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This conceptual, multi-voiced paper aims to collectively explore and theorize family entrepreneuring, which is a research stream dedicated to investigating the emergence and becoming of entrepreneurial phenomena in business families and family firms.

Because of the novelty of this research stream, the authors asked 20 scholars in entrepreneurship and family business to reflect on topics, methods and issues that should be addressed to move this field forward.

Authors highlight key challenges and point to new research directions for understanding family entrepreneuring in relation to issues such as agency, processualism and context.

This study offers a compilation of multiple perspectives and leverage recent developments in the fields of entrepreneurship and family business to advance research on family entrepreneuring.

This article explains the causal mechanism supporting sustainable longevity by analysing the last three generations of one of the oldest family firms in Latin America.

An explanatory single-case qualitative research based on critical realism explores why and how this family firm has been able to maintain its multigenerational longevity.

Los Lingues's evolutionary strategy, driven by transgenerational entrepreneurship under effectuation, has supported this family firm's sustainable longevity. Its effectual logic emerged mainly from the richness of the firm's historical resources embedded in its identity, knowledge and social capital and priority to preserve socioemotional wealth.

This study integrates socioemotional wealth and effectuation theory to explain a family firm's ability to survive through generations and sustain longevity. The study demonstrates the relevance of effectual logic in the entrepreneurial dynamics of a multigenerational family firm. Effectual logic drives the firm evolution and adaptation for sustainable longevity.

This paper aims to explore how Maori entrepreneurs in Aotearoa New Zealand negotiate cultural and commercial imperatives in their entrepreneurial practice. Culture is integral to Indigenous entrepreneurship, an example being tikanga Maori (Maori cultural values) and Maori entrepreneurship. This study discusses the tensions and synergies inherent in the negotiation of seemingly conflicting imperatives both theoretically and practically.

This study reports on a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews involving ten Maori enterprises of the Ngati Porou tribe on the east coast of Aotearoa New Zealand.

This study finds that depending on their contextual and cultural orientation, Maori entrepreneurs use tikanga to help negotiate cultural and commercial imperatives. The contingency of entrepreneurial situations and the heterogeneity of Maori perspectives on whether (and in what way) tikanga influences entrepreneurial practice appear influential. The authors propose a typology of Maori entrepreneurs’ approaches to explain the negotiation of cultural and commercial imperatives comprising the “culturally engaged Maori entrepreneur”; the “culturally responsive Maori entrepreneur”; and the “culturally ambivalent Maori entrepreneur.”

This study proposes a typology to analyse entrepreneurial practices of Indigenous entrepreneurs’ negotiation of cultural and commercial imperatives.

Given the limited understanding of the process of transgenerational entrepreneurship and that knowledge is a fundamental antecedent of entrepreneurial endeavors, this study aims to shed light on how entrepreneurial families (EFs) nurture entrepreneurship across generations, which knowledge is required within the EF to spur new entrepreneurial activities, and how is this knowledge acquired.

Considering the paucity of empirical evidence on the topic under investigation and the related exploratory nature of this study, the authors adopted a qualitative approach by conducting a case study on an Italian wine-making family business.

The case analysis reveals that EF members are required to acquire different types of knowledge at different generational stages to spur new entrepreneurial activities, specifically technical knowledge in the second generation and business knowledge in the third generation. Moreover, the data analysis shows two mechanisms, namely, trust among generations and role separation, that, during both generational transitions, enabled and empowered the younger generations to exploit their knowledge to explore entrepreneurial opportunities and engage in new entrepreneurial activities.

This study provides novel insights into the role of knowledge in transgenerational entrepreneurship, particularly looking at knowledge acquired by EF members across generations. Accordingly, this research contributes to the literature streams of transgenerational entrepreneurship, knowledge management in family businesses and broader knowledge management research.

This paper aims to introduce the concept of Entrepreneurial Collective Intelligence (ECI) as a means of understanding how communities of entrepreneurial actors learn to act both collectively and knowingly. It explores how connections between processes of CI, agency and action can explain and enable the development entrepreneurial community organisations.

There is a selective literature review of prior works on the related fields of community and collective entrepreneurship; collectives and intelligence; agency and action. The review is used to propose a framework of collective entrepreneurial intelligence, agency and action. An interpretive approach is used to research four case studies of community organisations which use CI to generate entrepreneurial outcomes.

