation. This study also shows that the succession process hinders investment in innovation and that family businesses’ innovation capacity represents life or death for these businesses. This review also presents a framework that shows how succession processes impact innovation in family businesses.

Introduction

Family businesses represent the oldest type of commercial organisation and are now the key driver of wealth creation in both emerging and developed economies (Dana and Ramadani, 2015 ; Harris et al., 2004 ; Ingram and Glód, 2018 , Ramadani et al., 2020 ). Family businesses are those businesses at least 50% owned by a single family, a definition we adopt to define a family business. They are commercial organizations in which various generations of the same family may influence the decision-making processes to achieve objectives defined by the family leadership (Lee et al., 2017 ; Mukarram et al., 2018 ; Jain et al., 2022 ). In addition, according to König et al. ( 2013 ), family businesses are organizations characterized by the existence of individuals interrelated by their family bonds that deploy their influence in their businesses, whether through their direct participation or a family member holding executive roles.

Prior systematic literature reviews exist around innovation in family businesses (Akram et al., 2021; Aparicio et al., 2019 ; Calabrò et al., 2018; Casado-Belmonte et al., 2021 ; Filser et al., 2016 ; Fuetsch and Suess-Reyes, 2017 d, 2016; Toska et al. 2021 ), open innovation in family businesses (Gjergji et al., 2019; Torchia and Calabrò 2019 ), organizational innovation in the family businesses (Suman and Das, 2020 ), and radical innovation in family businesses (Hu and Hughes, 2020 ). Cocnerning succession, there are systematic literature reviews that approach the role of women in inter-generational succession in family businesses (Kubíček et al., 2018 ; Ratten et al., 2018 ) and analyses on gender in intergenerational succession in agricultural estates (Sheridan et al., 2021 ) and (Cisneros et al. 2018 ) research networks on succession in family businesses. However, while innovation represents the lifeblood of family firms (Hu and Hughes, 2020 ), succession represents the future of a family business. It is remarkable then that no systematic literature review unique to succession and family business innovation, spanning both dimensions, has emerged. To address this omission and the bifurcation of innovation and succession, we present a systemic literature review that culminates in a framework for future lines of research into these two critical aspects of long-term family business survival.

This research aims to systematize and classify the state-of-the-art in innovation and succession in family businesses through a systematic literature review that details the existing knowledge, establishes new points of departure for future research and fills the gap that stills exists in the literature. The research gap focuses on the need to observe and classify the state-of-the-art research on family businesses, their succession processes, and the effects of innovation on these businesses. Part of the motivation for this review is the need to discover how innovation affects the succession processes of family businesses. This research also makes recourse to bibliographic coupling to identify the main lines of research on the theme of innovation and succession in family businesses before advancing new topics to inform future research endeavours.

Through the analysis of 32 articles sourced from the Web of Science database and through bibliographic coupling with recourse to VOSviewer software, we established three clusters in the body of literature on innovation and succession in family business: Impact of Succession on Innovation, Succession and Sharing of Knowledge, and Obstacles to Innovation. This research contributes to family business and managerial science by systematically mapping and classifying the literature on innovation and family succession into distinct clusters, developing a framework that shows how succession processes impact innovation in family businesses, and putting forward an integrated vision of key lines of enquiry and points of departure for future research.

Following this introduction, this article sets out the methodology applied, provides descriptive analysis of the selected articles and their journals of publication followed by a study of the bibliographic coupling. The following section then presents a discussion and the framework systematised from the research. Finally, we put forward the conclusions and future lines of research originating from this study.

Theoretical background

Family businesses perform leading roles in the global economy as they represent the largest number of economic ventures worldwide, and frequently evolve into complex business undertakings (Colli and Rose, 2008 ; Larissa, 2020 ). The business and the family are thus intimately interrelated with the business controlled by family members within the scope of obtaining its success and guaranteeing its sustainability by transferring it to future generations (Chua et al., 1999 ). According to Buang et al. ( 2013 ), family businesses run into internal conflicts among their respective members, particularly regarding issues surrounding succession, which represents a crucial factor for future survival, impacting the efficiency of succession processes. Many family businesses do not make it beyond the second generation. Various authors e approached this theme, proposing definitions for successful succession processes and correspondingly identifying the predictive factors for such successful succession processes (Morris et al., 1997 ; Dyck et al., 2002 ; Le Breton-Miller et al., 2004 ; Wang et al. 2015 ). According to Sharma et al. ( 2004 ) and Le Breton-Miller et al. ( 2004 ), defining successful succession processes comes about via two different dimensions: the satisfaction of the parties interested in the succession and the positive performance and viability of businesses following the succession process.

