The state of family business research in the Visegr (cid:1) ad countries

Purpose – The institutional context in which family firms operate influences their behaviour and performance,yetliteraturereviewsseldomanalysefamilyfirmsonaregionalbasis.Tofillthisgap,thisreview aimstopresentresearchonfamilyentrepreneurshipinthetransitioneconomiesoftheVisegr (cid:1) adcountries(V4). In this particular group of European economies, the current formal institutions have largely evolved along Western European lines. However, the transformation of informal institutions appears to be still in its infancy. Design/methodology/approach – In order to identify the most representative authors, the methodologies used, the main research topics and to establish a future research agenda, the authors selected, through a systematic process, 112 papers from the Web of Science up to the year 2022. The authors performed a bibliographic analysis using clustering algorithms, complemented by a traditional literature review. Findings – The performance of family firms in transition economies has been the subject of very little research. The results allowed the authors to identify four main areas of research: governance, innovation, sustainability, competitive advantage and considering the influence of the region ’ s characteristics on family business behaviour. Originality/value – Studies from transition economies can contribute to a broader understanding of family firms in terms of the impact of the institutional environment (especially the influence of sociological changes and specific historical experiences of family members) on their long-term planning, socioemotional wealth (SEW) protection and ethics. In light of recent events, research from the region may also contribute to the understanding of how and to what extent “ familiness ” influences crisis management or socially responsible behaviour in family firms.


Introduction
Family businesses (FBs) are the backbone of the economy in most countries around the world, and their role in both value-added production and employment is significant (Kelley et al., 2020).These heterogeneous, complex and specific organisations present an interesting challenge to researchers (Sharma et al., 2012).There has been an exponential growth in the amount of research and academic projects on family entrepreneurship in the last decade The state of family business research in V4 (Rovelli et al., 2022), however, research from the USA or Western Europe is predominant (Benavides-Velasco et al., 2013;Rovelli et al., 2022).Gomez-Mejia et al. (2020, p. 25) suggest "to consider differences between family and cultural institutions in under-researched regions of the world".It is fairly rare for systematic reviews or meta-analyses to consider FBs from a regional perspective.The few exceptions are Asia (Dinh and Calabr o, 2019;Ramos et al., 2016;Teixeira et al., 2020) and Latin America (L opez-Ch avez et al., 2021).We believe more attention should be paid to Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), where family entrepreneurship flourished after 1989 and ownership transition seems to have created a unique environment for economic research, especially on FBs (Hnilica et al., 2019).Due to the specific historical developments, the FBs that exist today were established at a time when the Western world had already dedicated an academic journal to FBs.It would be interesting to see whether the findings on FBs from this region are similar to global trends.However, it is difficult to analyse certain phenomena when the research object is at a different stage of development.In addition, it seems unreasonable to assume that what we know about FBs in developed regions or in emerging economies can be applied to countries in the post-transition phase.Even Botero et al. (2015), who compared FB research in Western Europe and the USA (all mature economies), found differences due to the heterogeneity of the contexts in which FBs operate.To fill this research gap, we propose to examine state of the art and potential research directions on FBs in the transition economies of the Visegr ad countries (V4) as representatives of CEE.Our aim is to address the following research questions: RQ1.Who are the most important authors from the V4 in the field of FB research?RQ2.Which are the scientific journals that generate the most knowledge on FBs from V4?
RQ3.What are the main topics of FB studies in the region?
RQ4.What has been the impact of the specific institutional environment of FBs on their functioning?
RQ5.What are the implications of V4 research for FB theory and practice?
This paper provides a brief description of FBs and their institutional environment in CEE, then presents the used methodology, a description of the clusters, a consideration of the influence of the region's characteristics on FB behaviour, suggestions for future research directions and ends with some conclusions and limitations.

Family firms in Central Eastern Europe
The transition in CEE is one of the most spectacular political, social and economic transformations in the world, as firms were faced with the challenge of managing radical strategic and organisational change rather than traditional economic development issues such as the transition from an agrarian society to an industrialised economy (Baluk, 2019;Meyer and Peng, 2005).It should be noted, however, that the CEE countries were condemned to a peripheral model of capitalism and imitation of solutions already existing in Western European countries (Gardawski and Rapacki, 2019).Previous research in CEE has pointed out the limitations of applying economic theories developed in a relatively stable Western environment to a complex, volatile and highly uncertain environment (Meyer and Peng, 2005).
