Long-term orientation has been proposed as one of the differences between family and nonfamily firms. Family business scholars base this difference theoretically on the incumbent generation’s altruism for the next generation and the intention for intrafamily succession. We point out that the applicable boundaries for these two theoretical bases are limited. We also point out misconceptions regarding what these two theoretical bases imply about the long-term oriented behavior of family businesses and discuss implications for empirical research and theory development.

Growth of a business can be in scale or in scope. Growth in scale means increase in size as measured by sales, profit, employment, or assets. Growth in scope means increase in the number of related and unrelated lines of business. Research shows that family firms grow differently from nonfamily firms in terms of scale, scope, speed, strategies, and style. This is due to family firms' growth-related distinctiveness in financial and nonfinancial goals pursued, jealously guarded control by the family, risk aversion, sources of capital, reliance on the limited intrafamily leadership talent pool, relationships among members of the owner-family, and generational growth in the number of family members. Each of these sources of family firm growth-related distinctiveness may promote or suppress growth. In addition, the combined impact of these sources of distinctiveness is complicated by their reinforcing and conflicting interactions plus operational, organizational, family cultural, societal, and institutional influences.

In both a practical and theoretical sense, management succession is one of the most important issues facing family firms because intentions for it influence behavior and the ability to execute it successfully ultimately influences long-term survival. One of the greatest challenges in family firms with intention for intrafamily management succession is to ensure that the most talented family members stay in the firm. Thus, this paper deals with the problem of adverse retention, a situation wherein the more talented family members leave but the less talented family members stay. We use classical microeconomic-labor-supply arguments to explore five scenarios of increasing complexity to illustrate how personal attributes, pecuniary and nonpecuniary benefits, relationships between family members, and interactions with the external labor market can give rise to or prevent adverse retention. We discuss implications and research directions suggested by our application of the model to the adverse-retention problem.

The heterogeneity of family firms and their simultaneous pursuit of financial and nonfinancial goals is well established in the literature. However, causal factors underlying the variance in the goals, behaviors, and performance of family firms remain unclear. To help fill this gap, the articles in this special issue point to psychological aspects of individuals and families that underpin family firm behaviors and outcomes. Building on the theme of psychological influences, this introductory article discusses how the integration of five areas of psychology can accelerate our understanding of the causes and consequences of individual and group behaviors in family firms.

Kotlar and Chrisman (2018) examine how family involvement influences organizational change resulting in change behaviour distinctive from that of non-family firms. Family firms, however, are heterogeneous in terms of their goals, governance, and resources; therefore, the behavioural distinctions proposed by Kotlar and Chrisman are not common to all family firms. In this article, we briefly discuss these sources of heterogeneity and their implications for organizational change and change management in family firms.

Assessments of family firm effectiveness depend critically on how goals and performance outputs are measured. Similarly, assessments of family firm efficiency depend critically on how performance outputs and resource inputs are measured. We illustrate this by showing that the assessment of performance is affected by how different family firm goal systems are specified. Gaining a better understanding of these fundamental concepts gives family business scholars the rare opportunity to set the rules of the game about how the performance of family firms, and other organizations that pursue the non-financial goals of a dominant stakeholder, should be assessed.

Governance, along with goals and resources, is a key determinant of the distinctiveness and heterogeneity of family firms. Our introduction discusses formal and informal governance mechanisms that emanate from inside and outside the firm and then reviews, integrates, and extends the contributions to this topic of the six articles and four commentaries in this special issue. Building and reflecting on these contributions, we suggest that although formal governance mechanisms inside family firms have unique characteristics, informal governance mechanisms may be equally important, and external mechanisms, both formal and informal, can also profoundly influence the behavior and performance of family firms.

In this introduction, we observe that the study of social structures and social relationships constitutes a common theme among the articles and commentaries contained within this special issue on Theories of Family Enterprise. Individuals and organizations are embedded in complex networks of social organization and exchange. Within business enterprises, familial relationships engender unique goals, governance structures, resources, and outcomes. We discuss these relationships, potential research directions, and the contributions made by the articles and commentaries. In so doing, we expand the literature on how social structures and social relationships affect the behavior and performance of family firms.

