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Family businesses require internal communication (IC) to guide and provide direction, and the unique nature of involving both family and nonfamily employees add complexity. Navigating this complexity helps to ensure effective direction and management of family businesses. This paper explores the existing research concerning IC within family businesses and discusses the lenses and contexts through which it is commonly studied.

This paper provides a concise literature review to identify the most common lenses through which IC in family business has been researched.

IC in family enterprises is mostly studied through the lenses of IC between family generations, IC and the influence on family identity, and IC in times of crises. Existing research is largely focused on the role of family in IC, and limited consideration is given to the role of nonfamily members and family members outside of the business.

The paper synthesizes the direction and findings of existing research into IC within family business and provides avenues for future research. Managerial implications are also presented based on the synthesis of existing literature.

This study aims to explore the dialectical interplay between traditional roots and contemporary challenges faced by family businesses, specifically focusing on “Osmice” (in Slovenian; in Italian, “Osmize”), which are family enterprises that embody the cultural and historical heritage at the intersection of Italy and Slovenia. In particular, the purpose of this study is to understand how these businesses, deeply rooted in the communal life of the Karst region, evolve amidst changing social, economic and cultural landscapes.

Building on an alternate template analysis, the research includes the examination of archival data and 34 in-depth narrative interviews. This approach captures details about the historical establishment, persistence and evolution of Osmice, with a particular focus on their ways of facing contemporary challenges while preserving their traditional roots.

The findings reveal that Osmice navigate the tension between past and present through high sensitivity to the cultural identity of the land in which they are embedded. Thus, the study interprets these dynamics through a dialectical lens as the synthesis of preserving traditional roots and adapting to contemporary challenges, articulated through a particular sensitivity to cultural identity.

This investigation contributes to the discourse on how family businesses can maintain their traditional roots while adapting to contemporary challenges. It offers novel insights into the role of cultural identity in balancing tradition and modernity. Through this lens, the study underscores the capacity of family businesses such as Osmice to thrive amidst change, providing implications for both theory and practice in the field of business studies.

Justice perceptions describe an individual's evaluation of whether decisions or actions are fair or unfair. These perceptions are important because they affect individual attitudes and behaviors in different situations. Family firms develop and implement governance policies and structures (i.e., governance systems) to diminish the problems that can arise from the overlap between the business, the family, and the ownership systems of a firm. Governance systems help family firms have a clear structure of accountability and a clear understanding of the rights and responsibilities that family and non-family members have toward the family enterprise. Research on governance to date has focused on the practices and policies that exist and their effects on the family firm. However, in the governance context, individual perceptions are important because they are likely to affect the attitudes that family and other members have toward the family enterprise and the likelihood that they will follow the different policies when they are implemented. This chapter takes a receiver perspective to explain how individuals create justice perceptions based on governance mechanisms and the effects of these perceptions. The goal is to understand how we can use this information when developing governance practices in family firms.

This perspective article provides an overview of current research on paradoxes within family business settings and outlines emerging trends and potential avenues for future research in this field.

This article is inspired by a systems-theoretical approach to business family paradoxes.

The article suggests that increasing research interest in more-than and neither-nor approaches to paradox could propel the digital transformation of paradox theory and facilitate the strategic management of family business paradoxes in multi-stakeholder environments.

This article synthesises the state of the arts in the field of research on family business paradoxes and proposes future research agendas.

This study seeks to evaluate gender diversity within family members and analyze its effects on financial distress in firms listed in Vietnam.

The research employs a Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) regression model to assess the impact of gender diversity on corporate board performance, including factors such as the presence and proportion of female directors, female directors with family ties and the gender of CEOs. The study covers 152 listed companies on the HNX and HOSE exchanges from 2015 to 2022. The GMM model is chosen for its robustness in dealing with endogeneity issues and its ability to provide consistent estimates in the presence of potential correlation between explanatory variables and unobserved effects. This approach allows for a more accurate evaluation of how gender diversity influences operational efficiency and how these companies manage financial difficulties within the sample period.

