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.

Purpose: This paper highlights the need for future studies researching the subject of resilience in family firms on different levels. Design/methodology/approach: This paper reviews the literature on resilience in family businesses. Findings: Resilience has become more important due to the recent multiple crises, starting with the coronavirus pandemic, followed by high inflation and energy prices, partly resulting from the war in Ukraine. These multiple crises affect the family and the business level. Future research must account for multiple levels when addressing it, i.e. the individual, the team, the family, and the business level. Resilience has to encompass all levels to sustain family business continuity. Originality/value: By giving an overview of the concept of resilience, taking the family's perspective, and suggesting future avenues of research, the paper contributes to the development of family business research. 

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of communities of practice (CoP) as knowledge-sharing tools in family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this context, CoPs that jointly involve family and non-family members are expected to act as knowledge-sharing tools. Design/methodology/approach: This paper employs a multiple case study methodology, analysing the cases of six small companies in different sectors and countries over a period of 8 years. Both primary and secondary data are used. Findings: The results show the role CoPs play in involving family and non-family members in empowering knowledge-sharing initiatives. A CoP's role in knowledge sharing depends on the presence (or lack) of a family leader, the leadership approach, the degree of cohesion around shared approaches and values within the CoP, and the presence of multiple generations at work. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the literature on knowledge sharing in family businesses, by exploring for the first time the role of the CoP as a knowledge-sharing tool, depending on families' involvement in the CoP. 

The authors of this study aimed to investigate the issue of resilience in family firms during times of crisis. They recognize that a crisis can impact not only the business itself but also the family dynamics within the firm. To be resilient, addressing and managing both aspects is crucial.

Resilience in this context refers to the ability of family firms to adapt, recover, and thrive in the face of adversity. The authors emphasise that resilience involves navigating and responding to multiple events that may arise from various sources, including the external environment, the business operations, or the internal family dynamics. This complexity adds to the challenges and demands of family firms to be resilient. The study adopts a qualitative approach, employing case studies of German and Swedish family firms to gain deeper insights into this topic. By examining real-life examples, the authors seek to provide empirical evidence and a nuanced understanding of how family firms experience and cope with crises.

The findings of this research have significant relevance for multiple stakeholders. Firstly, family business owners and leaders can benefit from insights into the challenges they may face during crises and the strategies they can employ to enhance resilience. Understanding the interplay between family and business dynamics is crucial for effective crisis management.

Additionally, policymakers and advisors working with family firms can gain valuable knowledge from this study. By recognizing the unique challenges these firms face during crises, they can develop targeted support mechanisms and resources to assist them in building resilience.

Overall, this research sheds light on the complex nature of crisis resilience in family firms and contributes to the existing body of knowledge in this field. It provides practical implications and recommendations for family firms, policymakers, and advisors, ultimately aiming to enhance the long-term sustainability and success of family businesses in the face of adversity.

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.

Die vorliegende Studie widmet sich der Analyse der entscheidenden Rolle von Communities of Practice (CoPs) als Instrumente desWissensaustauschs in familiengeführten Klein- und Mittelunternehmen (KMUs), insbesondere wenn sowohl Familienmitglieder als auch externe Fachkräfte gemeinsam an diesen Communities teilnehmen. Durch die Anwendung einer umfassenden Multi-Fall-studie über einen Zeitraum von acht Jahren wurden sechs kleine Unternehmen aus unterschiedlichen Branchen und verschiedenen Ländern einer Untersuchung unterzogen.

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 article aims to increase the understanding of the role of individual actors and arenas in dealing with multiple institutional logics in family firms.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows a case-study approach of two family-owned newspaper companies. Based on interviews and secondary sources, the empirical material was analysed focussing on three institutional logics, that is, family logic, management logic and journalistic logic.

Findings

First, the authors show how and in which arenas competing logics are balanced in family-owned newspaper companies. Second, the authors highlight that family owners are central actors in the process of balancing different institutional logics. Further, they analyse how family members can become hybrid owner-managers, meaning that they have access to all institutional logics and become central actors in the balancing process.

Originality/value

The authors reveal how multiple institutional logics are balanced in family firms by including formal actors and arenas as additional lenses. Therefore, owning family members, especially hybrid owner-managers, are the best-suited individual actors to balance competing logics. Hybrid owner-managers are members of the owner families who are also skilled in one or several professions.  

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.

The purpose of this chapter is to understand social innovation in small family firms in Sweden. The study draws on three Swedish small family firms, exemplifying different types of innovation in these firms. Examples range from incremental innovations to social innovations, illustrating the diversity of innovation in small family firms. These innovations are conceptualized as a continuum of innovations, which is depending on the degree of involvement of owner-managers on the one hand and the degree of involvement of employees on the other hand.