From an economic perspective, the emergence of many FBs in CEE was a response to the new market situation which provided an opportunity to pursue entrepreneurial passions which were not possible during the Soviet era.Compared with the USA or Western Europe, privatisation processes or the collapse of large state-owned enterprises provided a unique basis for the emergence of FBs.The weakness of formal institutions encouraged profit-driven behaviours such as the establishment of FBs at the beginning of transformation.Operating in such an environment, was advantageous for them due to the specific agency costs and family capital, especially resulting from family relations (Brinkerink and Rondi, 2021;Burkhart et al., 2003).On the other hand, corruption and the predatory use of resources, had a negative impact on innovation, competition or entrepreneurship (Lebediuk, 2021).The weakness of formal institutions might have contributed to difficulties in attracting minority shareholders.Minority shareholders fear the exploitation of family power, e.g. through tunneling, due to the weak protection of their rights.This may explain the higher level of family ownership in CEE countries (53.11%) than the world average (41.76%) and its high degree of concentration (around 80%) (Feito-Ruiz and Men endez-Requejo, 2022).Although the protection of property rights in CEE has increased significantly over the years, it should be recognised that the change and approximation to Western European standards is more about de jure property rights and not necessarily about the protection of de facto property rights, which stem from social culture and customs (Lewkowicz and Metelska-Szaniawska, 2021).It seems that there are differences especially in the perception of and respect for intellectual property rights, which are relevant from the perspective of business innovation and the conduct of R&D activities.
From a social perspective, the two generations that grew up in CEE countries after 1945 lost their relationship to the land, as well as responsibility for private property and entrepreneurship (Rydvalova and Antlova, 2020).The Soviet era led to the formation of a type of human being called "Homo Sovieticus" (Tischner, 2018) or external man (Klein and Klein, 2017).These are people who believe that their fate is determined by external forces.They lack independent thinking, independence of action and decision making, they are afraid to take responsibility and distrust people other than family and friends.In particular, the low level of trust in strangers appears to be an important social factor.As a result, family ownership is highly concentrated (around 80%) (Feito-Ruiz and Men endez-Requejo, 2022) and family members dominate management (Fotea and Echevarria, 2017;Odehnalov a and Piro zek, 2018;Wieszt, 2019;Yordanova, 2016).This social attitude was not conducive to the development of FBs and sometimes created negative emotions towards family entrepreneurs.The low social prestige of being an entrepreneur among Hungarian students is still noted by Gubik (2021).This may have had an impact on the willingness to identify with the FB and, consequently, on the protection of the SEW in the decision-making process.Moreover, as mentioned by Marja nski and Sulkowski (2019), FBs in Poland have developed under the conditions of a society with a low level of social capital -and the threat of "amoral" familism, which seems to be common across CEE countries.This distinguishes FBs in CEE from their counterparts that are currently operating in Western European, Anglo-Saxon or Asian countries (Vecchi et al., 2018).Furthermore, until recently, there was little historical precedent for succession management in FBs in the region (due to the private business gap between 1939 and 1989).Ownership and control of FBs have been appropriated through various legal or illegal means, particularly in the second half of the 20th century (Bajk o et al., 2022;Noszkay, 2017).This lack of existing patterns of continuity and organic succession makes generational succession more difficult, particularly when compared to stagnating, mature economies.Succession depends much more often on blood ties than on skills and knowledge, with family patriarchy being the dominant principle (Gashi and Ramadani, 2013;Odehnalov a and Piro zek, 2018;Ramadani et al., 2017, Motylska-Kuzma et al., 2022).Differences in this regard have been noted, particularly when compared to companies from Anglo-Saxon cultures (Gupta and Levenburg, 2017).Compared to countries with a mature FB sector where such patterns exist, the lack of succession patterns may lead to higher levels of FB liquidation.