CEOs and business owners, sooner or later, must hand over the ownership and management of the company to other persons, with such transfers taking place either suddenly or in planned approaches. Given that the challenge of family business often involves surviving through to the third generation and beyond, families and their businesses have to plan succession across the three facets that constitute family businesses: the family, the business, and its ownership (Belausteguigoitia, 2012 ; Johnson et al., 2019 ). Around 70% of family businesses do not survive the transition of the founder to the second generation, with the 30% of family businesses making it through to the second generation then reduced to 15% on reaching the third generation and 11% when arriving at the fourth generation (Poza, 2014 ).

Bower (2007) defines family business succession as the transition between the management and ownership of the company to the next generation of family members. Devins and Jones ( 2016 ) describe succession as a dynamic process that ends up operating as a socialization mechanism between the successor and the former incumbent. A successful succession process reflects not only on the future positive performance of the company but also on its viability (Le Breton-Miller et al., 2004 ). Succession is essential to generational continuity while also involving family progression at the expense of nonfamily members of staff (Sharma et al., 2001 ). Thus, such processes constitute important landmarks in family businesses as they necessarily drive change and create instability (Devins and Jones, 2016 ).

Innovation consists of every activity enabling businesses to design, develop, produce, and launch new products, services, or business models (Hu and Hughes, 2020 ; Rondi et al. 2019 ). Innovation means generating a new idea or applying existing ideas in new and different ways. In turn, Schumpeter defined innovation as “the introduction of a new product (or improvements to the quality of an already existing product), the introduction of a new production method, opening a new market, a new source for supplying raw materials or semi-manufactured goods, a new way of industrial organisation” (Schumpeter, 1934 , p.66). Furthermore, Tidd et al. ( 1997 ) define innovation as a process of transforming opportunities into new ideas and putting them into practice. Ultimately the willingness and ability to innovate (Hu et al., 2022 ), regardless of specific innovation strategy (Scholes et al., 2021 ), fundamentally affects the longevity of family businesses.

Schmid et al. ( 2014 ) report that research and development (R&D) is higher at family-managed businesses, while earlier studies demonstrate the effects of family and their influences on the innovation outputs of companies (Classen et al., 2014 ; De Massis et al., 2015a ; Matzler et al., 2015 ). Nonfamily businesses typically display a greater willingness to deploy formal monitoring and control mechanisms that stifle innovation activities, while family businesses tend to have more open channels of communication, make decisions informally and maintain flexibility in their processes that together create more innovation-friendly environments (Craig and Dibrell, 2006 ). A study by Classen et al. ( 2014 ) also reports that family businesses produce more process innovations than non-family companies. However, De Massis et al. ( 2015a ) found that the innovation climate is more adverse to risk and more informal in family businesses, and their degree of innovativeness varies markedly for resource and socioemotional reasons (Hu et al., 2022 ).

Family businesses display different capacities to undertake more efficient transformations of their scarce resources into the production of innovation, thereby helping family businesses to achieve more innovation than non-family companies in terms of the relative amounts of resources consumed (Duran et al., 2016 ). Family businesses are better at ‘doing more with less’. Duran et al. ( 2016 ) tie this in part to succession, arguing that the successor CEOs of family companies display strategic advantages that enable them to nurture their resources better and ensure the conversion of inputs into outputs is more productive.

Innovation is crucial for family businesses (Cesaroni et al. 2021 ), with its role deepened per its capacity to strengthen the sustainability of businesses through successive generations (Zellweger et al., 2012 ; Rondi et al. 2019 ; Ahmad et al., 2021 ). Many researchers propose that family involvement in management and ownership may influence business innovation (Llach and Nordqvist 2010 ; Kellermanns et al., 2012 ; Hughes et al., 2018 ; Cucculelli and Peruzzi, 2020; Scholes et al., 2021 ). But such influence and how this takes place alongside other driving factors are not yet well-defined by the literature, with research studies returning mixed results (De Massis et al., 2013 ; Calabrò et al., 2019 ; Hu and Hughes, 2020 ). Röd ( 2016 , p.198) even describes this family influence as a “double-edged sword” potentially generating advantages and disadvantages for family business innovation.

