Search results

Literature considers the succession process to be successful when both the continuity of the business and harmony within the family are preserved. This study empirically investigates intra-family dynamics with regard to daughters as potential successors in family businesses.

The study takes place in South Africa where family businesses represent a significant amount of all listed businesses on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. A structured survey instrument is used to collect primary data from family businesses in South Africa. The study hypotheses are statistically tested using regression analyses.

Results highlight the importance of the business context (BC), intra-family cohesion (IFC), intra-family adaptability (IFA) as well as the parent-daughter relationship (PDR) in successful daughter succession planning (SP). An important insight which emerges from the findings is the extent to which a harmonious business environment is conducive in accommodating the daughter as a successor to the business.

Family business owners need to be aware of the often conflicting pressures that daughters face as potential successors. Evidence-based and fit for purpose to the South African family BC processes and directives must be formulated that guide the implementation of SP. The provision of training specifically focused on gender bias issues and women empowerment programmes in family business is recommended.

Investigating theoretical and practical problems related to daughters in SP in South Africa is important considering that firms in African countries in general tend to be poorly managed.

This perspective article highlights the importance of future research that explores how intra-family communication in family businesses was affected during challenging times such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The paper is based on a literature review of current perspectives on the role of informal communication in family businesses. The author offers some research insight into contributing to redirect the study of informal intra-family communication in family businesses.

The COVID-19 pandemic and its consequential effects have presented a series of challenges that possess the capacity to affect communication in any business. Nevertheless, these challenges in informal communication within family members hold a particular relevance for family businesses and require a reassessment of the fundamental assumptions that serve as the basis for research in challenging times.

This paper synthesizes the existing research on informal communication in the family business context and proposes some key research opportunities.

The practices and arrangements within a family can create grounds for violence. Although we agree that family processes are important, we think that these explanations downplay the structure of families (nuclear, extended) and thereby the ways in which gender relations are organized. In this paper, domestic violence is explored as an intra-family dynamic that extends beyond the intimate partner relationship and which seeps into court rulings of cases of such violence.

Using archival data from 164 Supreme Court case decisions on domestic violence in India for the period 1995–2011, we examine both the patterns of conviction and the complexities of gender relations within the family by systematically coding the Court’s rulings.

Analysis of court rulings show that mothers-in-law were convicted in 14% cases and the husband was convicted in 41% cases. We call attention to the collective nature of the domestic violence crime in India where mothers-in-law were seldom convicted alone (3% of cases) but were more likely to be convicted along with other members of the family. Two dominant themes we discuss are the gendered nature of familial relations beyond the intimate partner relationship and the pervasiveness of such gendered relationships from the natal home to the marital family making victims of domestic violence isolated and “homeless.”

Future research may benefit from using data in addition to the judgments to consider caste and class differences in the rulings. An intersectionality perspective may add to the understanding of the interpretation of the laws by the courts.

Insights from this paper have important policy implications. As discussed in the paper, the unintended support for violence from the natal family is an indication of their powerlessness and therefore further victimization through the law will not help. It is critical that natal families re-frame their powerlessness which is often derived from their status as families with daughters. Considering that most women in India turn to their natal families first for support when they face violence in their marriages, policy must enable such families to act and utilize the law.

By examining court rulings on cases of domestic violence in India we focus on the power exerted by some women particularly within extended families which is central to understanding gender relations within institutions. These relations are legitimized by the courts in the ways they interpret the law and rule on cases.

This study sheds light on a hitherto understudied group in family business literature: widows. We explore the roles a widow may take following the unexpected death of her owner-manager spouse when she had no salient role in the business prior to the death.

We used a qualitative approach to research, to study inductively the roles considered and taken by three widows who unexpectedly succeeded as owners of Swedish privately held family firms. We conducted semi-structured interviews with widows and children in top management.

We construct a typology of four main roles a widow can take and analyse the underlying dimensions that they represent. We also analyse to which extent the choice of role widow can be explained by psychological ownership and double-loss theory. The typology can be used as a tool for family business owners and their advisors as the basis of an open and non-prejudiced discussion of the choices available to a widow.

We have investigated the factors that influence a widow's decision whether to take over the business or not, as suggested in previous research by, for example, Martinez et al. (2009). We explore the roles a widow can consider and adopt. The study advances our understanding of how businesses can remain as family firms also in the event of the unexpected death of an owner-manager (De Massis et al., 2008). We hereby contribute to the literature on sudden successions and on women in family businesses.

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.

With global migration, the number of ethnic minority and migrant women receiving maternity health care in dominantly Anglo-European societies has increased significantly but they consistently have among the worst pregnancy and maternal outcomes. This paper aims to analyse gaps in structural (migration-related inequalities) and cultural (responsiveness to ethno-cultural practices) competencies among maternal health practitioners in Aotearoa New Zealand (NZ).

