Family Firm Goals and their Effects on Strategy, Family and Organization Behavior: A Review and Research Agenda

Abstract

Goals are a key differentiator between family businesses and non-family businesses.To improve understanding of this topic, the authors take stock of what they know about goals in family business. They synthesize prior research findings and classify the research into five categories: family business goal antecedents; goal characteristics; goal-related outcomes; moderators of goal outcomes; and feedback loop. The paper concludes by highlighting future research to advance both family business goal and general management research.

Tracing the Roots of Constructive Conflict Management in Family Firms

“…In contrast, other studies have explored the external perspective—how family firms collaborate with the external context to promote innovation (Feranita, Kotlar, & De Massis, ), market orientation (Cabrera‐Suárez, de la Cruz Déniz‐Déniz, & Martín‐Santana, ), and environmental sustainability (Le Breton‐Miller & Miller, ). Our paper is positioned within the current stream of research about goals in family firms, proposing that constructive conflict management contributes to the process in which divergent goals are transformed into positive outcomes across different organizational dimensions (Kotlar, Massis, Wright, & Frattini, ; Williams, Pieper, Kellermanns, & Astrachan, ). This review also advances the familiness theory through the development of its connections with constructive conflict management in family firms.…”

Justice versus fairness in the family business workplace: A socioemotional wealth approach

“…In this way, this study contributes to using better terminologies and better measurements of justice and fairness in the business ethics literature and in the family business literature. Second, this paper highlights the importance of incorporating socioemotional goals, particularly those that reflect a bright side of socioemotional wealth, in any fair process designed to build an ethical family business workplace where justice and fairness are prevalent, therefore heeding the growing calls to discuss how the pursuit of socioemotional goals affects the way family firms should be managed and directed (Samara et al, ; Williams et al, ) and allowing continuity with previous research on this important topic (Samara & Arenas, ; Van der Heyden, Blondel, & Carlock, ). Third, this paper offers managerial contributions by showing that professionalization processes that are appropriate to a non‐family business setting cannot be applied intact to a family business workplace.…”

“…Indeed, family and business are two interconnected institutions that highly influence how family firms are managed and directed. In family firms, controlling owners pursue both economic and socioemotional (i.e., family‐centered) goals (Samara, Jamali, Sierra, & Parada ; Williams, Pieper, Kellermanns, & Astrachan, ). As a corollary, if rules and regulations are designed to reward employees who contribute exclusively to the family firm economic goals, then this can violate fairness perceptions of employees’ that contribute to the family firm socioemotional goals.…”

How do Family Firms Grow? The Strategic Goals of Innovation and Internationalization

“…A large part of research on family firms is based on the investigation of family firms' goals and the diversity of topics related to family firms' goals. Specifically, substantial attention is given to the family firms goals setting process and the mechanisms through which family firms goals are formed and how outcomes are achieved (Williams et al, 2018).…”

“…This heterogeneity among family firms' goals is due to the distinctive values and socio-cultural characteristics of the subject involved in the decision-making process. Thus, according to Williams et al (2018), the presence of an owning-family and its control over the business represents a significant family firms' goal antecedent.…”