Getting a positive nod from editors and reviewers is an essential hurdle that all research papers must overcome before getting published in a scholarly journal such as Family Business Review (FBR). By its very nature, the blind review process requires the authors of a manuscript to convince reviewers and editors that their research fits the scope of the journal, is rigorous, and makes a significant contribution to knowledge in the field. This task of convincing fellow experts has to be accomplished through the manuscript (including revisions) that describes a study, and through the answers to questions and comments of editors and reviewers contained in the response letter(s). Of course, while all research published in an academic journal must be scientifically rigorous and make a contribution to the literature, the rigor and contribution of a study are both continuous variables that fall within a continuum with easy-to-detect extremities of high and low at the two ends and a large gray area in between. Authors, reviewers, and editors have their own ideas of the degrees of rigor and contribution needed for publication in a specific journal. Yet these three parties must come to an agreement for any manuscript to be accepted, making it a negotiated settlement. An important question to consider is why are some authors more successful than others in getting work of similar rigor and contribution published? In this editorial, we continue FBR’s tradition of publishing editorials that help authors improve their chances of getting their manuscripts published. Our aim is to demystify the editorial and review process by drawing on our experiences as authors, reviewers, and editors, to shed light on this question. We believe the variance in success of publishing work of similar rigor and significance is at least partly because some authors are better than others in appreciating and understanding the mind-set of editors and reviewers. Authors aware of this mind-set will be better at converting the review process into a collective effort among authors, reviewers, and editors that maximizes the knowledge creation potential and readability of their work. In other words, these authors are better at not only “closing the deal” but also at improving their manuscripts.

Incumbents' attitude toward intrafamily succession (IFS) is a critical individual-level determinant of family firms' IFS intention, which is, in turn, an important component of family business essence. Knowledge about its antecedents, however, is fragmented and very limited. Drawing on the theory of planned behavior and general attitude literature, hypotheses about the situational and individual antecedents of family firm incumbents' attitude toward IFS were developed and tested with a sample of 274 Italian family firm incumbents. Results show that incumbents' attitude toward IFS is indeed influenced by both situational and individual antecedents as well as by their interactions.

Family firm owners accumulate economic and noneconomic wealth that they may wish to transfer to the next generation. Their challenges in doing so include: what, to whom, when, and how to transfer this wealth. The decisions made and actions taken will impact behavior and performance as well as the type and amount of wealth eventually transferred. The articles and commentaries in this special issue address some of these challenges, specifically the what of family firm legacy, the who of willing intra–family successors, and the how of both family and business destabilization and re–stabilization after a major strategic move as illustrated by internationalization.

The distinctiveness of family firms’ goals, structures, resources, strategies, and performance has been studied in terms of what family firms do or are able to achieve that are different from those of nonfamily firms. This dominant approach to studying family firm behavior has contributed significantly to our understanding of such organizations. Currently, however, we know little about how family firm decisions are made and the processes by which family firms plan and execute. We develop a conceptual framework and set out an agenda for future research on how the distinctive/unique interaction between the business and the family influences the management processes by which family firms implement their strategies.

ABSTRACTThis introduction traces the disappearance of Chinese family businesses from 1949 to 1978, their revival since then, and their future challenges. It then summarizes the three papers included in this Special Issue and proposes an agenda for family business studies in China. The article first focuses on the nonmarket social and political network strategies that these family-centered business organizations have had to adopt in order to overcome the difficulties they faced in accessing opportunities and resources as a result of Chinese culture's traditional low esteem for merchants and the government's continuing preference for a state-dominated economy. Family firms have so far been able to grow disproportionately rapidly in China's economy because, by leveraging the shared interests and dedication of immediate and extended family members, they have been able to achieve lower cost and higher efficiency, respond quickly to market changes, and expand social and political networks. These nonmarket strategies, however, also have a dark side. Furthermore, as the liberalization of China's economy deepens, competition must rely critically on market strategies such as innovation, alliances, and internationalization. The proposed research agenda addresses these future challenges as well as some research questions unique to Chinese family businesses.

We supplement the recent work by Miller and Le Breton–Miller by evaluating more closely two related theoretical aspects of the socioemotional wealth concept: (1) the stocks and flows of noneconomic benefits and how they influence family firm behavior; and (2) the use of prospect theory as an umbrella concept. We, thus, contribute to family business research by delineating a number of important research questions related to these two theoretical aspects that need to be addressed if theories of family firm behavior and performance are to move forward.

We use the articles and commentaries in this special issue to reinvigorate the theme of family business governance and extend its scope beyond the single business, single–family approach that has traditionally dominated the family business literature. Through a discussion of the implications of the articles and commentaries included in this special issue we begin to chart a new and expanded research program for governance that addresses the challenges of the large and complex multifamily and/or multibusiness family enterprise. We hope to encourage research in a direction that will add significantly to our understanding of business families’ contributions to the global economy.

Distinguishing sufficient conditions from necessary conditions is crucial in both theoretical and empirical studies. We propose that the sufficiency condition for family involvement to produce family‐oriented particularistic behavior in a firm requires the presence of both ability and willingness. We demonstrate how the omission of this sufficiency condition in commonly used theoretical models employed to explain how family involvement affects firm behavior can result in theoretical limitations and empirical indeterminacy. Finally, we discuss how considering both ability and willingness can lead to better theory, more generalizable empirical findings, and help explain heterogeneity among firms with family involvement.