The cases are compared with themes from prior literature to develop a conceptual model of four ECI processes which enable intelligence, agency and action: collaborative processes; distributed working; intelligence representations and organisation of infrastructures. These are theorised to discuss ideas, challenges, methods and questions to enhance entrepreneurial actions, based on sharing knowledge and learning, in the context of collective agency, action and intelligence.

The four processes, both together and separately, represent a coherent framework useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities.

The four processes each represent a central area of attention, not only for development, learning, decision-making and leadership within enterprising communities but also for entrepreneurship education in terms of alternative didactics, pedagogies and learning forms.

The improved knowledge on the role of collective agency and CI within entrepreneurial processes is useful for strengthening civil activism and other fruitful forms of entrepreneurial collective processes. This may help solve complicated societal problems where traditional conceptions of entrepreneurship fail.

The conceptual contribution is to explain the dynamic relationships between ECI and action, mediated by collective agency. The role of CI in informing entrepreneurial communities is explored and four enabling processes are proposed. This coherent framework is useful for further studies on the role of collectives in enterprising communities, whilst informing their learning, decision-making and leadership.

This study aims to investigate the favourable conditions that influence transgenerational value transmission (TVT), value acceptance and value similarity between generations in indigenous African business-owning families.

This study adopts a multiple case study design and draws on semi-structured face-to-face interviews to collect data from participants in seven indigenous Black business-owning families located in South Africa. The software ATLAS.ti was utilised to manage the data and reflexive thematic analysis was undertaken.

The analysis reveal four themes describing how transmission factors facilitate favourable conditions for successful TVT in IBSA business-owning families, namely, authoritarian parenting, a loving and connected family relational climate, the continuous reinforcement of autonomy during childhood development and family authenticity in the face of societies dominant values climate. Furthermore, value similarity is perceived to exist among the different family generations in the business-owning families.

This study is among the first to adopt the value acquisition model to empirically examine successful TVT and examine the extent of value similarity or dissimilarity, using the business-owning family as the unit of analysis. Novel contributions to family business literature and practices are proposing a model for TVT in an African context and studying relationships from a business-owning family perspective. The model for TVT could be used to socialise the NextGen members into value sets and behaviours that help business-owning families preserve their entrepreneurial legacy and family business longevity.

Research on high growth firms is booming yet a strong conceptual understanding of how these firms obtain (and sustain) rapid growth remains (at best) partial. The main purpose of this paper is to explore the role founders play in enabling episodes of rapid growth and how they help navigate this process.

This paper reports the findings from a qualitative study involving in-depth interviews with entrepreneurs enlisted onto a publicly funded high growth business accelerator programme in Wales. These interviews explored the causes of the firms rapid growth, their key growth trigger points and the organisational consequences of rapid growth.

The research reveals that periods of high growth are intrinsically and inextricably inter-linked with the entrepreneurial traits and capabilities of their founders coupled with their ability to “sense” and “seize” pivotal growth opportunities. It also demonstrates founder-level dynamic capabilities enable firms to capitalise on pivotal “trigger points” thereby enabling their progression to a new “dynamic state” in a firm’s temporal evolution.

The novel approach towards theory building deployed herein is the use of theoretical elaboration as means of extending important existing theoretical constructs such as growth “trigger points” and founder dynamic capabilities. To capitalise on these trigger points, founders have to undergo a process of “temporal transitioning” to effectively manage and execute the growth process in firms. The work also has important policy implications, underlining the need for more relational forms of support for entrepreneurial founders.

The research aims to investigate how digital transformation (DT), entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and socioemotional wealth (SEW) impact the financial performance of family firms in uncertain business environments. Drawing from existing literature, we propose that DT and EO drive firm performance. Additionally, we suggest a new role for SEW, which positively moderates this relationship in family firms, especially in terms of risk behavior and innovation for survival.

We used the STEP Consortium’s 2020–2021 database, derived from a global survey that explored how family businesses responded to environmental shocks. Following STEP’s definitions, we proposed three hypotheses and tested two models using structural equation modeling.

The findings show that EO significantly enhances the impact of DT on family firm performance. Family businesses exhibit a notable willingness to take strategic venture risks to protect their SEW. These findings align with conclusions drawn in related literature, supporting all hypothesized relationships proposed.