Few studies have approached how innovation within family businesses changes over time and which factors influence the evolution of businesses and the generations managing them (Cesaroni et al. 2021 ). De Massis et al. ( 2015b ) argue there is a need for further research to convey the diversity prevailing among family companies and identify the factors explaining the different orientations to innovation and why some family businesses successfully innovate over the longer term while others fail to do so.

Furthermore, researchers have reported how family businesses tend to be risk-averse, hindering the investment of capital in financing innovation projects that only carry uncertain results (Block et al., 2013 ). Scholes et al. ( 2021 ) indicate a general preference for exploitative innovation strategies among family firms because of governance mechanisms implemented by family stakeholders. According to Kotlar and De Massis ( 2013 ), family companies need to make recourse to external sources to obtain the capital necessary for investments in innovation, which may compromise the family objective of maintaining long term control over the business. Calabrò et al. (2018) refer to how conservative stances and organizational rigidity represent negative aspects for family businesses in terms of innovation that calls into question traditional product lines even while a long-term orientation and the involvement of various generations in the business can foster their innovation capacities (Cucculelli et al. 2016 ; De Massis et al., 2015b ).

Research into family businesses innovation has deepened (De Massis, et al., 2015a d, 2016; Fuetsch, 2017 ) even while dividing into two areas, one focused on innovation inputs and the other on innovation outputs (De Massis et al., 2013 ). The studies of innovation inputs demonstrate that family companies invest less in innovation than nonfamily businesses (Feranita et al., 2017 ). According to Mitchell et al. ( 2009 ), research into the succession of CEOs in family businesses describes the transfer of control to the next generation, with these authors revealing the role of successor CEOs in product innovation and their openness to new ideas, taking risks, and accepting new knowledge and perspectives (Salvato, 2004 ; Kraiczy et al., 2015 ; Woodfield and Husted, 2017 ). Scholes et al. ( 2021 ) found that family businesses are more willing to adopt an explorative innovation strategy when next-generation involvement in the business is high, speaking again to the symbiotic relationship between innovation and succession.

Methodology

Bibliographic coupling deems there is an interrelationship between two articles whenever both cite in-common one or more articles, with the references to the articles cited taken into consideration as the means of determining the levels of similarity between these articles (Habib and Afzal, 2019 ; Kraus et al., 2020 ; Kraus et al. 2021 ; Linnenluecke et al., 2020 ; Donthu et al., 2021 ). Kessler ( 1963 ) defines bibliographic coupling as the only item of reference adopted by two articles. We adhered to general good practices and principles set by Kraus et al. ( 2022 ). Furthermore, the objective of systematic literature reviews involves, according to Tranfield et al. ( 2003 ), “a replicable and transparent process, hence, a detailed technology that seeks to minimize the bias through exhaustive searches of the literature, the published and unpublished articles and returning a path of decisions, procedures and conclusions to the reviewer” (p. 212).

In order to achieve the above-defined objectives, this systematic literature review made recourse to VOSviewer software to delineate the bibliographic coupling. The present systematic literature review began by defining the keywords that would be used in the database. Web of Science was the database chosen, and the keywords selected were based on family businesses, their different variations, innovation, and the succession process that family businesses go through. The process also included defining the type of documents used in this literature review, and the language that they would be in, settling on only articles written in English.

The systematic literature review process spans three stages. The first stage here consisted of searching the Web of Science database, in December 2021, deploying the keywords (“famil* business*” or “famil* firm*” or “famil* compan*” or “famil* owned*” or “famil* entrepr*” or “business* famil*” or “firm* famil*” or “entrepr* famil*”) and innovat* and succession. We selected only articles written in English, in the categories of Economics, Management or Business, resulting in 65 articles. In the second stage, we analyzed the titles and summaries of the articles to ensure the selection of only thoseanalyzing innovation and succession in family businesses. This step led to 32 articles meeting this criterion. This analysis consisted of a complete reading of the articles. After reading, a selection was made on whether each article addressed the theme under analysis, innovation and succession in family businesses. The articles that did not approach the theme were discarded from the database. The third and final phase involved the application of the VOSviewer software for bibliographic coupling. The research protocol is set out in Fig.  1 .