As a result the distinguishing features of FBs in CEE are their age (around 30 years) and the generation of owners and managers (first or second) (Baranyai and Kozma, 2019;Botero et al., 2015;Hnilica et al., 2019;Machek, 2017;Marja nski and Sulkowski, 2019).These characteristics influence the predominant types of FBs operating in CEE and the objectives The state of family business research in V4 they tend to pursue.Awareness of the potential benefits of familism is low among Polish FBs, hence business objectives may be more important (Marja nski and Sułkowski, 2019;Weclawski and _ Zukowska, 2019).The focus on business objectives may be the reason for the high level of profit reinvestment in Czech companies (Rydvalova and Antlova, 2020).Concentration on business goals may be due to the fact that only when FBs are well established in the market, do entrepreneurs feel that they can create wealth for their family in the long-term (Weclawski and _ Zukowska, 2019).It also seems to affect the dimensions of SEW which change over time and across generations (Mart ınez-Romero and Rojo-Ram ırez, 2016; Llanos-Contreras et al., 2019).Currently, FBs in CEE are still largely run by the founding generation or by the first generation of successors (Motylska-Kuzma et al., 2022).The founding generation tends to be more attached to the business they have created than subsequent generations.But, historical experiences may have resulted in a lack of long-term perspective in the management of FBs and less concern for the reputation of the company.
FBs in CEE mostly represent the SME sector (Kowalewska et al., 2009;Hnilica and Machek, 2014;K asa et al., 2019).The boundaries between business and family are insufficiently regulated (Gub anyi et al., 2015;Moresov a et al., 2021).It is often difficult to separate the assets and capital of the business from those of the family (especially in the case of micro-enterprises).This is due, among other reasons, to the fact that a large proportion of businesses operate as sole proprietorships or companies of sole proprietors.Publicly listed FBs are smaller in terms of size than publicly listed non-family counterparts (Jewartowski and Kałdo nski, 2015;Kowalewski et al., 2010).
All of these factors influence how family entrepreneurs and their families perceive SEW by, the difference in their perspective on the long-term functioning of the business, and thus their decision-making process, their level of organisational development and their attitude towards sustainable development activities.
The reality of FBs in the V4 is similar to the situation in other CEE countries.The V4 was founded in 1991 by Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia.The V4 are all posttransition countries and the oldest members of the European Union from CEE (since 2004).Their formal institutions are the product of the post-1989 period and were strongly influenced by EU requirements.Due to similar historical and economic backgrounds, their societies represent the specific characteristics of the of CEE (Eyal et al., 1998).
A national definition of FB was approved in the Czech Republic and Slovakia.In Hungary and Poland there is no such legal definition.

Methodology
Our work followed a three-step process.First, we identified the database and the relevant keywords.Second, we screened the database for relevant articles using clear exclusion criteria.Third, analysis and reporting were carried out.Figure 1 summarises the process.

Identification of the relevant database and keywords
The literature review was conducted in a structured, comprehensive and transparent manner.We used a database-driven approach, which is the most widely used search method in the field of management research (Hiebl, 2023).The original dataset was identified by searching the Web of Science database (Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) and Emerging Sources Citation Index (ESCI)), the most commonly used databases in database-driven searches in management research (Hiebl, 2023).It is also referred to as the "gold standard" database for measuring the performance of academics (Maseda et al., 2022).In the search string, we used the keywords of Bettinelli et al. (2022) for the identification of FBs, which were taken as a basis and supplemented.The following Bolean operator was used: TS5("famil* firm*" OR "famil* business*" OR "famil* entrepr*" OR "familin*" OR "famil* control*" "famil* led*" OR "famil* own*" OR "business* famil*" OR "firm* famil*" OR "entrepr* famil*" OR "famil* sme*").There was no limit set to the time period covered.Only articles written in English and associated with the V4 were included in the database.The search was repeated twice (28 October 2022 and 02 January 2023) using an identical methodology.The aim of the repeat search was to extend the timeframe of the literature review to the end of 2022.The search identified 158 potential studies.

