Next-generation engagement is a key contributor to the success and continuity of family firms. Family relationships are an important factor in shaping such engagement. However, we know little as to how this engagement process unfolds, especially during the formative years of next-generation members. Using the principles of social cognitive theory and drawing on the career development, organizational behavior, and family business literature, we theorize the indirect influence of perceived parental support and psychological control on next-generation engagement in family firms through the mediating variables of self-efficacy and commitment to the family business. We discuss several possible avenues to test and extend this model in future research.

Agency theory has focused on buyouts as a governance and control device to increase profitability, organizational efficiency and limited attention to growth. A strategic entrepreneurship view of buyouts incorporates upside incentives for value creation associated with growth as well as efficiency gains. In this paper, we develop the complementarity between agency theory and strategic entrepreneurship perspectives to examine the performance implications for different types of buyouts. Further, we study how the involvement of private equity firms is related to the performance of the postbuyout firm. These issues are examined for a sample of 238 private equity backed buyouts in the UK between 1993 and 2003. Implications for theory and practice are suggested.4

We explore the vexing question of whether family firms are more likely to survive than nonfamily firms, focusing on the role of board composition. Utilizing a unique data set of over 700,000 private family and nonfamily firms in the U.K. during 2007–2010, we find that family firms are significantly less likely to fail than nonfamily firms. We identify the board characteristics associated with survival/failure in all firms and determine that it is these characteristics that are important in explaining the lower failure probability of family firms. We conclude with an agenda for further research on boards and family firm survival.

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We explore the factors influencing the internationalization of small family firms. Based on interviews with six family firms in Singapore, we highlight the importance of (1) family harmony, (2) trust in external relationships, (3) social and business networks, and (4) organizational resources and capabilities in the internationalization process. We show how the socioemotional wealth factors of trust and harmony affect networking and resources, which in turn affect internationalization. We find that initial internationalization through exports is enabled through trust in family networks, but the typical family characteristics of a desire to maintain family harmony and distrust of outsiders have a negative impact on network creation and resource development, which constrains the extent to which the firm internationalizes beyond exporting. In order to move from the first stage (exports/similar markets) to the second stage (joint ventures/different markets) of internationalization, less emphasis on trust and family harmony accompanied by more emphasis on building external networks and resources may be necessary. We propose a new model of internationalization of family firms based on our findings. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.