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This study investigates the impact of socioemotional wealth (SEW) on family firm entrepreneurial orientation (EO) in Saudi Arabia, and the moderating effect of generational involvement on this relationship. Our data set comprises 241 privately, wholly owned family firms. We examine EO as a strategic orientation expressed in terms of both firm behavior and how managers approach risk-taking attitudinally. Our study finds that SEW is positively related to firms’ entrepreneurial behavior, but not managerial attitudes toward risk-taking. However, the positive effects of SEW on firms’ entrepreneurial behavior diminish as the number of generations involved in the family business increases. The broader implications for enabling entrepreneurship within Arab transforming economies adhering to strong cultural tribalistic norms are discussed.

Family business has been widely discussed in the literature. Still, a holistic approach summarizing the family business concept in entrepreneurship is fragmented to date. This paper aims to explore the multimedia view of family business research in entrepreneurship and finds the key theme discussed by researchers.

In this paper, a systematic literature review on family business and its role in entrepreneurship have been conducted. The literature review consists of bibliometric and content analyzes. Bibliometric research offers quantitative insights, whereas content analysis provides the qualitative evaluation of the literature.

The findings suggest that recent research in this area focuses on exploring the role of women entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship in the family business. The literature also finds that because of the nature of family businesses, successors get the opportunity to use their family’s network, social status, financing and opportunity toward a well-developed market.

This paper may help researchers and practitioners to identify the past and current research trends related to family business and entrepreneurship.

The concepts from network theory are applied for content analysis to identify and explore various family business and entrepreneurship literature sub-domains.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the entrepreneurship theory in family firms as it focuses on the relevance of an ambidextrous entrepreneurial strategy (Helfat and Peteraf, 2009), thanks to an effective combination between exploitation and exploration activities. The study refers to the food sector, characterized by established food traditions and changing consumption patterns.

After reviewing the topics, the authors referred to Goel and Jones (2016) for its representativeness for the research. The authors conducted an explanatory case study in which the authors identified the framework’s three sub-systems impacting the above family business systems. The case study is relevant because Eataly, a family-owned and -managed firm, is gaining recognition while applying a strong entrepreneurial strategy and it is unique in the world for the strength of its commercial strategy and dimensions.

Entrepreneurship strategies can be explained by combined organizational antecedent conditions, represented by three sub-systems: family, business and ownership. The sub-systems’ features and their interrelations play a relevant role in influencing entrepreneurial exploration and exploitation processes.

The study contributes to the actual entrepreneurship theory in family firms because it indicates the relevance of an ambidextrous entrepreneurial strategy, thanks to a combination of exploitation and exploration activities. In addition, it analyses the so-called antecedent conditions in organizations to achieve this favorable combination. Limitations involve the case study method and interview technique, both of which could be expanded.

Several practical implications follow for different stakeholder categories (food sector companies, investors and private/public entities) concerning the management of antecedent conditions, the consequences of entrepreneurial investment policy, and tourism and territorial development.

This research is novel because it combines an ambidextrous entrepreneurship approach (Goel and Jones, 2016) with the family firm’s sub-systems (Tagiuri and Davis, 1982), observing how these sub-systems are relevant to defining and managing effective entrepreneurship strategy in a family food firm. The value added is particularly relevant in the food sector, which is characterized by low research and development. In addition, it requires innovative approaches to stimulate customers’ perception of market demand, to satisfy their needs and to sustain family firms in a highly competitive environment.

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.

This paper aims to examine how gender diversity and women’s empowerment influence the performance of family entrepreneurships and explores the role of firm characteristics as a moderating factor.

The study used a structured questionnaire as the survey tool to collect data from 91 women managers working in family entrepreneurships, which originated from entrepreneurial initiatives, located in various Lebanese regions. The validity of the construct was assumed using the fitness of extracted index, incremental fit-index, non-normal fit-index, root mean square of residuals and standard root mean square residual. Composite reliability, Cronbach's alpha and value confirmatory factor analysis were used to measure the internal consistency. Data were analyzed using the structural equation modeling method.

This study reveals that gender equality, education level and family support significantly affect women's empowerment while an insignificant association was found between empowerment and earning social status and achieving financial independence. This paper also showed a significant interaction between women’s empowerment and the performance of family entrepreneurships. Additionally, the results showed that women holding managerial positions in family entrepreneurships is positively associated with firm performance. Finally, it was concluded that the location of the family firm moderates the relationship between gender diversity and firm performance.

This research contributes to theory and practice regarding the role of women in family entrepreneurships and sheds light on gender differences influencing family entrepreneurships and women empowerment issues.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the associations between the resources of a Western Australian regional family firm exporting to Asia and innovation through the lens of the theory of innovation and the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm.

