Exploring the Emotional Nexus in Cogent Family Business Archetypes

Abstract

This article aims at offering a

Successfully navigating the paradox of control and autonomy in succession: The role of managing ambivalent emotions

“…We found that during successor installation, some participants engage in an emancipation process, motivated by self-differentiation and self-promotion motives, mainly by using confrontational strategies. Emancipation seems to be of major importance for successors from enmeshed family businesses, because of their higher need of self-differentiation as regards the incumbent, which extends prior studies on enmeshed, balanced and disengaged family businesses (Labaki et al, 2013). We showed that during successor installation, the self-differentiation motive might become so intense that successors take the risk of revealing their negative feelings by using confrontational strategies and showing incumbents that they are different from them.…”

“…Whereas prior research attributes emotions to the family system only (Bee and Neubaum, 2014;Carlock and Ward, 2001;Combs et al, 2019;Fleming, 2000), we show that ambivalent emotions occur at the intersection of both the family and the business systems because the family-business overlap triggers role conflict. Answering prior calls to examine emotions at the nexus of the family and the business systems Labaki et al, 2013), we find that these emotional ambivalences mostly occur in enmeshed family businesses. In disengaged family businesses, there are less occasions of mixed emotions, according to the accounts of successors.…”

“…Family members operationally engaged in the firm are impelled to comply with both family and family business emotion expectations; therefore, the quality of the relationship between parents/predecessors and children/successors affects the emotion management strategies of the latter (Thompson and Meyer, 2007). Moreover, Labaki et al (2013) suggest that the degree of overlapping between the family and the business systems triggers three different configurations of family firms: enmeshed family businesses, balanced family businesses and disengaged family businesses. The enmeshed family business presents high cohesion and emotional closeness among members, which consequently leaves little space for private life and independence.…”

“…The systematic approach for identifying and examining emotion management strategies that we introduce in our study contributes to the literature on emotions in family firms (Brundin and Härtel, 2014;Brundin and Sharma, 2011;Labaki et al, 2013) and answers the call for theorisation on emotions in family business (Astrachan and Jaskiewicz, 2008;. We highlight that the degree of overlap between the family and business systems (enmeshed, balanced, disengaged) moderates the relationship between ambivalent emotions and emotion management strategies and motives of the successors, which confirms and extends prior studies on family-business overlap (Labaki et al, 2013). Second, we reveal why and with what consequences the management of ambivalent emotions by the successors enables them to balance control and autonomy through the alternative pursuit of legitimacy and emancipation in succession, building knowledge about the paradox of control and autonomy in family firms (Pitts et al, 2009;Tatoglu et al, 2008).…”

Too close and too rigid: Applying the Circumplex Model of Family Systems to First‐Generation Family Firms

“…Using Bowen’s (1978) theory, Distelberg and Sorenson (2009) considered the first generation of family firms to be characterized by enmeshment between the family and business systems. Labaki, Michael‐Tsabari, and Zachary (2011) suggested a typology based on different levels of enmeshment between the two systems, with the first generation typically tending to be rigidly enmeshed. Taking into account the inherent overlap between family and firm during the first generation (Tagiuri & Davis, 1996), we argue that the business family in the early stages is rigidly enmeshed, allowing and enabling further enmeshment between the family and the business as a whole.…”