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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.

The early-stage venture capital (VC) industry has long been dominated by small firms comprising senior venture capitalists and few junior staff. However, during the late 1990s, a group of firms changed their internal structures, adopting pyramidal structures and redesigning internal processes to leverage the efforts of junior staff. In doing so, they followed first-movers in other professional services industries that transitioned to pyramidal models in the 20th century. Has the recent industry downturn terminated the transition, or simply delayed it? This chapter analyzes the events that led the VC firms to transition, the barriers to doing so, and related issues affecting the industry's future.

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.

Family businesses are characterized by the simultaneous presence of the family and the business system. The literature analyses sporadically the family support during the creation of a new family business. For this reason, the aim of this article is to offer new reflections and theoretical approaches in the field of family business studies. In fact, the study focuses on the first generation and the relationship and support with the previous generation (latent generation).

This perspective paper is based on a concise review of the literature.

The results of this offer a state of the art, synthesized and integrated, on the first generation to proposal the reader new knowledge on the first generation and relationships with family members.

This perspective paper distinguishes between the first generation formally engaged in the family business and the latent generation. The authors identify latent generation as a generation coeval with the first that supports the entrepreneur without being formally engaged in the family business. This study summarizes existing research on the first generation, highlighting the crucial role of the latent generation. Considering the latent generation determines an implicit and tacit generational transition not yet considered in the literature on the topic This study provides new research directions for scholars and managers to understand the entrepreneurial behaviors of families, family members and family businesses.

The increasing pace of global competition has recast the balance between multinational corporations’ (MNCs’) needs to protect the knowledge that underlies their competitive advantages and their needs to continually create new knowledge. This essay will discuss MNCs’ knowledge-seeking strategies as industry-level phenomena. I will argue that knowledge-seeking strategies demand a concept of industries both as arenas for competition and as global knowledge networks within which firms collaborate to innovate. Contemporary MNCs face challenges to function not only as self-contained production systems that internationalize in the search for efficiency and markets, but also as open systems globally seeking knowledge and innovations. Metanational strategies and organizations represent a new response to these challenges. I present empirical evidence of distinctive metanational industry opportunities and organizational responses from the emergence of the global flat panel display industry. The essay concludes with a framework that outlines the characteristics of a global knowledge-driven generic strategy as an alternative and synthesis of generic product-driven strategies of cost-leadership and differentiation.

Classifies controllable or internal factors influencing family business transitions into three groups: preparation level of the heirs, family relationships, and planning and control activities. To assess the impact of each set of factors on the ease of generational transitions and subsequent family business performance, a cross‐sectional survey was directed at owner/ managers of second‐ and third‐generation family businesses. Suggests that, in successful transitions, heirs are reasonably well‐prepared, family relationships tend to be positive, and succession planning and related control activities are relatively informal. Of these three, trust and communication in family relationships appears to have the most significant impact on transitions. Draws managerial implications and makes suggestions for ongoing research.

Despite the extensive breadth of research into the critical challenge of succession in family business, generational succession in family business has been investigated from predominately one-dimensional perspective. The purpose of this paper is to respond to call for a multi-perspectives examination of leadership succession in order to embrace the dynamic and complex nature of succession in a family business. Accordingly, the authors investigated the key personal and professional factors associated with effective family-business succession across four key stakeholders: incumbent, successor, family, and nonfamily members.

The explanatory research design included 16 interviews in Phase 1 and 41 prospective case study interviews in Phase 2, both with Australian family businesses that had or were about to experience generational transition.

Incumbents and successor interview findings support the benefits of maintaining a cohesive family business, adaptable family culture, and familiness for effective succession. The authors also identified several personal components (e.g. family-business socialization and external experiences) that can help determine the commitment of successors and how this commitment can change once they assume a leadership position. Business size was the professional component supported by incumbent, successor, and nonfamily members as having a significant impact on succession process. As family business grows and becomes more highly complex, a clearly defined set of procedures become imperative.

Family-business practitioners can apply the findings to manage the processes and expectations of family and the business to achieve effective generational succession and thereby increase the sustainability of the business.

This research provides a coherent and comprehensive understanding of the interdependencies of competing priorities in the complex succession process that is essential for family-business sustainability and performance.

This paper aims to determine the perceptions of family-owned small enterprises on the external transfer of ownership and intra-transfer of ownership using empirical data. This permitted the research to successfully point out the factors that influence the internal transfer of ownership, and also, the effects of intra-transfer of ownership from a viewpoint of both family members and non-family members in small family-owned enterprises.

A quantitative research design was used to conduct this research, where primary data was gathered from a sample of 257 respondents using convenience and snowball sampling techniques. Data was collected through a survey instrument distributed via internet-based surveys (SurveyMonkey) and through a drop-off method. The gathered data was then captured, coded and analysed using Stata (version 15) statistical software.

The results divulged that intra or internal transfer of ownership is the preferred avenue compared to external transfer of ownership. This is because, when a family business is transferred to the next generation, it presents some benefits to family members working in the business and to the family at large. As a result, the empirical results show that factors that influence the internal transfer of ownership include: favouritism; security, stability and growth; a formal and structured succession plan. Business improvement and organisational change are then the effects of external transfer ownership. Although these effects make business sense, family members will advocate for internal transfer of ownership for them not to lose the benefits that come with the internal transfer of ownership.

This paper adds to the current family business research in South Africa, thus reducing the shortage of such research. Moreover, the paper proposes further research that will provide tested, practical and detailed guidelines of survival in the next generation.

The paper empirically highlights the perils of selecting a successor based on favouritism rather than merit and possible consequences, thereby assisting those involved in family enterprise succession to make an informed decision when choosing a successor.

This research paper provides empirical evidence of the internal transfer of ownership factors and external transfer of ownership effects from a South African perspective.

This paper aims to analyze the ex ante and ex post economic efficiency of the preventive agreement (concordato preventivo) or composition with creditors as defined by the Italian Bankruptcy Law. This study examines four possible outcomes of the procedure: homologation (confirmation); the degree of dissent/consent of creditors; the revocation, admissibility or inadmissibility; the declaration of the company bankruptcy in preventive agreement.

This paper uses data from 728 Italian companies which filed for preventive agreement in 2016. In reference to each of the four possible outcomes, this study applies nine logit regressions to analyze the effects of a series of efficiency variables ex ante (corporate-based drivers) and ex post (procedure-based drivers).

Results show the relevance of the debt structure, ownership structure and virtuous behavior, corporate governance and management systems, as well as effectivity of the court control on the preventive agreement outcome.

This paper draws on original data of bankruptcy in Italy and gives empirical evidence of the ex ante and ex post factors on the outcomes of the preventive agreement.