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Family centered non-economic (FCNE) goals, such as environmental and social goals, are sometimes strenuous to “sell” to non-family members in a family business, and are often open to resistance. The purpose of this paper is to identify socio-psychological mechanisms for achieving FCNE goals because, in addition to economic goals, they are the other two components of the triple bottom line.

Through a juxtaposition of the literature on family businesses, and the theories of mindfulness and psychological ownership, this paper argues for the facilitating roles of family involvement and mindful organizing in the achievement of FCNE goals. An example of how a Kuwaiti oil company implements these ideas is appended.

A moderated link between family involvement, mindful organizing and FCNE goal of environmental sustainability. Besides its direct effect on environmental sustainability, mindful organizing also has a potential mediating role in the relationship between family involvement and environmental sustainability. Psychological ownership, environmental sensitivity and individual mindfulness will moderate the relationship between mindful organizing and the achievement of environmental sustainability goals.

The paper presents ten propositions and argues that three types of family involvement (ownership, management and inter-generational), together with non-family engagement (through mindful organizing) would lead to success in achieving the FCNE goal of environmental sustainability. Psychological ownership, environmental sensitivity and individual mindfulness are potential moderators.

The paper suggests some key drivers of FCNE goal of environmental sustainability as well as several contingent factors. Applicable to family businesses, owners and/or managers of similar firms can apply knowledge from this study in the pursuit of environmental sustainability.

The paper’s model advances the current understanding of the link between family involvement, mindful organizing, environmental sustainability, psychological ownership, environmental sensitivity and individual mindfulness in the context of family business. The paper further suggests new future research directions.

This paper aims to examine the effects of socio-emotional wealth importance (SEWi) in family firms and family firm-specific HR practices, namely professionalization and bifurcation bias, on their entrepreneurial orientation (EO).

The paper surveyed 133 small and medium-sized family firms in the USA. The respondents were recruited through Prolific Academic.

When SEWi is low, a family firm becomes more similar to a non-family firm, thereby enjoying the benefits associated with EO. When SEWi is high, a family firm leverages the unique resources and capabilities specific to family firms. Moderate SEWi levels are associated with lower EO levels. Additionally, the results support the argument that professionalization (involving non-family managers, formalization and decentralization) fosters EO, while bifurcation bias hinders its development.

Unlike previous studies, this paper posits a non-linear, U-shaped relationship between SEWi and EO. It contributes to the field by empirically investigating the effects of professionalization and bifurcation bias on EO in family firms.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of female director affiliations to governing families on corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures in the context of Bangladeshi firms.

This study uses a quantitative empirical research method grounded in Socioemotional Wealth (SEW) theory. Data was sourced from Bangladeshi publicly listed non-financial sector companies’ annual reports and stock exchange trading and publication reports and consists of 2,637 firm-year observations from 1996 to 2011. Pooled multivariate regression models are used to test the association between corporate social and environmental disclosure and female directors, and the family affiliation (or not) of those directors.

The findings provide strong evidence that female directors who are affiliated to the governing family, founders and other board members reduce CSR disclosure in family firms; unaffiliated female board directors enhance CSR disclosure, and this effect is significant in both family and non-family firms.

Definitions of family firms and affiliated directors may lead to over-generalization in the results.

The study highlights variation in the nature of female board appointments in emerging market family-controlled firms. The findings bring attention to the role of affiliated female director appointments in family ownership structures and speak directly to family business owners, advisors and policy makers about the importance of unaffiliated female directors as catalysts of improved CSR disclosure in family and non-family firms.

Prior research indicates that family businesses have fewer management control practices in place and are more likely to have non-economic goals for their firm. Further, researchers in this domain contend that female-controlled businesses tend to underperform compared to male-controlled businesses. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the performance effects of management controls and goals for the business across both male and female-controlled farm and rural family businesses.

The data used in the analyses are from the 2012 Intergenerational Farm and Non-Farm Family Business Survey. The sample comprises 576 small- and medium-sized rural family businesses. The authors used probit analysis to model both family business objective and subjective success for women and men.

The results suggest that female-controlled farm and rural family businesses do not underperform their male counterparts in terms of objective or subjective assessments of performance. The results do indicate, however, that strategic management via management control practices within the firm influence objective and subjective performance differently across male and female-controlled farm and rural family businesses.

The results provide three primary contributions to the family business literature. First, the authors determined that strategic management practices via management control mechanisms, as well as the monitoring of managers, are of significance to the objective performance (i.e. gross income) of both men and women-controlled farm and rural family businesses. Second, the authors found that communicating economic vs non-economic goals do not influence satisfaction with the firm’s performance, but do influence the probability of success for female-controlled family businesses. Finally, the authors find that when we compare male and female-controlled businesses in the same industry, while controlling for family and business factors, men and women do not differ in a statistical sense in objective or subjective performance.

The purpose of this paper is to use the socio‐emotional wealth perspective to examine how the level of family involvement reduces the propensity to use incentives to non‐family managers in small to medium‐sized enterprises (SME) family firms.Design/methodology/approach – Primary data were collected from US firms. To evaluate the hypotheses, a logit model was employed on a final sample of 2,019 small family firms.

Results suggest that family influence and control and intra‐family transgenerational succession intentions are negatively related to the propensity to use incentives. Also, the interaction effects of family management and ownership reduce the propensity to use incentives.

