WANTED—Theoretical Contributions: An Editorial on the Pitfalls and Pathways in Family Business Research

Generations in Family Business: A Multifield Review and Future Research Agenda

“…Moreover, we draw on knowledge accumulated in the family business literature and the distinctive traits of these firms to integrate and clarify how the generations concept has been and could be used to advance our understanding of broader social science issues. In so doing, we contribute to the view that the future of the family business field depends on the degree of openness and bidirectional communication with other social science fields (Jaskiewicz et al, 2020; Neubaum & Micelotta, 2021). Our hope is that our effort to integrate knowledge from dispersed literature streams in multiple research fields in social science is beneficial to advancing our understanding of the generations concept and related phenomena.…”

“…On one hand, the integrative framework that we developed to organize the literature, based on the different locus and focus of generations, and intra-, inter-, and transgenerational relationships, serves as a springboard for family business scholars to clarify their conceptual understanding of generations as a social category empirically related to, but conceptually distinct from, family firms. On the other hand, our research aims to reach a bidirectional exchange across fields (Jaskiewicz et al, 2020; Neubaum & Micelotta, 2021) and gives back to major theories in other social science fields by extending the conceptualization of generations beyond its demographic nature. Family firms indeed provide us with a unique setting to unveil specific dynamics and complexities that characterize the notion of generations as communities that preserve and transfer resources over time (Ge et al, 2021; Sasaki et al, 2020), contributing a new perspective on generations that enriches social science fields and their boundary conditions.…”

Social Capital in the Family Business Literature: A Systematic Review and Future Research Agenda

“…Other cultural dimensions such as to power distance and uncertainty avoidance are closely related to the development of organizational trust (Schoorman et al, 2007). Comparative studies could challenge the established theoretical relationships and find relationships that contradict previous findings from Western contexts (e.g., Daspit & Long, 2014), which would present important theoretical contributions (Neubaum & Micelotta, 2021). Therefore, we propose to investigate whether the existing findings on SC in FBs are applicable to different countries and cultures (RQ 14).…”

“…Thus, the question of whether future research efforts should be focused on the role of the environment in SC in FBs arises. To present contributions to the research field, the study of well-established processes or relationships in new contexts should be justified (Neubaum & Micelotta, 2021).…”

“…Except for Dyer and Mortensen (2005), all qualitative papers focused solely on FBs and developed insights specific to family businesses. This leads to a lack of qualitative comparative studies, which could yield valuable findings beyond the theme of social capital in FBs (Neubaum & Micelotta, 2021).…”