Screening
First, we scanned the titles, abstracts and keywords of the 158 articles to determine their relevance to our research questions.Three researchers manually screened and independently assessed all the involved articles, and all full texts were downloaded.The articles were categorised into three groups: highly relevant articles, potentially relevant articles and articles with little or no relevance.All three researchers reviewed the categorization and met regularly to clarify the inclusion and exclusion criteria, resolve initial classification problems and decide on questionable articles through a joint review of the full texts.We excluded articles for the following reasons: (1) the topic did not fit the scope of the research, (2) although the authors were from V4, the article examined countries outside the V4.A total of 112 articles were found to be relevant (Appendix).The total number of articles involved proved to be satisfactory, based on the guidelines of Short et al. (2016), who recommend 50 articles as the minimum number of items to be covered in a FB review article.In the previous literature review on the whole of Europe, the research sample consisted of 148 articles (Botero et al., 2015), while the study on Asia included 114 (Fang et al., 2022).No additional quality assessment was performed as all articles were published in high-quality journals indexed by the Web of Science.

Analysis and reporting
We adopted a three-stage methodological approach, including (1) bibliometric analysis, (2) textual narrative syntheses and (3) thematic syntheses supplemented by qualitative content analysis, as these methods are more suitable for the analysis of an emerging research field (Rialti et al., 2019).

Research design and methodology
The state of family business research in V4 (1) Bibliometric analysis is valuable for monitoring and mapping scientific processes.It allows researchers to identify and recognise potential "hidden patterns" that can help them when conducting a literature review (Benavides-Velasco et al., 2013;Kraus et al., 2022).Biblioshiny was used for the bibliometric analysis.
(2) A textual narrative synthesis was conducted (Xiao and Watson, 2019) based on the 112-item database and the obtained full texts.The articles were reviewed and coded by at least two authors of this paper.Inconsistencies in coding were discussed with the third author of this paper to ensure reliability and resolve discrepancies.During the coding process, the assessors regularly discussed the coding protocol and results to ensure consistency.
Using a standard data extraction format, we examined the following topics for each piece of literature (Xiao and Watson, 2019).
The extracted data were analysed manually in MS Excel.
A thematic synthesis process supported by the VOS viewer was performed to identify homogeneous groups of articles.Topic clusters were generated based on natural language processing of the bibliographic data (Kraus et al., 2022).The abstracts and keywords of the published articles were analysed to explore the main topic of each cluster.First, we created a thesaurus file to group similar keywords together.This process limited the number of keywords in our database to 542.The minimum number of word occurrences was set at 5, resulting in a selection of 37 keywords.The following keywords were then removed: "model", "Czech Republic", "Poland" "business", "involvement", "perspective", "perceptions", "SMEs", "impact", "entrepreneurship" and "controlled firms".The remaining 26 keywords, which form 4 thematic clusters, are shown in Figure 3. Qualitative content analysis was carried out within the clusters.

Publications and citations structure
The first article examined was published in 2009, and the field has attracted increasing interest from researchers in the region over the years, especially from 2017.The annual growth rate of the field in the region is 25,92% (Figure 2).
The first publications in national languages were certainly written much earlier, but are not suitable for comparative research.Most of the published research on FBs from the V4 is associated with Poland (52%) and the Czech Republic (29%).The map of collaboration between authors (Figure 3) shows that there are separate groups of authors per country working in the region, with no discernible link between them.
In terms of citations, the 112 articles have an average of 5.6 citations.76 articles have been cited fewer than 5 times.Table 1 Shows the 5 most cited articles.
In terms of sources, 112 articles have been published in a total of 55 journals, of which only one in FBR and nine in JFBM.The authors with the most publications are Machek, Ingram, Sulkowski, Hnilica, Kubicek, Marjanski, Zajkowski and Petru.The universities with the most affiliated articles are Prague University of Economics and Business, University of Gda nsk, Most of the articles describe only FBs, however, 32 deal with the differences between FBs and non-FBs.The size of the research samples shows considerable variation.The average sample size is 1132 companies.(1470 were in the Polish, 651 in the Czech, 194 in the Slovak and 24 in the Hungarian FB studies).Articles using the case study method mostly examine one company, whereas Zajkowski et al. (2022), in their quantitative survey-based research, worked with a sample of 43,379 items.In six cases, the respondents of the survey were individuals (customers, students).In these studies the minimum sample size was 31 and the maximum 9667 (Hradsk y and Sad ılek, 2020; Gubik, 2021).
