Abstract
Family Entrepreneurship: Rethinking the Research Agenda is the second out of four in the Routledge Rethinking Entrepreneurship Research series. Family entrepreneurship lies at the interface of entrepreneurship, family science, and family business. This book takes a significant step toward the legitimization of family entrepreneurship as a research field by compiling leading edge thoughts on these three domains. The introduction discusses how the field of family entrepreneurship can benefit from a deepened understanding of the family, family businesses, and entrepreneurship. The editors note that the role of the family qua family has been relatively unstudied. The book aims to go beyond typical firm-level analysis, by integrating individual and family theories, and by applying different levels of analysis.
Part I of the book covers the intersection of family business and entrepreneurship. In Chapter 1, Sarasvathy et al. demonstrate an effectual framework for understanding the entrepreneurial behavior of family firms. Chapter 2 introduces seven circumstances of corporate family entrepreneurship, while Chapter 3 presents a view of social family entrepreneurship, which others could build on. Chapter 4 provides a conceptual model of internal corporate venturing, concentrating specifically on how internal corporate venturing could be fostered within the entry of new generations. The concluding summing-up by Massona raises further points, including the dynamics operating between family and nonfamily shareholders, which are seen as deserving more attention. Overall, although family business and entrepreneurship is the most studied intersection in family entrepreneurship, this part offers excellent insights that could lead to new research.
Part II considers the intersection between family business and the family. Chapter 5 discusses the process of identity construction in family businesses, while Chapter 6 examines how financial rewards may be kept in family firms. Bauweraerts and Colot (Chapter 7) discuss whether the socio-emotional model explains the entrepreneurial behavior of family firms, while Renoldi (Chapter 8) adds a research note on entrepreneurial family firms. He draws attention to two points requiring more attention, that is, the need to conceptualize the family and the need to study differences between common and civil law regarding the rights and responsibilities of family members. What most attracted my interest in Part II was the concept of identity, leading to a more individual view of family entrepreneurship. Renoldi suggests that novel insights on family entrepreneurship can be obtained through an emphasis on inter-subjectivity and relational interaction through discourse, plus a strong process perspective (how things come into being), as opposed to a focus on states (things as they are).
Part III tackles the interface of entrepreneurship and the family. It discusses how the family influences entrepreneurship at different times (such as pre start-up and growth), encompassing the family business group level, and family networks. Danes (Chapter 9) offers an insightful discussion on new venture creation in families, concluding that couplehood is an essential ingredient in combatting the liability of newness in venture creation. Chapter 10 by Dodd, Anderson and Jack indicates ways in which the networking of family firms as opposed to nonfamily firms has implications for the growth of the firm. Here, they provide a robust basis for future researchers to tackle context and network theory. Chapter 11 concentrates on the impact of domestic drivers and barriers on entrepreneurial start-up decisions. Household and family issues are seen as playing a role in this, especially for female entrepreneurs. Chapter 12 synthesizes arguments for habitual entrepreneurship and for socio-emotional wealth among dynastic family enterprises. Part III ends with a novel discussion on typologies of interaction and data content in qualitative family case study research. Chapter 13 gives detailed conclusions on how the specificity of family businesses should be taken into consideration right from the phase of data collection.
As a scholar of family entrepreneurship, I can see a true need for this book. The division into three parts does much to clarify the multiplicity of views, making it easy for the reader to select the most relevant areas of interest. The concluding sections by Massona at the end of each part greatly improve the reading experience, even if the concluding conclusions of the editors overall remain somewhat vague. Indeed, the multitude of views is an advantage, since the aim of this book is to offer distinct and fruitful avenues for future research. Naturally, many perspectives remain absent, such as culture, succession, decline, and entrepreneurial internationalization. Hopefully, these will be taken up in a later volume. I would also have hoped for a stronger presence for family science. Theories on this aspect surely have the potential to enrich our understanding of family entrepreneurship.
Some of the most interesting insights in this book involve the new analytical levels introduced, especially those related to the family, individuals, and the context. Altogether, the book undoubtedly takes a significant step toward more comprehensive research on family entrepreneurship, laying foundations for a range of research settings on this topic. I would highly recommend this book to academics but see it as less suitable for practitioners or policy makers, since it mainly consists of reviews and future research agendas. The book will be extremely useful for both PhD students and scholars at a later stage in their career, if they are planning to study family firms from a more entrepreneurial perspective. It can be helpful in many scenarios, for example, (1) when a family business scholar wants to renew studies via a more entrepreneurial and/or individual lens, (2) when an entrepreneurship scholar is interested in tackling the role of the family in the entrepreneurship process, or (3) when a scholar from family science wishes to address entrepreneurship and family business aspects.