In-depth, un-structured telephone and face-to-face interviews were conducted with five members of the firm, including the co-owner. A visit to the business facilities complemented the data collection process.

The importance of tangible and intangible resources, such as forward thinking or investments in technologies, human capital and research is clearly illustrated; these resources positively influence innovative practices. Associations between the findings and the theoretical frameworks were identified. For instance, the imperfectly imitable and non-substitutable attributes comply with the RBV of the firm, and the hypothesised four dimensions of innovation. Importantly, the significance of strategic partnering emerges as an extension of these attributes.

This study addresses some knowledge gaps, first, contributing to the body of research on family firms’ adoption of innovation. In addition, the study contributes to the literature on regional Western Australian family firms operating internationally. This state makes a significant contribution to Australia’s economy, and its close geographic proximity to various important consumer markets highlights future opportunities for family firms in international trade. Despite such potential, research on global family firms operating in this state has been almost non-existent.

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.

Scholars have typically examined family business exposure as an aggregate variable. However, it is probable that this trend oversimplifies the complexity of family exposure and its nuanced influence on entrepreneurial behaviour. Thus, to extend the theoretical boundary, this inquiry investigates distinct dimensions of family exposure in Nigeria while drawing on the theory of planned behaviour.

Data were collected from five public universities in Nigeria. A sample of 1,314 respondents was analysed using a partial least squares structural equation modelling approach to determine the influence of alternate family business exposures.

The results show that entrepreneurial exposure in the forms of parent, family member and work involvement have salient and distinctive influences on implementation intention to the extent that entrepreneurial self-efficacy, attitudes and subjective norms are uniquely impacted.

This study offers novel insights on the predictors of entrepreneurial implementation intention through the distinctive effects of (1) family member exposure, (2) parent exposure and (3) work involvement exposure among students in the family firm context.

There exists a shortage of studies that establish linkages between entrepreneurial orientation and debt financing in family businesses. In line with this research stream, the purpose of this chapter is to examine the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and debt financing of family businesses. Specifically, the study investigates how the five entrepreneurial orientation dimensions – risk-taking, innovativeness, proactiveness, competitive aggressiveness, and autonomy influence family business debt financing. By adopting a qualitative research methodology and based on empirical evidence gathered through a 10-case study design involving face-to-face interviews with owners of family businesses in Nigeria, the study examines the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on debt financing. The results suggest that the entrepreneurial orientation of family businesses seems to play a pivotal role in influencing debt financing. If a firm is entrepreneurial-oriented, it is reasonable to expect that it will focus attention on new and emerging opportunities for obtaining debt financing. The study advances research on entrepreneurial orientation and debt financing in family businesses. It develops an empirically theoretical framework at the intersection of the family business and entrepreneurial orientation research, filling a gap in the literature. Future research could substantiate the findings of this study on a broader empirical base, using quantitative methods. This study offers a new perspective to the study of entrepreneurial orientation and, at the same time, contributes with findings from research on entrepreneurial orientation to the study of debt financing in family businesses.

The purpose of this paper is to review the use of case method in entrepreneurship research, and to identify trends in its current application. A key objective of the paper is to lay the foundation for a future research agenda by critically reviewing relevant literatures and offering insights into the use of case method in particular settings. The paper also helps identify areas where case method could add value to research findings in future scholarship.

Using a Boolean search, a systematic literature review (SLR) was undertaken across the “big five” entrepreneurship journals in the five-year period between 2008 and 2012. The search initially yielded a total of 269 “hits”. Following exclusion criteria, the list was refined to a total of 52 empirical papers, and these were reviewed using a comprehensive reading guide developed by the authors.

The paper finds that relatively few articles published in the “big five” entrepreneurship journals use case method, despite repeated calls in the literature for more in-depth, qualitative approaches. This potentially suggests that case method is not fully accepted as a legitimate or sufficiently rigorous approach in the upper echelons of contemporary published entrepreneurship scholarship. Overall the paper argues for greater acceptance of the use of case method amongst the academic community, alongside greater confidence in its application. This can be achieved by learning from other disciplines where the case approach is more established.

While a comprehensive SLR was undertaken, the search was restricted to a limited time period and across a limited number of top tier journals.

The paper highlights incidents where case method has been used successfully, identifies gaps in the literature and contributes towards setting a future research agenda that should be of particular value to qualitative researchers.

The paper builds on extant literatures by furthering our understanding of the use of case method in entrepreneurship research. It should be of value to qualitative scholars applying case method in their empirical work, as well as those seeking to extend their methodological reach beyond a purely quantitative orientation.