Högskolan i Skövde

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how the family firm identity is affected when it is no longer publicly communicated. Design/methodology/approach: A case study approach was used to follow a third-generation family business, a large Swedish home electronics firm that acquired a competitor and, initially, continued using its family firm identity after the acquisition. This study longitudinally tracks the company and its owning family using archival data combined with interviews. Findings: The case company decided to stop communicating their identity as a family business. Such a move initially appears counterintuitive, since it potentially threatens the family firm identity and leads the firm to forgo other advantages, e.g. in branding. However, the decision was based on arguments that were rational from a business perspective, leading to a decoupling of family and firm identity. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by showing a decoupling of internally experienced and externally communicated identities. It further contributes to the understanding of the family firm identity concept.

Objectives – the purpose of this paper is to explore how family-owned real estate firm managers entrepreneurially orchestrate their resources to enable firm strategy in an environment characterized by uncertainty. Literature – based on the seminal work of Sirmon et al. (2007, 2011) on resource orchestration (RO), this study advances the research of Chirico et al. (2011), among others, on how the family dimension influences family firm managers' RO for strategic enabling.Approach – this paper draws on a case study using 21 interviews with family firm managers and archival data from family-owned Swedish real estate firmsResults – The results indicate how the family dimension in family-owned real estate firms influence family firm managers’ strategic RO.Implications and Value - Three family-based strategic enabling mechanisms and their underlying microfoundations are identified, explaining how real estate family firm managerial RO configurations are shaped: (1) flexible network structuring, (2), incremental flexibility and tenant focus bundling, and (3) cautious and societal flexible leveraging. The manifestation of these RO configurations highlights how managers of family-owned real estate firms can facilitate firm strategy in conditions of economic uncertainty.

Purpose: This study explores how retail family firm managers’ cognitive capabilities are used to enable firm strategy in a context of economic uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a case study using 31 interviews with family firm managers and archival data from retail micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

Findings: The results indicate how managerial cognitive enabling mechanisms shape the manifestation of retail family firm dynamic capabilities (DCs) configurations.

Originality/value: Three retail managerial cognitive strategic enabling mechanisms and their microfoundations are identified, explaining how three retail family firm DC configurations are shaped: (1) retail family firm customization-based sensing, (2) retail family firm lateral seizing and (3) retail family firm trust-based reconfiguring. The manifestation of these DC configurations illuminates how retail family firm managers can enable firm strategy in a context of economic uncertainty.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to understand venture capital family businesses (VCFBs) governance of portfolio companies through the deal process.

Design/methodology/approach – This study applies a theory-developing approach. A model of VCFB governance is developed whose key aspects are illuminated by four examples (cases) of VCFBs.

Findings – Recent research suggests that a venture capital firm’s corporate deal processes can be divided intothe pre-deal, deal and post-deal phases. Based on the age, size and succession dimensions, propositions for how a governance trajectory develops for VCFBs, affecting the deal process of target family firms (TFFs), are presented. These propositions highlight how the family owners’ actions and behavior are related to VCFB governance, which in turn, influences the three phases involved in making an investment.

Originality/value – The propositions suggest how personal and administrative VCFBs’ governance of the deal process of portfolio companies is significantly affected by centrifugal and centripetal forces that drive the respective types of governance where third-generation family owners appear as changers of governance approach.

Purpose: This study explores how the family influences the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) process in immigrant businesses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on inductive multiple-case studies using 34 in-depth interviews. This paper relies on three cases of immigrant entrepreneurs originating from Mexico and Colombia that established firms in Sweden. Findings: The results suggest that EO development trajectories vary in the presence of family roles (i.e. inspirers, backers and partners), resulting in the immigrant family business configurations of family-role-influenced proactiveness, risk-taking and innovation. Originality/value: The immigrant family configurations drive three EO-enabling scenarios: (1) home-country framing, (2) family backing and (3) transnational translating. Immigrant family dynamics facilitate the development of EO over time through reciprocal interaction processes across contexts. This study indicates that, through family dynamics, EO develops as mutually interactive processes between the immigrant entrepreneur's family in the home and host countries. 

Purpose – this study explores how retail family firm managers’ cognitive capabilities are used to enabling firm strategy to encounter economic decline. 

Design/methodology/approach – the paper is based on an inductive case study and consists of 30 interviews with retail family firm managers. 

Findings – the results suggest how managerial cognitive enabling mechanisms shape the manifestation of retail family firm dynamic capabilities (DC) configurations. 

Originality – three retail managerial cognitive strategic enabling mechanisms and microfoundations are identified, which in turn explain how the following retail family firm DC configurations are shaped: (1) retail family firm customization-based sensing, (2) retail family firm lateral seizing and (3) retail family firm trust-based reconfiguring. The manifestation of these DC configurations illuminate how retail family firm manager enabling firm strategy to encounter economic decline.

Purpose: This paper strives to understand the role of resource orchestration (RO) in the rapid growth of high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Design/methodology/approach: Based on a comparative case study, RO is compared between a high-tech family firm and a high-tech non-family firm. To capture the complexity of RO, this study applies a longitudinal approach using a large volume of archival and interview data gathered over ten years. Findings: The configuration of family-firm paradoxical growth-oriented RO emphasizes RO based on collectivism and responsibility, although relying on large-scale conforming normative control. In contrast, the configuration of non-family-firm growth-oriented RO emphasizes administrative-based delegation and management-supported value creation. Originality/value: By suggesting ownership-based RO configurations, this study provides insights into how ownership types, i.e. family firms and non-family firms, affect RO in firms operating in complex and dynamic environments. These configurations explain how and why RO is arranged in a growth context. 

The purpose of this paper is to understand how the managerial cognitive capabilities within the real estate industry are manifested and used to develop strategies to encounter economic decline. Based on the framework of dynamic capabilities (DC) and the related concept of managerial cognitive capabilities, the present study offers deeper insights in the strategic management of the real estate industry. Since the case study method allows a deeper understanding of investigated phenomena, new empirical conditions can be revealed and theory developed. Based on ten case studies, we identify the managerial micro-foundations at the individual level. Thereby, we explain how managers’ managerial cognitive capabilities affect and create the real estate company’s strategy. The results will be compiled in tables and analyzed by first-order categories, second-order themes, and aggregated theoretical dimensions, which enables us to present a strategy-based configuration of the real estate managerial cognitive capabilities.

This study presents a multidimensional taxonomy of “ecopreneurship” for small manufacturing firms. Based on a cluster analysis of 312 Swedish firms, four distinct clusters are identified: pioneers, green dumpers, overlookers, and recyclers. These clusters are compared regarding their level of entrepreneurial orientation and firm performance. Based on the results, and because of the resource constraints associated with small firms, managers of such companies are advised to examine the economic consequences of specific environmental business practices and to adopt a less aggregated approach to ecopreneurship. This study illustrates the usefulness of a multidimensional scale when researching environmental behaviors and is a response to the lack of an empirically based classification of ecopreneurship configurations.

This paper compares and distinguishes different devices, which family owners use to manage and develop their wealth over time. The paper addresses similarities and differences and states research questions for future development.