The paper’s empirical findings imply that despite their potential economic benefits, family involvement reduces the probability that incentives will be offered to non‐family managers because such incentives are perceived to be inconsistent with the preservation of the family’s socioemotional wealth. Also, choices that reflect a preference for socioemotional wealth may not only be a function of decision framing and loss aversion but also by the size of the economic pay‐offs that might be available. The findings suggest that non‐family managers in SME family firms may be affected by a family’s preoccupation with its socioemotional endowments. Thus, the authors expect that this paper provides further avenues to explore the decisions about attaining non‐economic and economic goals and other strategic issues in family firms.

Prior family business research has been dominated by an agency theory perspective, narrow definitions of what constitutes family wealth, and a preoccupation with business governance mechanisms to the exclusion of family governance mechanisms. This chapter presents the findings of examining the role of a broader range of governance mechanisms (for the business; for the family) in achieving more comprehensive wealth (economic and non-economic) family business goals in the Australian context. Based on survey responses from around 400 family businesses, the findings from this study show that both family and business governance mechanisms contribute significantly to achieving both the business’s financial performance and the achievement of family-centered goals that are important to the owning family. The results also suggest that the relationship between governance and performance in the family business context is much more complex than that acknowledged in prior research and has implications for both future research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how the concept of socioemotional wealth can be combined with other important concepts in the family firm literature to develop a theory of the family firm.

This is a conceptual paper based on a review of the paper of Martin and Gómez-Mejía in this issue as well as the family business literature in general.

Martin and Gómez-Mejía (this issue) present a theoretical model and propositions on the relationship between socioemotional and financial wealth that advances understanding of family firm decision-making. That paper provides an initial step toward a theory of the family firm that can explain why firms select the family form of organization to conduct economic activities, what determines their scale and scope and why heterogeneity is observed among family firms. This commentary takes another step toward such a theory by discussing how the combined consideration of goals, governance and resources could be used to address the above three questions.

The precepts of a new theory of the family firm is presented that incorporates the concepts of goals (socioemotional wealth), governance (family ownership and control) and resources (familiness) of family firms to explain why family firms exist and potentially thrive as well as to explain the heterogeneity among family firms.

Drawing on the theory of goal systems applied to family business this case study focuses on the interdependence between non-economic goals and family goals, in order to identify if and how achieving non-economic goals generates dysfunctional behavioural patterns for family members in the long term.

This study used an inductive, 20-year longitudinal case-study based methodology.

This case study shows how the business family faces ethical/affective dimensions, struggling every day for a balance and often undermining the legitimisation and differentiation of its children. Findings show that the achievement of non-economic goals can occur to the detriment of family goals, such as by generating a dysfunctional system, specifically in business family adaptability.

The principal limitation is that this single case study evidently does not allow for complete generalization of the findings.

This case study makes a contribution to alerting the family business system to the long-term risk they face in trying to simultaneously maintain both harmony/cohesion and ethics/responsibility. Practitioners and consultants are therefore called on to help family firm owners with adopting a strategic vision by considering possible long-term counterfinal (i.e. mutually incompatible) goals.

SMEs are the most widespread type of firm in the world, and consequently dysfunctional behavioural patterns within business families represent a prominent socio-economical problem for policy makers and institutions.

This study shows that, in the long term, that which is perceived to be a desirable goal can transpire to be a dysfunctional pattern. In doing so, this research introduces a new point of view to the literature on goal systems in family business.

This study examines the propensity to innovate in automation of family firms (FFs) based on the socio-emotional wealth (SEW) perspective.

This study’s analysis is based on three aspects. First, the authors consider three main non-economic goals and priorities of FFs: the family’s relationship with employees (read as to care for their satisfaction and well-being); the inner pride of building and maintaining the family and firm image and reputation; and the inner feeling to be socially responsible. Second, the authors consider how these goals and priorities vary among FFs according to four dimensions: family ownership, the presence of family members on the board of directors, the involvement of young successors, and the presence of founding and later generations. Finally, the consequences of automation are considered: lower firm employment, lower employees’ satisfaction and well-being, and higher firm productivity. The analysis is based on a sample of 4,150 Italian firms.

The analysis revealed that FFs are less prone to innovate in automation than non-FFs. Specifically, family ownership, the presence of family members on the board of directors, and the presence of founding generation are negatively associated with innovation in automation. Instead, the involvement of young successors and the presence of later generation are positively associated with innovation in automation.

To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first investigation that, based on SEW, examines how FFs act on the decision to innovate in automation, thereby providing empirical evidence.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the satisfaction with economic and non-economic goals achievement is related to the overall satisfaction with the business of the CEO-owner, and whether family involvement moderates this relationship.

Based on a survey among 323 CEO-owners of family and non-family businesses operating in the Czech Republic, the authors employ the OLS hierarchical regression analysis and test the moderating effects of family involvement on the relationship between the satisfaction with different goals attainment and the overall satisfaction with the business.

The main finding is that family and non-family CEO-owner’s satisfaction does not differ significantly when economic goals (profit maximisation, sales growth, increase in market share or firm value) and firm-oriented non-economic goals (satisfaction of employees, corporate reputation) are being achieved; both classes of goals increase the overall satisfaction with the firm and the family involvement does not strengthen this relationship. However, when it comes to external non-economic goals related to the society or environment, there is a significant and positive moderating effect of family involvement.

The study contributes to the family business literature. First, to date, most of the studies focused on family business goals have been qualitative, thus not allowing for generalisation of findings. Second, there is a lack of evidence on the ways in which family firms integrate their financial and non-financial goals. Third, the authors contribute to the literature on the determinants of personal satisfaction with the business for CEOs, which has been the focus on a relatively scarce number of studies.