Stages in the Systematic Literature Review (Own elaboration)

After the search on Web of Science with the pre-defined keywords, the systematic literature review started with 65 articles. After an analysis and read-through of these articles, 33 were eliminated, either because they did not address the theme or were duplicates. The software VOSviewer was used on the final sample of 32 articles for the bibliographic coupling. Through bibliographic coupling, the remaining articles were classified into clusters. After the selection by the VOSviewer software, a new reading of the articles by cluster was performed to identify common lines of inquiry and research among each article, to verify whether articles were related to each other, and to determine the precise theme each article focused on. This process ultimately determined the name of each of the clusters identified.

Descriptive analysis of the articles

The following descriptive analysis and those presented in Figs.  2 and ​ and3 3 focus on the 65 articles that appeared in the first step of the systematic literature review. In contrast, Fig.  4 ; Table  1 present the map of clusters and the composition of each cluster based on the 32 articles that appeared in the third step of the systematic literature review.

Cluster Composition

Annual growth in publications on innovation and succession (Own elaboration)

Journals with most publications (Own elaboration)

Network of Clusters (VOSviewer)

Figure  2 displays the growth in the initial 65 articles (before the analysis of the articles) and the number of citations published in the last five years. The peak number of publications occurred in 2021, even though there has been an ongoing and significant rise in publications ever since 2018. Figure  2 shows a time interval of 4 years, by choice of the authors, which makes it possible to observe the decrease in the number of citations between 2019 and 2020. This decrease in the number of citations may be related to the Covid-19 pandemic or, in an extreme situation, stagnated interest in the literature on innovation, succession and family businesses.

The 65 articles were published in a total of 44 journals with the Journal of Family Business Strategy accounting for the largest number with eight articles, followed by the Journal of Family Business Management on six, with Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice providing four publications. A sum of six journals accounts for two publications apiece, and there are 35 journals with but a single article on succession and innovation. Figure  3 encompasses the original 65 articles and details the ten journals with the largest number of publications and their respective years of publications. The timeframe in Fig.  3 shows us when articles that address the theme under study begin to appear and what kind of journals they are published in.

Table  2 presents the top ten journals and the respective country of the initial 65 articles. Table  2 also presents the h-index, which represents the number of articles in a journal that have been cited an h number of times. Table  2 shows that the United Kingdom is the country that appears most often as the country of origin of the journals with the largest number of publications, appearing in 6 out of 10. The values of the h-index of the ten journals with the highest number of publications are also between 18 and 169, with Equilibrium-Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, from Poland, representing the lowest number, and Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, from the United States, representing the highest number.

Journal country and H-index (initial 65 articles)

The final 32 articles present various methodologies, from quantitative, qualitative, combined (quantitative and qualitative), and theoretical methodology. Of the final base of 32 articles, 17 present a quantitative methodology, 13 have a qualitative methodology and the remaining 2 have a combined and theoretical methodology.

Table  3 below shows the 20 journals where the final 32 articles were published, the number of citations per journal, and the H-index and country of origin. It is possible to observe that 5 of the journals do not present any citation, however, 4 of them present an h-index above 20 with the Serbian Journal of Management presents an h-index of 11.

Journal H-index, citations and Country (final 32 articles)

The journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice has the highest h-index (169); however, it is one of the journals without any citations in the final base of 32 articles. The Journal of Product Innovation has an h-index of 154 and 54 citations. In comparison, the journal with the highest number of citations is the Journal of Family Business Strategy with 193 citations and an h-index of 51.

Tables  2 and ​ and3 3 show that the origin of the articles in the research (Table  2 shows the 65 original articles from phase 1, Table  3 shows the 32 articles analyzed in the research) focuses mainly on the United Kingdom, followed by the United States. Switzerland, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, and the Netherlands are some of the countries that appear as the origin of the journals.

Bibliographic coupling analysis

To analyze the core themes to innovation and family succession, we carried out bibliographic coupling through recourse to VOSviewer. Every article we analyzed, even that have not yet gained any citations, thus not excluding articles that have not received citations as this might lead to the loss of articles essential to the depth of the research. The VOSviewer software formed clusters with a minimum of three articles per cluster, with the 32 articles breaking down into three clusters, which Fig.  4 duly portrays.

