Family Business Research: Roads Travelled and the Search for Unworn Paths

Advancing Family Business Research: The Promise of Microfoundations

“…Family business research has been flourishing in the past two decades (De Massis, Sharma, Chua, & Chrisman, 2012; Neubaum, 2018). This is manifest in an increasing number of family business studies published in top-tier management journals (e.g., Kotlar, Signori, De Massis, & Vismara, 2018; Neckebrouck, Schulze, & Zellweger, 2018) and an accumulating body of knowledge about the distinctive characteristics and behaviors of family enterprises and the outcomes of such behaviors.…”

Truckin’ on at Family Business Review

“…While not initially planned, all four of the articles in the September issue examined issues related to entrepreneurship, including entrepreneurial orientation, entrepreneurial legacies, innovation, and new start-up decisions by next-generation family members. As noted by Neubaum (2018) in his editorial to the September issue, the scholarly link between family business and entrepreneurship remains strong and these articles demonstrate various points of overlap well. For the December issue, which is introduced by an editorial by De Massis and Foss (2018) on the promise of microfoundations, we have four articles that are linked through their emphasis on relational ties.…”

Literature, Fiction, and the Family Business

“…In recent years, scholars have intensified the calls for more interdisciplinary approaches toward understanding the motivations, activities, processes, and behaviors of family businesses. Most family business scholars tend to draw upon insights from the management and economics disciplines for both theoretical and methodological guidance in their research (Neubaum, 2018; Payne, 2018; Sharma, 2004). However, the relevance for family business studies of disciplines such as psychology (e.g., Kammerlander & Breugst, 2019; Pieper, 2010; Strike et al, 2018), family sciences (e.g., Combs et al, 2020; Jaskiewicz et al, 2017), history (Colli, 2012; Hjorth & Dawson, 2016), and anthropology (Stewart, 2003) has also been emphasized:For while founding our perspectives on established literature is a good practice, we also need to broaden our perspectives to seek out new ways of “seeing” and theorizing.…”