Almost half of the articles surveyed did not apply a precise definition of a FB.In most cases, researchers used ownership and management criteria when defining a FBs.There was only one study that used a condition related to the participation of at least two generations (Hradsk y, 2020).This is probably because FBs in the V4 are relatively young and many are still managed by the founders.Six studies used self-identification of FBs and four used a surname-matched approach.In studies from the V4 more than two-thirds of the papers lack strong theoretical underpinning.The most commonly used theories are SEW (8 papers) and RVB (6 papers), as the majority of studies were conducted after the introduction of the SEW concept.

Cluster analysis
The cluster analysis allowed us to identify research topics that merit attention, which in turn gave us insight into directions for further research through a review of the articles included in each thematic cluster.We identified four clusters and named them: governance (N 5 42; green), innovation (N 5 27, yellow), sustainability (N 5 15, blue) and competitive advantage (N 5 28, red) (Figure 4).Within the clusters, we sought to identify the impact of the institutional environment and the characteristics of the V4 FBs on their functioning.
Governance cluster.Consistent with previous studies (Xi et al., 2015;Fang et al., 2022), the governance cluster is the largest in our study (N 5 42).The articles on the governance of FBs from the V4 mostly deal with the influence of family ownership on performance Kowalewski et al., 2010;Jewartowski and Kałdo nski, 2015;Bukalska et al., 2021, relationships with external stakeholders (We ˛cławski andPernsteiner, 2019;Nikodemska-Wołowik and Bednarz, 2019;Doma nska and Zajkowski, 2022) and the specifics of human resource management Horv athov a et al., 2020; Hradsk y, 2020; Machek, 2017.Surprisingly, only a few articles deal with the structure of the top management team or its behaviour Odehnalov a and Piro zek, 2018; Bukalska et al., 2021. Kowalewski et al. (2010) focuses on the relationship between family involvement and the financial performance of publicly listed Polish FBs in the period between 1997-2005.Based on average financial performance measures, Polish FBs appeared to be more profitable than non-FBs.However, the period under study may have had a significant impact on the results obtained.The opportunities for the beneficial exploitation of family ties were much greater prior to the accession of Poland to the EU.The formal institutional environment has changed significantly since 2004.It is possible that different results would be obtained if the research was repeated now, almost 20 years after these changes.In addition, the FBs surveyed at that time were younger than the non-FBs (which were largely owned by the State Treasury).In younger companies family management is advantageous due to firm creation and market entry (Schulze et al., 2002).This was also confirmed by a Czech study (Odehnalova and Olsevicova, 2009), which found that FBs grew faster compared to non-FBs in the initial phase of their development.A significant slowdown in the growth of FBs occurred at a time of leadership crisis and reluctance to employ non-family members in management positions.
Polish public FBs are, on average, more leveraged than non-FBs and use more control enhancing mechanisms, resulting in a wedge between control (voting) rights and cash flow rights (Jewartowski and Kałdo nski, 2015).The opposite results were obtained by Bukalska et al. (2021) concerning unlisted Polish FBs.They were found to be a rather consistent group of companies that follow a more conservative corporate financial strategy (lower debt ratio), regardless of the characteristics of their CEOs.In general, such behaviour can be explained by the specific funding logic of FBs (Gallo et al., 2004).However, in this region, this may be due to a particularly low level of trust in strangers, which is a consequence of the Soviet era and the denunciations that were widespread at the time, even of those running the smallest craft businesses.For this reason, listed FBs prefer to finance growth with debt rather than by issuing new shares, and the owners of smaller FBs do not want creditors to interfere in their operations.