Table  1 presents the composition of the three clusters encountered, with each one corresponding to one of the respective approaches: (1) Impact of Succession on Innovation, (2) Succession and Sharing of Knowledge and (3) Obstacles to Innovation.

Cluster 1: impact of succession on innovation (N = 15)

The 15 articles present in this cluster contribute to the literature with knowledge on the shaping of innovation and the influences of families on the potential for family business innovation. Ahmad et al. ( 2021 ) explore how the involvement of families in companies affects their innovative capacities, with such innovation enabling the companies to embark on the path to sustainable longevity. The authors demonstrate that innovation capacities are a life and death factor for companies operating in the globally competitive environment. In turn, Cesaroni et al. ( 2021 ) approach the ways family businesses’ innovation capacities evolve between the first and second generations as well as the conditions that improve and favour this process. These authors also propose a typology of founders and successors concerning innovation and the influences such processes are subject to as they evolve from the founding to the successor generation.

Querbach et al. ( 2020 ) analyze how and under which conditions the retention of the predecessor’s board membership impact on product innovation in family businesses in the wake of succession processes and with the results demonstrate that retaining the existing board of directors brings about negative consequences in terms of product innovation.

Wong and Chen ( 2018 ) study how the family firm’s founder shapes the innovation performance of successor family CEOs and what outcomes compared with the succession of non-family related CEOs. They also study whether the results of innovation announcements receive stronger reactions on stock markets than those published following the succession of an external family member as CEO, with founders remaining within the company (belonging to the board), reducing the negative effect existing between heirs and innovation performance standards.

Carney et al. (2021) consider the differences in “lean” innovation performances among publicly listed family companies and those with open capital structures embarking on succession processes and comparing with those yet to begin any such process. These authors maintain that family businesses successors emerge significantly as keen adopters of lean innovation patented strategies.

Alrubaishi et al. ( 2021 ) approach the differences in the capacities and economic or non-economic orientation of family businesses and how these facets shape innovative activities. Their findings point to the need for businesses to hold the resource capacities as well as the appropriate economic orientation and shunning non-economic viewpoints in order to foster innovation.

Yang et al. ( 2021 ) empirically gauge the impact that succession has on family businesses in terms of their investments in corporate innovation. These authors also examine two different types of resources and state ownership and the potential moderating role existing in the relationship between succession and innovation investments. The authors identify how succession hinders innovation investment in family companies.

Kotlar and Chrisman ( 2019 ) discuss the influence of family involvement over processes of organizational and strategic changes and, according to the literature, the family variable represents an important driver of change and innovation in the succession processes of family companies. Calabrò et al. ( 2021 ) debate the role of the family as an essential input for dealing with company crises during the Covid-19 pandemic and how these transform the challenges into opportunities to emerge more robustly from the financial crisis. These authors apply a research agenda from crisis management to family companies with four articles that consider succession, innovation and family governance.

In turn, the research by Rondi et al. ( 2019 ) focuses on the question of what role the family system plays in resolving the paradox between willingness-ability and how to unblock the potential for research innovation. The authors construct innovation postures applicable to family companies and correspondingly identifying four ideal types: (1) Learner, (2) Recreator, (3) Researcher and (4) Adventurer while also exploring the innovation stances of family firms and the dimensions associated with families to resolve the willingness-ability paradox.

Some studies delve into just how second-generation family company CEOS generate their motivation for investments in financial assets. The authors conclude that second-generation CEO characteristics, market competition and financial restrictions hold significant effects for second-generation successors even while there was no significant relationship between the financing of assets by the second generation of family businesses and their respective levels of performance, with investment in business innovation not harming the core business operations of businesses (Ejupi-Ibrahimi, et al. 2021 ; Chen et al., 2020 ; Korherr and Kanbach 2021 ; Nordqvist et al. 2013 ; Strobl et al., 2020 )

Furthermore, Filser et al. ( 2018 ) put forward a theoretical model that explains how family functionality and socio-emotional wealth influence the innovation capacities of companies. The authors apply a structural equation model which returns divergences between certain dimensions to socio-emotional wealth and innovation in companies. In turn, Hauck and Pruegl ( 2015 ) research how socio-emotional interrelate with the perspectives of the owners/managers and the phase of intra-family leadership succession as an opportunity for innovation activities in family businesses. The authors report how the existence of family adaptability and the proximity of a member to the company positively associated with the perceptions of the succession phase as an innovation opportunity.