The study has made an applied contribution by challenging the misconception that family firms are outdated and provides insights into supporting their approach to entrepreneurship, innovation and transgenerational entrepreneurship. Furthermore, it provides business families and consultants with a new view of SEW as a strategic asset.

Our study adds to the literature by showing how entrepreneurial orientation catalyzes the positive impact of digital transformation on firm financial performance. We also highlight the contextual influence on family firm decision-makers' risk propensity, which affects SEW development and firm outcomes. This context dependency of SEW can hinder or enhance performance, offering new research and support avenues for family firms.

Digitalisation is perceived as a new process that may add value to firms. Current theoretical understanding assumes it should be part of a firm's strategy to respond to multiple pressures in the business environment. This paper explores the occurrence of digitalisation in a rare context, that of the English agricultural industry in the United Kingdom, a place disproportionality filled with family firms. The general understanding of digitalisation in family firm settings remains embryonic. The authors' explorations make theoretical contributions to research at the intersection of rural entrepreneurship, family business and innovation.

Utilising a purposive, qualitative approach, primary data was collected from multiple interviews with 28 UK family farms, and secondary data from another 164. Interview transcripts were coded using NVivo, along with secondary data from reports, observations and websites.

The authors present empirical evidence illustrating how digitalisation manifests incrementally and radically in different types of family farms. The authors present a model that shows the areas of farming that have, and continue to be, digitalised. This increases analytical precision when identifying digitalisation activities that differ depending on the strategy to either scale or diversify. The authors propose that incremental digitalising occurs to a great extent during a scaling strategy, and that radical digitalising occurs to a smaller extent during diversification strategies in family farms.

This research uses a sample of family-run farms from the UK agricultural sector to explore nuanced elements of digitalisation. It should therefore be explored in other types of family firms located in different sectors and geographies.

This research is important because family farms are under increasing pressure and have limited financial resources to deal with the digitalisation agenda. Therefore, empirical evidence helps other farms in similar situations. The authors found digitalisation investments, that tend to be capital intensive, only matter for scalers and less so for diversifiers. Family farms can use the model presented as a tool to evaluate their farm. The tool helps them define what to do, and ideate the potential activities that might be digitalised, to feed into their wider strategy.

Family firms, in particular farms, are critical to many economies. The general consenses currently assumes all family firms should digitalise, yet the authors' evidence suggests that this is not the case. It is important to create policies that are sensitive to the needs of different types of businesses, in this case between family firm scalers and diversifiers, instead of simply incentivising digitalisation using a blanket approach usually by offering financial aid. Understanding how digitisation can support (or not) family firm resilience and growth in an effective and efficient manner can have significant benefit to individual firms, and across industries.

The proposed model extends theoretical understanding linking strategy, digitalisation activity and innovation in family farms. It shows that digitalisation is a key building block of scaling strategies, maximising digitalisation to increase efficiency. Yet, diversifying family farms minimise digitalisation, whereby they only digitalise a small amount of the farming activity. This empirical evidence contrasts with the wider narrative that farmers are slower at using new technology. This research found that some are slower because it does not align with their strategy. However, sometimes digitalisation aligns with their strategy during external changes, in which case the diversifiers are quick to act.

Recognizing novel entrepreneurial opportunities arising from a crisis is of paramount importance for firms. Hence, understanding the pivotal factors that facilitate firms in this endeavor holds significant value. This study delves into such factors within a representative empirical context impacted by a crisis, drawing insights from existing literature on opportunity recognition during such tumultuous periods.

The authors conducted a qualitative inspection of 14 Italian firms during the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. The authors collected a rich body of multi-source qualitative data, including 34 interviews (with senior managers and entrepreneurs) and secondary data (press releases, videos, web interviews, newspapers, reports and academic articles) in two phases (March–August 2020 and September–December 2020).

The results suggest the existence of a process model of opportunity recognition during crises based on five entrepreneurial influencing factors (entrepreneurial knowledge, entrepreneurial alertness, entrepreneurial proclivity, entrepreneurial personality and entrepreneurial purpose).

Various scholars have highlighted that, in times of crises, it is not easy and indeed very challenging for entrepreneurs to identify novel entrepreneurial opportunities. However, recent research has shown that crises can also positively impact entrepreneurs and their capacity to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities. Given these findings, not much research has analyzed the process by which entrepreneurs identify novel entrepreneurial opportunities during crises. This study shows that some entrepreneurial influencing factors are very important to identify new entrepreneurial opportunities during crises.