Family owners in FBs located in the V4 are found to be more responsible (Hnilica et al., 2019), especially in terms of the environment and community (Machek and Hnilica, 2020).This behaviour is due to social ties, identification of family members with the company and other components of SEW, as in the case of FBs in other regions (Berrone et al., 2012).Understanding the importance of SEW for FBs in Poland was described through the lens of the events surrounding the first hostile takeover bid in the post-communist era on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (Campbell and Jerzemowska, 2017).This case contributed to the When managing a business, family owners tend to seek advice from current or former owners rather than external advisors, unless the advice is in areas that require specific qualifications or certifications.Kub ı cek et al. (2021) confirmed such behaviour in the case of Czech family managers, a feature which was earlier recognised in an American context (Perry et al., 2015;Strike, 2013).In the case of FBs from CEE, such behaviour can also be explained by the low level of trust in strangers, a characteristic of the Homo Sovieticus.
The influence of the transition economy from the perspective of the composition of the board of directors on the strategic adaptability of FBs was presented by Odehnalov a and Piro zek (2018).They found in Czech cases that management boards of FBs characterised by nepotism, paternalism, a focus on sustainability, risk aversion and centralisation, were able to adapt to the environment much better than a company that did not meet these conditions.
Hradsk y (2020) found significant differences in the per capita costs of the boards of FBs and non-FBs.His findings support the argument that FBs have to pay non-family members more than family members to recruit and motivate them for managerial positions (Chrisman et al., 2017;Tabor et al., 2018).In CEE, this may be additionally due to a fear of "amoral" familism (Marja nski and Sulkowski, 2019).It seems that there is still a higher social value attached to working in multinational corporations is socially more valued than in domestic companies.This is not the case for employees in general.As the case in mature economies (Bassanini et al., 2013;Block, 2010;Sraer and Thesmar, 2007), small FBs in the Czech Republic also offer lower wages than non-family counterparts, but greater job security in return (Machek, 2017).
Innovation cluster.In the yellow cluster, the key concept is innovation.To date, the question of whether the family nature of the business is detrimental or beneficial in terms of innovation has not been clearly answered (Calabr o et al., 2019).Studies from the V4 in this context have mostly been published after 2020.They attempted to answer the question of how the age (Civelek et al., 2021a;Klju cnikov et al., 2021) For the Czechs no differences were confirmed between the level of innovation (Civelek et al., 2021a, b) and the involvement of the successor in innovation activities.In the case of Slovak small and medium-sized FBs, in contrast, it was observed that second-generation FBs were more innovative than first-generation ones (Urban ıkov a et al., 2020) which is not consistent with results from Western Europe (Kraiczy et al., 2015;Laforet, 2013;Rau et al., 2019).The discrepancy between the results and the results in the West may be due to the fact that in the 1990s it was very innovative in CEE to start your own business.For 50 years, there was a lack of any role models and education on how to run a business.Thus, the founders of FBs did not have the resources to create technologically or organisationally innovative companies.As mentioned by Motylska-Kuzma et al., 2022, they learned management by doing.The current generation of successors has already been educated in business and has grown up in a different formal institutional environment.They may, therefore, have a different approach to innovation.The continuous development of the knowledge of owner managers as a determinant of the innovative capacity of Polish FBs has been pointed out by Steinerowska-Streb and Wzia ˛tek-Sta sko (2020).
Moreover, Ingram et al. (2020) confirmed that innovation output leads to increased organisational performance even in post-transition economy settings, which is in line with studies carried out in mature economies.Also, the strategic commitment of FBs to The state of family business research in V4 environmental issues (Haddoud et al., 2021) and the implementation of the creative solutions of their employees have also been identified as drivers of process innovation (Ingram et al., 2020).
Competitive advantage cluster.The third cluster focuses, in general, on competitive advantage.Such a cluster was also identified in the global bibliometric analysis conducted by Xi et al. (2015).Marja nski et al. (2019) proved the positive impact of social capital on the development of Polish FBs.Similarly, Boruc (2018) emphasised that social resources -family and friends -shape future entrepreneurs in Poland at an advanced stage of economic transition to a market economy.
