Agency, Stewardship, and the Universal-Family Firm

Abstract

This version is available at https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/54098/ Strathprints is designed to allow users to access the research output of the University of Strathclyde. Unless otherwise explicitly stated on the manuscript, Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Please check the manuscript for details of any other licences that may have been applied. You may not engage in further distribution of the material for any profitmaking activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute both the url (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk/) and the content of this paper for research or private study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge.Any correspondence concerning this service should be sent to the Strathprints administrator: strathprints@strath.ac.ukThe Strathprints institutional repository (https://strathprints.strath.ac.uk) is a digital archive of University of Strathclyde research outputs. It has been developed to disseminate open access research outputs, expose data about those outputs, and enable the management and persistent access to Strathclyde's intellectual output. 1 AGENCY, STEWARDSHIP AND THE UNIVERSAL-FAMILY FIRM:A QUALITATIVE HISTORICAL ANALYSIS ABSTRACT This paper introduces the idea of a non-kinship-based Universal-family firm, an organizational form we developed based on interpreting historical writings in their socio-economic context. We analyzed Luke's gospel with an eye toward drawing implications for the stewardship-agency debate in the contemporary family business literature. Our paper makes contributions at two important levels. In addition to introducing and developing theory about the Universal-family firms, we also contribute to the methodological toolkit of family business scholars by providing a template for using historical documents to challenge, enhance and develop theory.

A mission of service: social entrepreneur as a servant leader

“…Therefore, future research may address the issues of sustaining servant and social orientation (Katre and Salipante, 2012), especially in a situation when the social entrepreneurs transfer their control to professional management. It is argued that social enterprise embodies the assumptions of the stewardship theory (Dodd and Dyck, 2015). Therefore, it can be expected that servant leadership attributes may be the basis for the steward-principal relationships as opposed to agent-principal (Davis et al , 1997), especially when power is transferred to professional management.…”

Being different matters! A closer look into product differentiation in specialty coffee family farms in Central America

“…Based on such features, recent studies advocate that stewardship practices and behaviours are more likely to be evident in family firms than in non-family firms (Carradus et al , 2019; Neubaum et al , 2017). Dodd and Dyck (2015, p. 314) argue that longer-term commitment to their firm, reputation enhancement through engaging in stewardship activities and shared identification of members with core cultural values may explain why family firms place greater emphasis on stewardship.…”

“…Such individuals may engage in entrepreneurial stewardship—that is, when family business members engage in growing the family assets entrepreneurially, not just safeguarding them for the next generation (Discua Cruz et al , 2013, p. 39). Entrepreneurial stewards can relate to individuals that integrate shared interests, act upon a concern for the long-term welfare of the family business and its immediate environment rather than self-interest and are involved in the creation and leverage of key resources within the firm (Le Bretton Miller and Miller, 2018; Dodd and Dyck, 2015). Product differentiation could emerge as a behaviour of entrepreneurial stewards when the intention is a collective approach to improve a family firm (Vega Solano and Discua Cruz, 2017).…”

Performance Achievements of Family Business through Successor Readiness and The Relationship between Family and Business Members

“…Motwani, Levenburg, Schwarz, and Blankson (2006) stated that the succession plan, communication, and training are important in the family business, regardless of the size of the family business. Several studies points out that family members as successor can lead to decline in performance (Liu, Eubanks, and Chater, 2015), due to the perseverance of socioemotional welfare of familial relationship over business performance (Dodd and Dyck, 2015;Miller, Breton-Miller, and Lester, 2013).…”