Family Firm Heterogeneity: A Definition, Common Themes, Scholarly Progress, and Directions Forward

Abstract

While progress has been made in recent years to understand the differences among family firms, insights remain fragmented due, in part, to an incomplete understanding of heterogeneity and the scope of differences that exist among family firms. Given this, we offer a definition of and review the literature on family firm heterogeneity. A latent semantic analysis of 781 articles from 33 journals identified nine common themes of family firm heterogeneity. For each theme, we review scholarly progress made and highlight differences among family firms. Additionally, we offer directions for advancing the study of family firm heterogeneity.

Knowledge Networks and the Role of Family Firms: The Case of an Italian Regional Cluster

“…Family firms differ from non-family firms in their cognitive roles, yet we cannot say that these two groups are specialized in mutually exclusive roles. Our results confirm the peculiarity of family firms as organizations [14], which can operate effectively in a context where a diversity of organizations interact with diverse governance structures. Considering this diversity and the evidence on the different roles assumed by family firms in the multiple knowledge networks, our results thus support the spillover hypothesis on the importance of local economic and entrepreneurial diversity [5], and expand the OI evidence base applied to family businesses.…”

“…Although the literature highlights the importance of networking for family firms and the peculiar network strategies adopted by these firms compared to non-family firms (e.g., [70]), evidence on the role of family firms in OI networks is still limited [14]. Previous work discussed the importance of family firms in knowledge sharing within a local context, such as a regional cluster (e.g., [35,71]).…”

“…The innovation strategy of family firms is strongly influenced by the family involvement in the ownership and management system [33], and it is directly affected by the internal agreement between generations, which drives the strategic approach towards innovation activities and the organizational business model [34]. According to Del Vecchio et al [14] (p. 980), "family firms' characteristics prepare them for outside-in open innovation", i.e., they tend to incorporate knowledge from or co-produced by other actors-with a preference for supporting co-production processes. Existing conceptual and review works have investigated the role of knowledge networks for family firms [35,36] and the micro-foundations of corporate entrepreneurship in family firms [37,38].…”

“…Networking is a relevant component of OI in family firms [10]: the lack of key skills and resources, combined with the low level of formalization and a long-term strategic view characterizing these firms [11], might encourage the search for external relationships. Family firms are defined by the presence of two or more members of a family group in the firm's ownership or governance [12,13] and they differ from non-family firms because of their succession intentions, nonfinancial goals, governance structures, and outcomes [14]. The involvement of family members in the organization's ownership and management, and their interest towards non-financial aspects that meet family needs [15] have implications for the establishment of relationships with other organizations.…”

Improving continuity by simplifying the structure of family firms: a replication study

“…Third, our study follows previous researches that have underlined the relevance of investigating family businesses under the environmental contexts' lens to contribute to the family firm heterogeneity studies (Daspit et al 2021 ). Our findings stress the importance of context as a variable that influences a family firm's strategies and behavior, especially concerning the motivations for pruning and the role played by the incumbent.…”