Other factors analysed by researchers from V4 were the behaviour of FBs in relation to legal, managerial and economic issues (Rydvalova and Antlova, 2020), human resources (Goncarova et al., 2020), intangible resources (e.g., operational strategy, quality management, entrepreneurial orientation and external cooperation) (Zajkowski et al., 2022), the use of digital tools (Poll ak and Markovi c, 2021) and SEW (Bratnicka-Mysliwiec et al., 2019).Through the study of Polish FBs, Bratnicka-Mysliwiec et al., 2019 provided evidence that SEW and competitive advantage are partially related.Although competitive advantage is only weakly correlated with SEW dimensions, all SEW dimensions are correlated with each other.Moreover, family control and identification with the firm explain competitive advantage, although the relationship is negative.In contrast to most previous studies, which highlighted the benefits of family firms in mitigating agency problems due to the reduction of agency costs, the results for Polish FBs show the negative impact of family involvement in ownership, management and control.Bartnicka-My sliwiec et al. (2019) suggested that Polish FBs owners should decide to professionalise their companies and focus more on ownership aspects and formal control.This difference in results compared to Western Europe may be due to the much higher concentration of family ownership in Polish companies (70.63%) which results from a lower degree of dependence on outsiders (Feito-Ruiz and Men endez-Requejo, 2022).However, it has already been shown that the influence of the family on performance is often in the form of an inverted U, with the inflection point fluctuating around 50% for Western European companies (Pindado et al., 2014).
In the face of dramatic changes brought on by Covid-19 and the Russia-Ukraine war, V4 researchers shifted their focus from the growth and development of FBs to their survival and resilience (Wieczorek-Kosmala et al., 2021;Machek et al., 2019;Marjanski and Sułkowski, 2021;_ Zukowska et al., 2021).Academic studies related to the survivability and growth of FBs have shown the crucial importance of the internationalization domain (Alayo et al., 2019), which is a relatively young research field (Arregle et al., 2021).Hence, it is not surprising that in our database there are only a few papers dealing with this topic and more specifically, with the drivers of crossborder activity.Mura (2019) showed that FBs willing to internationalise represent mainly the production, trade and transport and logistics sectors.On the whole, a significant proportion of enterprises in the CEE countries are active in traditional industries.However, the level of innovation is lower than in Western Europe.He also observed that the strongest motivators for starting international activities were related to external forces (i.e., saturated domestic market and fierce competition in the domestic market).Other researchers argued for the positive impact of external management, FB experience (Pini and Tchorek, 2022) and other factors similar to those affecting non-FBs (e.g., the search for strategic assets) (Daszkiewicz, 2019).
Sustainability.In the context of FBs, there has been a relatively recent increase in scientific debate regarding their sustainability (over 80% were published between 2015 and 2019) (Ferreira et al., 2021).These papers addressed several issues such as the factors that foster or hinder sustainability (Broccardo et al., 2019;Memili et al., 2018), the sustainable practices of FBs compared to those of non-FBs (Miroshnychenko and De Massis, 2022) and the financing of sustainability practices (Xiang et al., 2019).Researchers from V4 covered similar topics.
Miku sov a et al. (2020) and Horbach et al. (2023) compared FBs and non-FBs in terms of three dimensions of sustainability.Their research results show that family ownership positively affects social and ecological sustainability practices, but seems irrelevant concerning economic sustainability.However, in relation to social sustainability, Slovak researchers found contradictory findings (Rumanko et al., 2021).The reason for such discrepancies may be found in the fact that FBs are not homogeneous, and they differ in their level of implementation of sustainable practices and standards (Doma nska et al., 2022).Due to an FB's innovativeness (Horbach et al., 2023) and in relation to its economic development (Doma nska et al., 2022), a higher level of sustainable development can be achieved.
Family members are aware that their reputation and image are closely identified with that of the firm because family and firm usually share the same name (Dyer and Whetten, 2006).FBs in Slovakia perceived such overlap between family and firm names as a potential risk that could threaten intergenerational exchange (Tomaskova et al., 2021).This may be due to the still low social value of being an entrepreneur, especially if the family entity business is engaged in low innovation activities.It should be noted, however, that this perception of the entrepreneurial individual is changing.To mitigate such a risk, firms can engage in sustainability practices that positively affect reputation in the short and long term (Curado and Mota, 2021).A study conducted in Poland proved that FBs involve in prosocial activities aimed at providing benefits to local communities and those beyond national borders (Bielawska, 2021).Apart from their reputation and the desire to leave a legacy, FBs were motivated by their values to engage in charitable and philanthropic activities.According to Jur asek et al. (2021), FB owners communicate values related to SEW, such as social support, collaboration and shared group identity.