Schussler et al. (2017) deepen the knowledge on the conditions in which change triggers the pathways to the internationalization of family businesses. These authors reporting that successor generation adopt internationalization strategies due to their long-term orientations with succession triggering the search for internationalization of a “born again global” family business type. Alayo et al. ( 2021 ) conducted similar research.

Finally, Memili et al. ( 2014 ) approach and explore the organizational psychological capital (PsyCap) in franchised family businesses. The authors provide an overall vision of the important role that PsyCap plays in franchised family businesses and in family succession intentions for building up innovation-friends behaviours in companies.

Cluster 2: succession and sharing of knowledge (N = 12)

This cluster contains a total of 12 articles that address family succession and how this may bring about effects on behaviours in the business. These studies also reveal important factors such as the sustainability of family businesses in addition to exploring the relationship between the entrepreneurial competencies of the founders and the innovation capacities of their successors.

Chalus-Sauvannet et al. ( 2016 ) tackle the cases of family succession in which such is an unexpected event, analyzing the cases of descendants that take up other careers outside of the family business but then return and become the successor. The authors set out the different motivations of descendants for such returns and the acceptance of succession; (1) benefitting from a professional career and personal success outside of the family business, acquiring various advantages for taking up a leadership position in the family business; (2) succession is the result of a personal and deliberated personal decision, neither forced nor pushed; (3) the profile and the situation of an unforeseen succession frames them as legitimate leaders with the heirs perceiving the family business management position as compensation for abandoning a promising career; (4) the acquisitions resulting from negotiations that place the heirs in the same position as the older generation and thus at the same level as the predecessors; (5) acting as entrepreneurs through their proactivity in the succession decisions of their parents, taking on risks, detecting new business opportunities and not hesitating over innovating; and (6) implementing changes while maintaining the support of predecessors in order to avoid destabilising the organisation.

According to Li et al. ( 2021 ), leaders who are exiting tend to continue to closely observe their successors following any transgenerational succession and that the successors concentrate on short term developments and investing less in R&D. These authors find substance for their argument that trans-generational succession reduces the intensity of R&D. Schell et al. ( 2018 ), in turn, focus on planned intra-family successions to grasp the role of social networks during succession processes. The authors identify patterns related to the transfer of networks of contacts that influence the duration and structure of the succession process. Schell et al. ( 2018 ) also observe how these social networks generate a strategic impact that may be crucial to the long-term survival of family businesses.

Wang et al. ( 2019 ) discuss how in questions around company succession, focusing on the successors and analyzing the impact of the successor’s knowledge and desire for succession on sustainable corporate innovation and the success of succession. Their research findings observe that the approval of the leader shapes the relationship between the company successor and its sustainable innovation. Chirapanda ( 2020 ) analyzed factors important to the sustainability of family businesses before identifying how innovation, competitive advantage, leadership and team management, and establishing good relationships with the community constitute essential steps in achieving succession processes in family businesses.

Tobak et al. ( 2018 ) examine the experience, successful management and the succession of generations in a Hungarian company, and their results demonstrate that to ensure the maintenance of appropriate succession activities, family management should plan in advance. These authors also discuss how particular needs, including the sharing of knowledge, innovation performance and the best practices making up the company culture, perform an important role in passing on the baton within family businesses.

Furthermore, within this cluster, Letonja et al. ( 2016 a) probe the relationship between the entrepreneurial competencies of the founders of family SMEs and the innovation of their successors. The authors convey how the entrepreneurial competencies of founders (their creativity, attitudes towards risk and technical knowledge and abilities) positively correlate with the innovation capacities of their successors.

Zybura et al. ( 2021 ) study the production of innovation following the succession of family members while also examining whether the origins of successors and the sustained influence of predecessors interrelate with innovation following succession, with these authors discovering that the extended influence of predecessors boosts the probability of producing innovations following succession processes.

In addition, Hillebrand ( 2019 ) describes the generation–innovation relationship in family businesses and recognizing how the degree of family influence over the business varies down through the generations. The author tests whether the generation–innovation relationship derives from considerations relating to family management and the intention to transfer family control, with this author proposing that family businesses raise their production of innovation over generations. At the same time, innovation has positive and negative effects following increases in family influence.