Our research shows that diversity on the Board of Directors (BOD) as well as female CEO employment not only does not reduce the financial distress of businesses but also increases this situation. However, being both a female and a family member of the BOD is negatively related to financial distress. This can help female members who have connections with the family contribute to the work of adjusting and monitoring the business's operations to suit the family's goals, contributing to improving the operational efficiency of the business. BOD maximizes profits and contributes to promoting the company's sustainable development goals. From there, limited ability to travel and financial exhaustion.

The empirical results obtained from this study contribute to building a solid knowledge base, supporting businesses in the policymaking process and providing empirical evidence to enrich learning materials.

This study provides empirical evidence on how gender diversity influences the financial challenges of businesses, especially within the context of publicly listed companies in Vietnam. It stands out from previous literature by specifically focusing on listed companies in Vietnam. By analyzing the impact of gender diversity on financial difficulties, this study also clarifies how various factors can influence management and business development.

This paper discusses the key features of Generation Alpha from the perspective of their implications for future family business.

The signals perspective is used to review academic and non-academic literature to highlight the key features of Generation Alpha that can be relevant to family business.

Extensive use of digital technology, perceptions of learning, work and a work–life balance and attitudes towards sustainability and social responsibility are the key features of Generation Alpha that hold significant implications for the strategies and operations of future family business.

This is the first paper considering Generation Alpha in the context of future family business, which discusses the key features of this generation from the perspective of succession planning.

Within food industry several changes and innovations are affecting the management of the entire supply chain (production, logistics, etc.). As strategy for the survival and competition, digitalization has assumed a crucial role during the pandemic emergence by causing the reconfiguration of traditional chains and business models. Framed in these premises, the research analyses how digital technologies have innovated the sub-chains of bakery products and pasta within food industry with reference to customers' interactions, delivery and marketing during the COVID-19 pandemic emergence.

Moving from a critical literature review about the perspectives of digital technologies within the tradition of food industry, action research has been adopted to analyze in deep a case study of the start-up “ArteBianca Delivery” located in South Italy. Through this method, researchers have been deeply involved within the start-up to face the challenge of transforming the marketing and customer care into digital ones due to the COVID-19 restriction.

Findings provide empirical evidence about the reconfiguration of the traditional business model of a family firm in the food sector into a digital one with the start-up “ArteBianca Delivery”. The marketing, delivery, e-commerce and customer care components of the business models have been supported and enhanced through the adoption of digital tools, such as mobile applications and social technologies useful both for users and for a more urgent digitization of company.

Implications for practice can be identified into the pattern of digital transformation implemented as well as in the opportunity of replication and contextualization of the results to other companies looking for setting up a digital strategy.

Elements of original contribution can be identified into: (1) the exploration of digital transformation in food family firms caused by the pandemic emergence, (2) the contextualization of the digital transformation to the sub-chains of bakery and pasta and (3) the geographical location of the case.

This paper investigates the moderated mediation roles of dynamic capabilities and self-initiated AI learning between job crafting and entrepreneurial innovativeness among owner-managers of family craft businesses in Ghana.

A convenience sampling technique was used in the selection of 498 family craft business owner-managers in Ghana. The paper deployed regression analysis to examine the hypothesized paths.

Using hierarchical regression, job crafting was found to have a positive effect on entrepreneurs’ innovativeness. Further, dynamic capabilities moderate the mediated link between self-initiated AI learning and entrepreneurial innovativeness.

The current study assesses self-initiated learning for work adjustment from a cross-sectional design perspective. Though, this research design is effective in the assessment of opinions and attitudes of persons, it is limited in its capacity to reflect changing opinions and attitudes overtime. This study recommends future studies to conduct a longitudinal survey on the phenomenon.

This study is one of the first to deploy AI affordances to extend empirical literature on the novel SIWAL concept for work adjustment among craft family business owner-managers in Africa.