Intrafamily Conflicts in Family Businesses: A Systematic Review of the Literature and Agenda for Future Research

Abstract

Through a systematic literature review, we assess the current state of research on intrafamily conflicts in family firms, systematize the findings, and outline avenues for future research. Based on a review of 88 studies, we develop an input–process–output framework to synthesize input, process, output, and context variables and identify research gaps. The review contributes to the family business literature by bridging the family business and intragroup conflict literature, considering multiple levels of analysis (the individual, family, and firm), and presenting relevant research questions.

Financial Behavior of Family Businesses: A Bibliometric and Systematic Literature Review

“…With regard to theories, the reviewed articles draw on a variety of approaches. This is consistent with the finding of other reviews on family businesses (Kubíček & Machek, 2020). The dominant and common theoretical framework for the capital structure decision includes two traditional theories "the trade-off theory" and "the pecking order theory".…”

KNOWCON 2020. Knowledge on Economics and Management: Conference Proceedings

“…Cohesive social networks, characterized by higher bonding social capital, are expected to experience less interpersonal conflicts (Cao et al, 2013). It can hence be assumed that family firms with strong preference for SEW will display greater levels of quality of relationships, family harmony and shared values, which are known to inhibit conflicts among family members (Kubíček & Machek, 2020).…”

“…November 12-13, 2020, Olomouc, Czech Republic (KNOWCON 2020) _____________________________________________________________________________ Family businesses represent a fertile environment for relationship conflicts, which may be very costly. In the family business literature, these conflicts are generally perceived as a negative phenomenon (Kubíček & Machek, 2020), and consequently, many authors find negative performance effects of family conflicts on firm performance (Eddleston & Kellermanns, 2007;Nosé et al, 2017). The main reasons include the reduction of mutual understanding, increased animosity and hostile behaviours (Eddleston & Kellermanns, 2007).…”

“…The measurement of conflicts is very challenging because the topic is highly sensitive and conflicts may be perceived asymmetrically (Kubíček & Machek, 2020). Thus, for data collection, there are two major suggestions that we propose.…”

“…However, in general, family firms as such represent fertile fields for various conflicts among family members (Harvey & Evans, 1994). The topic of conflicts in family firms is widely discussed, yet not much empirically investigated in the family business literature (Kubíček & Machek, 2020). The issues of non-family management and family conflict are connected to each other.…”