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Family business firms (FBFs) constantly struggle with the challenge of successfully reaching and surviving beyond the third generation. Narrative or storytelling is frequently used in business to transmit knowledge, achieve goals, create and maintain a connection with stakeholders, and achieve sustained growth. Most FBFs consciously or unconsciously use narrative and possess their own discourse, which is unique to every family and family business and which may aid FBFs in achieving continuity. FBFs must have an adequate atmosphere of collaboration and cooperation so that group members can transform acquired tacit knowledge through storytelling into explicit action. FBFs should be prepared to help collaborators and other stakeholders build competencies since tacit knowledge transfer, through narrative, can aid in the solving of problems, enhance innovativeness, and improve strategic decision-making. Therefore, narrative may well aid FBFs in fulfilling their ultimate goal of continuity. The purpose of this chapter is to evaluate the potential influence of narrative on FBFs’ continuity and prevention of their precipitous expiration. This chapter contributes to previous literature that sheds light on the narrative implications of FBFs, and depicts FBFs’ narratives and the dynamics of their business objectives, as well as touches on the heterogeneous nature of each family business’ storyline. There are various advantages to FBFs’ storytelling; perhaps the most noteworthy is the achievement of sustained business growth and continuity.

The purpose is to provide a brief summary on the current research development regarding the role of in-laws in family firms’ continuity. Additionally, I provide a perspective on the trends on the research regarding the in-laws involvement and influence in preparing future generations of family firms’ owners/managers. At the end, I conclude on what should be the relevant issues to be explored and researched in the future.

In this paper, I review the literature on the role of in-laws on the family business continuity, particularly, I emphasize the involvement of in-laws in family firms. I found that this topic of family business continuity has not widely researched and the role of in-laws on the future of the family firm has been underestimated in the extant literature. I provide a brief summary on the trends related the involvement of in-laws in the family business continuity and, at the end, I give my conclusions on what should be a research agenda regarding this topic.

Despite previous research, the question of the role of in-laws in family firms remains unanswered from the business-owning family perspective, nor from the in-laws’ perspective. The previous research has raised more questions on this topic. Clearly, the research landscape is vast, and scholars’ callings to find better ways to identify family members are totally justifiable.

Based on the literature review, it can be argued that one of the topics with high potential for future research and development is related to the role of in-laws in the family business continuity, either because they are passively included as part of the family group, without acknowledgment on their involvement or because governance policies have formally excluded them. In this review, I highlight the influence of the in-laws in the family business continuity; particularly, their role in preparing future generations of family firms owners/managers and imprinting them with the family values, culture and believes.

This study aims to represent an early attempt to define the notion of continuity and empirically illustrate its explanatory potential and methodological challenges.

This study combines historical and qualitative research techniques to conduct a qualitative analysis of continuity in the Jablkowski Brothers Department Store, a Polish centennial company. The paper highlights the potential synergies between historical and qualitative methods when applied to the analysis of long periods of time.

The authors find that using a theoretical framework of continuity provides novel ontological and epistemological insights into the nature of long-lived companies. Based on the findings, the authors present continuity in the context of existing theories and argue that it is a unique concept that deserves more scientific attention and rigorous empirical study.

This study contributes to the existing literature in three ways. First, it provides a brief, interdisciplinary overview of the concept of continuity. Second, it provides an empirical illustration of continuity analysis in a Polish centennial company with extremely discontinuous history. Finally, it positions continuity within the wider context of existing theories and shows how, through continuity, history can contribute to both the practice and theory of management.

The study aims to analyze for the Spanish context the influence of the involvement of several generations in the firm's management on family firm internationalization. The authors also respond to the call in the literature to consider the influence of SEW on family firm internationalizations by analyzing the moderating effect of the importance family managers attach to each of the socioemotional wealth (SEW) dimensions – enrichment, continuity and prominence on the relationship between multiple generations involved in management and family firm internationalization.

The information was obtained by means of a questionnaire sent to the CEOs of family businesses. The authors’ sample consists of 147 Spanish family firms.

The authors find that the involvement of multiple generations in management is positively related to the internationalization of family firms. Furthermore, the importance that family CEOs attribute to the enrichment dimension of SEW reduces the intensity of the effect of the involvement of several generations in management on family firm internationalization.

The authors’ results, for the Spanish context, complement previous studies (Meneses et al., 2014) showing that the entry of new generations into the family business opens a window of opportunity for the internationalization of the family business. Furthermore, their study shows that the diverse family objectives by CEOs can have different, even conflicting effects on the internationalization decision. These results suggest that the enrichment dimension, which focuses on the short-term family goals may restrain the internationalization of the family business. However, continuity and prominence dimensions, which are related with long term family objectives and jointly enable the fulfillment of nonfamily stakeholders’ objectives, do not influence the internationalization of the family firms analyzed.

It has long been known that family firms have a high mortality rate and that increasing these firms' survival rate is one of the most difficult challenges faced by both public policies and scholars. While most policies and researchers have focused on the business side, in recent years, more attention has been paid to the family sphere. This chapter goes one step further by not focusing on one side or another of this binomial, but on the relationship between both. In particular, we analyze the paradoxes emerging between the different inter- and intragenerational dyads that coexist in family firms (mother-daughter, father-son, mother-son, father-daughter, brother-sister, wife-husband, etc.) to open new lines of debate and propose new basis for the establishment of family firms-targeted public politics. We propose policies that will help family decision-makers to manage unique paradoxes that characterize family businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the contributions of both successors and incumbent leaders to family firm continuity, using insights from the family business succession literature and cultural dimensions theory.