Letonja and Duh ( 2016 ) study the dynamics of knowledge transfer processes and their effects on the innovation capacities of the successors. Their results identify how the tacit knowledge transferred from founders to successors is of importance even while not in itself sufficient to boost the innovation capacities of successors. Woodfield and Husted ( 2017 ) examine the sharing of knowledge among generations within family businesses operating in traditional industries before proposing that sharing knowledge is bidirectional, leading to innovative results and change. According to these findings, the traditional industries tend to lead towards dependency and cause significant inertia regarding managing the innovation activities ongoing in companies.

Finally, Letonja et al. ( 2021 ) also explore the dynamics of knowledge transfers undertaken during family business succession and the effects these have on the innovation capacities of successors. Their results demonstrate the importance of founders transferring knowledge to successors even though this is not a sufficient factor for boosting the innovation capacities of their successors.

Cluster 3: obstacles to innovation (N = 5)

This cluster incorporates five articles that contribute research findings on how the innovation capacities of family businesses vary in keeping with different criteria, including company size, sector of activity and industry. The articles in this cluster analyze innovation and succession in family businesses over the long term and whether business inertia hinders their progress.

For example, Grundstrom et al. (2012) compare the different forms of company management and the respective perceptions in keeping with the adopted type of succession (internal family successions versus external acquisitions). The article evaluates post-succession perceptions of innovation and management in family businesses to conclude that the choice of successor and the business-related values bring about inertia within the scope of which only minor changes in the innovation orientation become feasible. While external managers may concentrate on growth through innovation, family businesses diversify so as not to abandon prior businesses. In the research, the authors identify some intermediate factors such as client involvement, type of SME and the motivations for acquisition that shape the innovation culture of organizations and establish explanatory connections to the intensity and methodologies of innovation.

Civelek et al. ( 2021a ) approach how the innovation capacities of family SMEs transform following the sector of activity, company size, industry and type of succession. The authors report that SME innovation differs depending on the sector of activity, size and industry while furthermore demonstrating that the innovation capacities of SMEs do not alter according to the involvement of succession. Ključnikov et al. ( 2021 ) also analyze the differences in innovation capacities and the obstacles some family businesses encounter with their research findings confirming that the innovation capacities of companies do not depend on the characteristics or age of the founder/entrepreneur.

Furthermore, the research by Santiago ( 2015 ) into how inertia or omission explains the failure of family companies to make progress as failure to act causes company decline and thus conveys the need for action and strategies to avoid companies entering into decline with this author maintaining that when some family members are unable to introduce innovation into companies, in its own right, constitutes a guarantee of business failure.

Finally, Civelek et al. ( 2021b ) examine differences existing in the innovation capacities of family businesses, taking into consideration the age of the founders of each company, the juridical status of their businesses and their succession processes. According to these authors, the capacity for global innovation does not differ according to the business’ or the founder’s characteristics but with higher levels of organizational innovation emerging in SMEs where the successor is present in the company.

Discussion and framework for innovation and succession

The clusters found in this research thus present various perspectives on family businesses, the succession process, and the effects they have on each other. The first cluster addresses the impact of the succession process on innovation, however, this cluster does not present how innovation is impacted, and how the succession process can be prevented from affecting the innovation of the companies. Cluster 2 focuses on succession and knowledge sharing. Yet, it does not mention or present how knowledge sharing affects the innovation capacity of companies or how the succession process influences the sharing of knowledge within companies. The third and last cluster presents the obstacles to innovation. However, it reveals few publications that mention some of the obstacles to innovation and do not present the causes or consequences of these obstacles.

It is also possible to observe clusters 1 and 2 present a closer connection, compared to cluster 3, after examining Fig.  4 above in this research. It can be assumed that the clusters Impact of Succession in Innovation (1) and Succession and Sharing of Knowledge (2) have a stronger connection due to the proximity of the themes addressed in each cluster. Cluster 3 presents mostly articles related to the obstacles to innovation, as the type of industry and sector of activity of companies, and both clusters 1 and 2 address the issue of succession and its impact on the businesses. They have more characteristics in common and appear more interconnected (Fig.  4 ).

This research thereby makes contributions, including the systematization of the existing research on the field of innovation and family businesses and their respective succession processes and correspondingly providing a mapping of the literature and an integrated vision of the state-of-the-art while putting forward points of departure for future lines of research. The research shows that the family is vital for the company, causing effects with positive or negative repercussions on the innovation capacity of companies, which can lead to the failure or success of family businesses.

