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This chapter focuses on governance as a key element of the safeguarding system of the family enterprise. The management is in charge of the company’s performance in terms of profit and growth. The governance system is designed to secure value protection by designing a robust leadership system, monitoring and advising management, reviewing critical decisions, and providing fail-safe solutions in case of serious malfunctions of the management system. This chapter develops a typology of critical elements which could endanger the development of the company, including conflicts and disruptions among the owner group. Results of recent research on the root causes of the downfall of family enterprises are presented. Finally, a concept of a three-layer protection system is developed with the aim of providing stability for longevity.

This paper examines the innovation behavior of family-owned firms versus non-family-owned firms. The role of internal family governance and the influence of external stimuli (competition) on innovation are also considered.

The data of 20,995 family and non-family firms across 38 countries are derived from the World Bank Enterprise Survey during the period 2019–2020. Probit models are used to examine the impact of family ownership, family governance, and competition on innovation outcomes.

Family firms are more likely to make R&D investments, acquire external knowledge, engage in product innovation (including innovations that are new to the market) and process innovation, relative to non-family firms. However, a high propensity of family member involvement in top management positions can reduce innovation. Competition has a negative impact on innovation outcomes for both family and non-family firms, but it has a positive moderating effect on the innovation activities of family firms where a higher level of family member involvement in management is present.

This paper provides novel insights into family firm innovation dynamics by identifying family firms as more innovative than non-family firms for all types of indicators, debunking the idea that family firms are conservative, reluctant to change, and averse to the risks in innovation activities. However, too much family involvement in decision making may stifle some innovation activities in family firms, except in cases where the operating environment is highly competitive; this provides new insights into the ownership-management dynamic of family firms.

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.

Family businesses do not perpetuate themselves. Entrepreneurs must nurture and propagate the values that led to the creation of the very thing most precious to them‐their business.This of course depends on stability. Nor do these cherished values propagate themselves. To be made meaningful for others, and for future generations, family experiences, values, and achievements must be communicated to others via language, narrative and storytelling, or other forms embedded in the narrative such as symbols. Often a variety of different socially constructed stories may be necessary contingent upon situation, purpose, or need.

The starting point for the considerations the authors make in this paper are the special features of family businesses in the area of management discussed in the literature. It has been established here that family businesses sometimes choose different organizational setups than nonfamily businesses. This has not yet been investigated for cybersecurity. In the context of cybersecurity, there has been little theoretical or empirical work addressing the question of whether the qualitative characteristics of family businesses have an impact on the understanding of cybersecurity and the organization of cyber risk defense in the companies. Based on theoretically founded hypotheses, a quantitative empirical study was conducted in German companies.

The article is based on a quantitative-empirical survey of 184 companies, the results of which were analyzed using statistical-empirical methods.

The article asked – based on the subjective perception of cybersecurity and cyber risks – to what extent family businesses are sensitized to the topic and what conclusions they draw from it. An interesting tension emerges: family businesses see their employees more as a security risk, but do less than nonfamily businesses in terms of both training and organizational establishment. Whether this is due to a lack of technical or managerial expertise, or whether family businesses simply think they can prevent cybersecurity with less formal methods such as trust, is open to conjecture, but cannot be demonstrated with the research approach taken here. Qualitative follow-up studies are needed here.

This paper represents the first quantitative survey on cybersecurity with a specific focus on family businesses. It shows tension between awareness, especially of risks emanating from employees, and organizational routines that have not been implemented or established.