In a qualitative study, the succession practices of 19 Mexican-American family firms were examined.

The findings are encapsulated by seven propositions and a model of Mexican-American family firm generational contributions and constraints to family business continuity.

In-depth interviews with immigrant and second generation family firm leaders revealed both traditional family firm succession patterns and atypical succession patterns, including generational inversion and equals across generations.

The principal objective of this study is to identify and recommend auspicious research directions within the field of family business research, with a specific focus on the wealth creator. In conjunction with these research trajectories, the paper also aims to elucidate the potential implications of cultivating these lines of inquiry on the existing family business literature.

This perspective paper adopts a comprehensive approach to examine the multifaceted role of the wealth creator in the context of family businesses. It reviews the last decades of research that resulted in the identification of this role within family business and proposes future research avenues to further address their characterization and importance.

Investigating the wealth creator's attributes can provide insights into their role, the importance of timely identification and its preparatory elements. Furthermore, this exploration can shed light on the dynamics of inter-family relationships within family businesses and enrich the literature on power transition and continuity in family enterprises. Additionally, the maturation of the wealth creator concept may significantly impact the management of wealth portfolios, facilitating smoother wealth transfer, strategic portfolio management and the preservation of multi-generational wealth.

This research offers a diverse understanding of the role of the wealth creator in family businesses. The findings also enhance the comprehension of family business dynamics, enriching the literature on succession. Lastly, the offered research avenues contribute to addressing the challenges of sustaining family wealth and ensuring the continuity of family businesses across generations.

The purpose of this paper is to understand values of family firms, which have progressed to the second or third generation and to reveal similarities in basic values of the firms, which have continued to be successful.

The research was realized with family members taking place at top management level in ten family firms applying a half‐structured interview method. Interview notes have been supported with observations from visits to firms and some firms, documents to be reviewed.

The research finds that family values are rather traditional hand, which the value of business are innovating. The researchers comment on this phenomenon not like paradox but a synergistic construct. In the other side, the founders are dominant factors in the formation of values of the family firms and the second generation voluntarily continues this effect.

This research reached important findings showing that some sets of values are determinant in continuity of family firms and showing the critical role of founders in this process. So, while the researchers form questions of the research to be developed on the interaction of family and business dimensions or form the action plan of executors who will provide professional support to family firms, that they should focus on values must be seen important. In the other side, to reveal these values taking shape in life period of family firms is only possible with deep researches.

Family firm literature is a late developing literature. However, many more questions concerning these kinds of firms await strong answers. Especially, to understand values of family firms is quite important in understanding strategic visions and continuity problem. In addition, there is need for numerous comprehensive studies on cultural values of family firms to clarify problematic of the family firms profiting the examples which come from the different country. This study can be demonstrated that traditional family values and innovative business values create a synergy rather than a paradox and an advantage in business continuity. Probably, this situation is associated with the cultural context.

This study examines how women and men in family firms respond differently when asked about perceptions of financial performance. The study poses three research questions around this topic: Are there differences among female and male responses, do those perceptions change if men and women are leaders of the family business and does the family's socioemotional wealth (SEW) influence such responses.

This study uses a quantitative research design to determine if financial performance perceptions of family firms differ based on the gender of the respondents and their leadership position, and second, if SEW's dimensions influence those perceptions, using data from the Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) survey in 2015.

The findings indicate that due to the lack of theory regarding gender as a social construct, empirical data collected for family business studies should take under consideration if respondents are women, men, leaders and the family influence in the family business when collecting data from surveys and asking for perceptions of financial performance. Results show that women in family businesses tend to have more positive perceptions of financial performance than men, but if women are leaders, those perceptions not only decrease but become negative. In addition, the family's socioemotional wealth (SEW) exacerbates those tendencies.

This study contributes to the literature by helping to understand the potential limitations of subjective measures of financial performance, as women increasingly become family business leaders. It also contributes to gender studies by demonstrating that there is a lack of gender theoretical perspectives specifically, gender roles, suggesting that differences in self-promotion and self-evaluation between men and women leaders of their family firms. Finally, this study adds to the study of SEW as a multidimensional construct by showing the different effects, or lack of them by each dimension and showing the strong effect of family continuity on the perception of financial performance.

This study explores the different survival strategies employed by family-owned small and medium-sized businesses in Nigeria. The study delves into the dynamics of ensuring business continuity from founders to successors and identifies the success factors that can facilitate seamless leadership transition outcomes.

This study utilised a qualitative multiple-case study approach, with the population consisting of founders from three medium-sized family businesses in Nigeria. Semi-structured interviews were the primary data collection tool used in the study. Furthermore, company documents were analysed to gain further insights into the leadership transition strategies employed in the selected businesses.

Successful transition and survival of family businesses are dependent on the founder's desire and support for transition, successor preparation, building trust and credibility in successors, and instilling a clear vision for the business.

The study's findings will provide valuable insights to leaders of family-owned SMEs, specifically in the development of effective leadership transition action plans. It should be noted that the study is limited to three family-owned businesses in two locations in Nigeria, which may restrict the generalisability of the findings. Despite this, the study offers novel contributions to the current literature by presenting practical strategies for achieving the survival of family businesses in an emerging economy.

This study proposed strategies for business survival, continuity, sustainability and seamless leadership transition for small and medium-sized family-owned businesses. Importantly, the study recommends action plans for present and prospective family business leaders to deepen succession pathways.