Corporate Entrepreneurship and Family Business: Learning Across Domains

Abstract

Research at the interface of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) and family firms’ domains has grown steadily based on the premise that family firms’ specific elements uniquely affect CE antecedents, strategies, and outcomes. However, much remains to be uncovered. In this article, we offer a theoretical advancement of a corporate entrepreneurship process model for the case of family firms organized around the categories of ontology (i.e., domain redefinition), epiphany (i.e., new components and mechanisms), and heterogeneity (i.e., family firm variety and contingencies). This development paves the way for an agenda for future research and for possible generalizations to non‐family firms.

Venturing Motives and Venturing Types in Entrepreneurial Families: A Corporate Entrepreneurship Perspective

“…Moreover, while some previous work has viewed entrepreneurship as a strategic activity at the level of the family firm (Bettinelli et al, 2017; Clinton et al, 2018; Nordqvist & Melin, 2010), the insights of our study show that this view is frequently not the case. In line with prior exploratory research (Minola et al, 2021; Zellweger, Nason, et al, 2012), we propose that entrepreneurship is not solely at the level of the firm and centered around one core business (an existing family firm), which is passed on from one generation to the next. Rather, it seems that many family ventures are the result of informal, autonomous bottom-up entrepreneurial activity (Burgelman, 1983a, 1983b, 1983c, 1984).…”

“…While the more standard or traditional setting for corporate venturing is typically associated with the creation of new ventures centering around an existing organization (Covin & Miles, 2007), venturing actitivites by EF members may or may not include an existing family firm. Hence, in line with research that views entrepreneurial activities by EF members in between corporate and individual entrepreneurship (Minola et al, 2021), we recognize that the creation of new ventures may not necessarily be a top-down, formally induced firm-level activity but may surface autonomously as a bottom-up process by entrepreneurial individuals or a group of entrepreneurial individuals who are members of an EF. Connecting newly created ventures to the EF and the core family firm (if existent) as well as the interaction of EF venture founder(s) with the EF or family firm renders the application of the corporate venturing logic an adequate theory base for our study.…”

“…First, regarding research on corporate entrepreneurship in family-influenced firms (Bettinelli et al, 2017;Brumana et al, 2017, Kellermanns & Eddleston, 2006Minola et al, 2016Minola et al, , 2021Ramírez-Pasillas et al, 2021), we offer new insights into the antecedents of informal bottom-up and autonomous entrepreneurial activity by EF members that emphasize aspects unique to the family business context. In particular, we identified six motives that encouraged EF members to engage in such activity: preserving the entrepreneurial mindset, sustaining family harmony, finding family fit, qualifying as successor, facilitating succession, and emancipation from the EF.…”

“…Corporate entrepreneurship is also seen as an important strategic element, to be sustained and renewed in the volatile, competitive environments (Cruz & Nordqvist, 2012; Kellermanns & Eddleston, 2006; Zahra et al, 2004) of family firms, which are defined as businesses “governed and/or managed with the intention to shape and pursue the vision of the business held by a dominant coalition controlled by members of the same family or a small number of families in a manner that is potentially sustainable across generations of the family or families” (Chua et al, 1999, p. 25). Of the three forms of corporate entrepreneurship, innovation is the most studied in the family business context, followed by strategic renewal and then corporate venturing (for a detailed overview, see Bettinelli et al, 2017; Minola et al, 2021). It is the latter, corporate venturing in the family business context, which is the focus of our study.…”

Transformational leadership and non-family employee intrapreneurial behaviour in family-owned firms: the mediating role of adaptive culture and psychological empowerment

“…In the face of tensions between the desire to preserve family values, control power and tradition by remaining in the local market and the desire to explore and exploit the benefits of global market expansion, family-owned businesses also blend and gradually conflict (Arregle et al, 2017). Through innovation and adaptation to changes in the internal and external environments, intrapreneurship has the potential to improve corporate performance (Minola et al, 2021). Pre-competitive research has primarily concentrated on corporate enterprise in large-scale manufacturing firms, with macro-level analysis.…”