These findings indicate the importance that the family’s involvement in the firm and its innovation activities impacts the success of family businesses and their future.

Based on the three clusters obtained from the bibliographic coupling of the 32 articles, Fig.  5 sets out the proposed framework for innovation and succession. This framework conveys how succession processes impact business innovation and how advice from predecessors may bring negative consequences for innovation, even though different stances toward innovation also emerge and with families driving both positive and negative effects for innovation in businesses.

Research framework (Own elaboration)

The framework also details how the transfer of knowledge by founders holds importance, even while in itself insufficient to boost the capacity for the innovation of successors. The framework further exposes how the influence of the predecessor guides the production of innovation in family businesses with successful succession processes attained by innovation, competitive advantage, leadership, team management and good relations with the community. This framework thereby details the themes approached by research into succession and innovation in family companies and the potential lines for future research.

The proposed framework demonstrates the essential points of each of the clusters identified in the research. The framework presents how innovation affects the succession processes of family businesses, and how innovation influences the success of these businesses. The framework presented also conveys the different stances towards innovation adopted by families alongside the respective effects they cause and how the transfer of knowledge holds particular importance to the family and the succession process, even while in itself an insufficient factor for boosting the innovation capacities of successors. The proposed framework thus enables the analysis and observation of the outputs of past research findings and that approach and define the paths for future research projects.

Succession hinders investment in innovation by family businesses, according to Yang et al. ( 2021 ) even while the family emerges as an important input to business succession and innovation. Research findings also point to how the predecessor continuing to provide advice holds negative consequences for innovation by those businesses even while the sustained influence of predecessors leads to innovation following the succession process. The transfer of knowledge by the founder is important to the succession process, although insufficient to boost the innovation capacities of their successors.

Conclusions, limitations and future research directions

We may conclude that succession constitutes an integral facet of family businesses and may alter their respective levels of innovation. Regarding the issue of succession, we may also accept that this process triggers specific alterations in family businesses that shape the production of innovation by the successors and the production of innovation by family businesses. This article also reports on the need for the transfer and sharing of knowledge between predecessors and successors and identifying some factors of importance not only to succession but also to business sustainability, such as innovation, competitive advantage, leadership, team management and good relationships with the community.

We may also affirm that innovation generates impacts and influences how family businesses behave and undertake their succession processes with these impacts also extending to the innovation capacities in effect at these companies. The current study sought to identify how succession in family businesses shapes their levels of innovation even while the bibliographic coupling results demonstrate that the literature displays greater interest in the impact of succession on innovation (cluster 1). The other clusters, succession and the sharing of knowledge (cluster 2) and obstacles to innovation (cluster 3), demonstrate the recent rise in research outputs since 2019, reflecting both the recent nature of these theme alongside their growing importance.

This study conveys how research has focused on how innovation and succession impact family companies even while there was scant research on how innovation might leverage the succession processes of companies or how succession processes stimulate the innovation capacities of their successors. The literature reflects the need to expand research into the effects of succession on company innovation and how they maintain their innovation capacities within the scope of family businesses following succession processes.

This article maps the key themes in the literature on innovation and succession in family businesses and suggests new research lines. This also differs from other systematic literature reviews as this research expands the knowledge on succession and innovation in family businesses following many recent publications.

A limitation of this study is its recourse to only one database, which may have prevented access to other articles relevant to this research field. Moreover, despite care at every step, the process of excluding articles may have rejected articles falling within the scope of this research. Another limitation of the study is the timeframe used in the systematic literature review protocol, which covers publications up to the year 2021, excluding articles after this date, which may have added nuance to the present study.

In conclusion, the research findings make contributions across both the theoretical and practical levels through this systematization of the existing research on family business succession and innovation. Our study provides new insights and a better understanding of the themes dominant in the literature. Our study also represents the first systematic literature review on the succession–innovation relationship in the family business. The practical research implications span the directions for future lines of research, thereby meeting the gaps identified in Table  4 . Our study demonstrates how this theme remains far from fully explored.

Future lines of research

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Contributor Information

Juliana R. Baltazar, Email: [email protected] .

Cristina I. Fernandes, Email: [email protected] .

Veland Ramadani, Email: [email protected] .

Mathew Hughes, Email: [email protected] .

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