Using a semi-structured interview guide, in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 maternal health practitioners in NZ. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis framework.

The results highlight significant barriers around language and communication, cultural stereotyping by professionals, ethnic women’s own constraints around family and cultural expectations and their lack of knowledge about reproductive health. In addition, practitioners’ own ethnic differences are inseparable from their approach to structural and cultural competencies; there were instances of ‘over-’ or ‘under-’ reading of culture, practitioner constructions of ideal pregnancies and anti-racism concerns that shaped maternal care practices that were sensitive to, but also marginalised, ethnic migrant women who attended maternity services.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the only study in NZ that examines the impact of complex dynamics of migration and culture on knowledge, beliefs and values of practitioners, in context of their own personal biographies. Identifying strategies to improve the way diversity is practiced in hospital settings can be transformational in improving maternal outcomes for ethnic migrant women in NZ.

Business performance measurement is vital to expanding knowledge of how various strategies and behaviors affect organization outcomes. Given the recent growth of the family business research field, it is appropriate to assess how researchers measure family business performance, seeking to provide thoughts related to how to improve family business performance measurement in research. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This study applies a systematic approach to review 338 family business performance studies published in peer-reviewed journals from 1980 through 2015.

Observations are presented from this exhaustive review, including the expansion of the family business research field, types of journals publishing family business studies, research topics, types of measures utilized, and others. In addition, potential gaps are identified and possible solutions are presented.

It appears no review of family business performance measurement in research is available. Observations from this review may assist researchers in measuring a vital metric, family business performance.

This paper aims to explore mixed emotions experienced by parents and children on holiday, how they are dealt with and how they influence the way “family” is “staged” and “done”.

This paper draws on 24 qualitative interviews with Danish parents and a questionnaire study reporting answers from 66 Danish children (11-15-year-old).

Problems external and internal to the family are identified and the latter are associated with more unease particularly among parents. This paper shows that parents invest significant narrative efforts in transcending gaps between ideals and practices. Also children are aware of the gaps between ideals and practices; they seem more matter-of-fact, however, regarding critical aspects of holidays.

The informants of the study solely represent two-parent hetero-sexual families of Danish origin, and so inclusion of a wider range of families would have added interesting perspectives. Furthermore, children’s perspectives on critical holiday incidents need further research.

Creators of family holiday products and marketing should present a more nuanced imagery taking a more diverse approach to what “family” on holiday looks like. They could take up the challenge of depicting a broader range of family situations, also showing less harmonious moments, using humour, and showing opportunities for some “alone time” for both parents and children should relational overload happen. Also occasional “wifi-free” moments seem to be much appreciated by all family members, and development of offline family experiences would seem to strike a chord.

The contemporary paradigm of intensive parenting along with strong ideals for family holidays make it essential for parents to narratively deal with and legitimize and transform less happy moments. To take pressure off contemporary families, it is important to bring to the fore the less glossy aspects of family holidays.

The originality of this paper is to illustrate the strong efforts applied by families to keep up a certain front to be the family that “ought to be” by nurturing and narrating positive emotions in relation to family holidays. The inclusion of children’s voices gives insights into children’s annoyance with parents’ rowing, relational overload and parents’ occasional lack of attention to children, for example through parental use of mobile phones during holiday togetherness.

The purpose of the paper is to analyse children's impact on innovation decision making empirically.

This paper is a diary study with 14 parents depicting their experiences with regard to the topic of interest over a period of two weeks.

Children's influence is stronger in earlier stages of the innovation buying process, based on different communication strategies with differing effects on their parents' purchasing behaviour.

This paper helps marketers tailor appropriate marketing and innovation strategies. Special attention is given to the familial dynamics in the innovation decision‐making process. This is to prevent inter‐family conflicts fuelled by the children's requests.

This is one of the first attempts to test Rogers' innovation‐decision process. Moreover, despite its many bonuses, the diary method has rarely been applied in the context of familial purchase decision making.

This paper theoretically and empirically aims to explore customer group flow experiences with an urban adventure game called “escape rooms”.

A comprehensive model of group flow antecedents and consequences is proposed and empirically verified by means of survey research and SEM methodology.

The results indicate that key determinants of group flow experiences are the collective challenge/skills balance, and theming and storytelling. Group flow, in turn, significantly affects participants’ revisit intentions and word-of-mouth communications, as well as group cohesion and subjective quality of life.

The supported research model provides an insight into how group flow experiences can be facilitated by means of gamification and yields important managerial implications. These are systematically discussed in regard to antecedent and consequence constructs.

This paper is one of the first papers to systematically examine the antecedents and consequences of group flow experiences at adventure game-based attractions. It contributes to the understanding and management of peak experiences in contemporary hospitality and tourism.