Future research proposals
The number of empirical studies on FBs in the V4 has been on the increase.However, our review highlights the need for future research in several areas.First, more research is needed to explore the regional context and its impact on V4 FBs.Researchers need to consider the institutional environment (both formal and informal) at every stage of their research projects.Currently, it appears that most of the papers in our sample rarely address these issues, and when they do, it is usually just a brief mention of the transformation and its consequences for the FBs in the introduction used to point out a research gap.Therefore, a deeper understanding of the regional context of V4 countries is needed.
The second research gap relates to the generational differences between incumbents and successors and the impact of these differences have on the growth of FBs during their collaboration.Many V4 FBs are still led by the founding generation who grew up in a very different institutional environment than successors.The founders were raised and educated in the socialist era when breaking the law was considered a kind of "heroism", and property rights were not protected.The generation of successors spent their childhood close to the end of the socialist era.They were already educated and gained their professional experience in the era of the free market, access to Western culture and globalisation.These differences may lead to a different way of managing a business or making decisions, e.g., in terms of internationalisation, professionalisation, clustering or innovation.Despite the importance of these generational differences, the reviewed articles addressed this issue only marginally.They studied, for example, the intergenerational dynamics of knowledge creation (Preciuk and Wilczynska, 2020) and the effects of generational change (Baranyai and Kozma, 2019;Dudek and Pawlowska, 2022).
The third research gap concerns the governance of FBs.The governance cluster is the largest in our study.A wide variety of issues have attracted the attention of researchers in this field of study.In general, however, corporate governance is the main subject of their The state of family business research in V4 research.Nevertheless, family governance mechanisms are still in their infancy.Family governance mechanisms such as family meetings and family councils are considered crucial for FBs to improve interfamily communication and long-term sustainability (Parada et al., 2020), but they are usually adopted by second-or subsequent generations (Arteaga and Escrib a-Esteve, 2021).This implies that, in the case of V4 FBs, these mechanisms are just beginning to develop.Furthermore, as Koladkiewicz (2016) argues, they may have an informal character.Therefore, it would be interesting to explore the evolution of family governance mechanisms in the V4 countries through longitudinal studies.
Although the tradition of FBs was forcibly interrupted in the countries of the Soviet block, entrepreneurs today face many challenges that are similar to those in other developed countries where the tradition has been continuous.Therefore, we suggest conducting comparative studies between Western FBs and FBs from the V4 countries, which are still rare, based on recent research agendas (e.g., Humphrey et al., 2021;Bornhausen, 2022;Lohwasser et al., 2022).However, given the limited cooperation between researchers in CEE, we also encourage the development of interregional partnerships.We believe there is significant value in conducting international research in a similar institutional setting.

Conclusion and limitations
Our review shows that FBs in transition economies have scarcely been explored in the mainstream debate on family entrepreneurship.We identified main research streams, which are divided into four clusters: governance, innovation, sustainability and competitive advantage.We also identified the most cited papers, the authors' country of origin and the journals that publish papers by V4 researchers.
Our research is not without its limitations but this may provide opportunities for further research.We used only one database -Web of Science.However, a relatively small number of journals from CEE are indexed in the WoS; therefore, local results concerning the region are not known to a wider range of researchers.V4 is considered an emerging area in FB research and a wider selection of papers and studies, including papers written in national languages, books and PhD dissertations would provide deeper insight into the work of FB researchers in the region.The present study concentrated on the work of researchers from the region and excluded possibly relevant studies written by academics with affiliations outside the V4.The disproportionate number of articles from the various countries did not allow for deeper crosscountry comparisons.The lack of previous research on the topic makes it impossible to verify and compare the obtained results.Baranyai Figure 1.Research design and methodology Figure 2. Annual scientific production Figure 3. Collaboration network