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The purpose of this paper is to offer a new perspective on entrepreneurial identity as a narrative construction, emerging in stories about entering the family business.

The qualitative methodological approach involves an interpretative analysis of transcribed interviews conducted in narrative style with 12 women from Swedish family businesses.

By presenting entrepreneurial identity as a combination of two distinct narratives, the “passive” entrance into the family business is highlighted. The “Pippi Longstocking” narrative illustrates conscious choices, drive and motivation based on an entrepreneurial identification: the proactive plot. The “Alice in Wonderland” narrative on the other hand, illustrates women who happen to become entrepreneurs or business persons because the family business was there: the reactive plot. The contrasting and complementing narratives illustrate ambiguities in the identity process.

The authors identified the following opportunities for women in family business: the family business can offer easy access to a career and on‐the‐job learning opportunities; education in other areas can be useful when learning how to manage and develop the family business; and the family business offers a generous arena for pursuing a career at different life stages. Implications for education as well as for policy makers are also presented.

The narratives presented are given metaphorical names with the intention to evoke the reader's reflection and reasoning by analogy, which can lead to new insights. The use of metaphors illustrates multiple layers and ambiguities in identity construction. Metaphors can also create awareness of the researcher as a co‐creator of knowledge.

More than three decades support the research on the family business. The progress achieved, beyond the disagreements, is considerable. However, significant changes in the macro and microenvironment, and their influence on the companies lead to rethinking new perspectives. This new research agenda is multidimensional to achieve a deeper understanding of the essence of the family business. The objective is to find axes that allow hold up the family business to overcome new challenges. Renowned authors from all over the world have reflected on this and offered us new and high-quality perspectives to enrich debate and promote research.

The purpose of this paper is to help organisations view strategy as a profession and something that needs training rather than something that is hard‐wired in executives when they are employed to top positions in organisations.

The author conducted research in organizations and found that strategy is in a state of crisis and has hit on hard times, mainly because executives do not have knowledge in strategic management and organisations make assumptions when executives are employed that they are strategists.

The assumption that when executives are employed they can think and act strategically has been refuted by this study since executives have shown lack of knowledge of strategic issues.

Methods are provided for organizations so that they can reduce the vacuum in strategy practitioners.

This paper gives practical advice from situations in organizations and helps organizations to reduce the vacuum in strategy practitioners.

This article reflects on the lack of focus on history characterizing the strategic management field. Reasons and consequences of such a peculiar situation need to be pointed out in order to develop a better history-grounded research approach inside the field.

In terms of (the missing) history of thought, a fear of history seems to characterize the field, for a more aware historical understanding of strategic management and practices is likely to question not only notions and concepts, but the very perception of the field as a practically oriented discipline. A lack of historical reflection is usually preferred, wherein strategic management seems to come out of the blue, ignoring its inner evolution over time, and the relationships with previous bodies of knowledge in the business realm, such as for instance administrative sciences and accounting.

In terms of the history of practice the situation is – if possible – even worse, with an obscure understanding of contexts and features of managerial practices in the past. Archival research is called for here, drawing on two research projects on pre-industrial revolution context (the Spanish Royal Tobacco Factory in the XVIII century, and the Venice Arsenal in the turn of the XVI century), in order to examine how prior management practices can influence and inform our present understanding of the discipline of strategic management. A less simplistic view of managing practices in the past emerges, which challenges the commonly held cycle of innovation and discontinuity perpetually alleged in the strategic management field to legitimize its own existence as a research area.

While strategic management tools show a potential contribution to historical understanding in this archival research, a more historically aware understanding of the evolution of the field is thus intended as a way to falsify strategic management theory.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the assumptive concept of internationalization because it is discussed and understood in the international business (IB) literature. This paper develops a framework to reconceptualize internationalization in the context of global value chain (GVC) and sustainability. Based on this conceptual framework, this paper aims to formulate interrelated propositions to define internationalization.

This paper reviews the assumptive conceptualization process based on empirical evidence obtained through qualitative, illustrative and descriptive content analysis methods. Through the collection and qualitative content analysis of milestone papers, this paper demonstrates the fragmentation of the concept of internationalization. This paper reviews the evolving nature of the concept of internationalization, analyzing the accumulative issues associated with defining internationalization, as well as its potential future development.

This paper introduces a dynamic perspective on the evolving nature of the concept of internationalization and argue there is a need to reconceptualize internationalization in the context of the GVC and sustainability.

After reviewing the context in which the term “internationalization” has been applied and taking into consideration the current trends in the IB, this paper formulates an updated definition of the term internationalization. This paper offers a viewpoint on the future direction of the concept of internationalization in light of the growing importance of sustainability within IB.

The aim of this article is to introduce a conceptual framework for a corporate brand building process based on core values. The nature, role, and function of core values are considered a central part of the value foundation of a corporate brand. In line with this reasoning, a distinction is also made between three groups of values: organisational values, core values, and added values. This article is based on research into the brand building efforts of more than 50 major companies over a period of ten years. The Volvo case is used as an illustration and places special emphasis on internal processes. The role of the core values in the ten steps of the framework is explored and illustrated. The work is based on first‐hand experiences, interviews, and unique internal strategy documents from Volvo. The discussion defines core values as overarching concepts that summarise the identity of the corporate brand and as guiding lights for the brand building process. Another conclusion drawn from the article is that core values are vital for continuity, consistency and credibility in a value‐creating process. The theoretical and practical implications of using core values as a unifying common thread are discussed in relation to the paradigm of brand orientation.

Many British employers are less than enthusiastic about the Government's proposals to abolish the 26 wages councils which set statutory minimum wage rates for 2.5 million employees. In its response to the Department of Employment's Wages Councils: 1988 consultation document, the Institute of Personal Management continues to reject a “blanket” approach of total abolition of all wage's councils. The I.P.M.'s view, first formed in 1982 after a major review of the operation of wages councils, is in line with the recommendation of the House of Commons Employment Committee in 1985 that it is right to review and reform but not abolish wages councils.

This paper aims to explore how organizational actors make reference to history and how they use historical reference purposefully in order to affect strategy‐making.

The paper draws on in‐depth case studies on two Swedish MNCs. Data have been collected through 79 interviews as well as participant observation and archival studies.

Organizational actors purposefully construct and use history in order to establish continuity in strategy processes. The use of historical references legitimizes or delegitimizes specific strategic options.

Two old firms with a clear interest in organizational history have been studied. Future research on additional companies, including young firms and firms with less interest in history, is needed.

The purposeful use of history can be a powerful tool for managers to influence organizational change processes.

Very little research on the use of history in business organizations has so far been done. In an interdisciplinary manner the paper introduces concepts from research in history to management research. Based on two rich case studies the paper contributes by outlining what role different uses of history play in strategic and organizational change.