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This chapter aims at contributing to the literature on education for business families shedding light on some current knowledge gaps, new research directions, and future contributions. We have focused on highlighting the elements that make family business education a promising field for developing lifelong, multigenerational pedagogical strategies, becoming a field of experimentation that could be beneficial for the innovation in multidisciplinary university education. We have also explored the characteristics of various teaching methods that are new for family business education at universities, and how they relate with the different types of learning categorized by Le Breton-Miller and Miller (2015). Since education to business families is an area that is on its nascent stage, a high research potential is placed ahead.

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.

Family businesses account for 70% of businesses in Australia, and employ half of Australia's workforce (ASBFEO, n.d). Although they form an integral part of Australian economy and society, the experience of COVID-19 has undoubtedly created both change and challenges for family businesses. Are Australian family businesses ready to manage this change and cope with these challenges? In this chapter we explore this question by discussing the “state-of-the-art” about family businesses in Australia, and present research directions to develop knowledge about the readiness of Australian family businesses to not only flourish but to be sustainable in the post COVID-19 world.

The notion that the family have a profound effect on human behavior is indisputable and has been studied extensively, including business administration. However, these studies have focused on developed countries. So, it can be identifying a research gap related to understand these countries, especially from a contextual perspective, which is the one that has received less attention from the academy.

This paper presents a theoretical review of the contextual perspective of the study of family businesses that concludes with the proposal of a model that integrates the structural barriers to contextualize the analysis family businesses in emerging economies, especially in rural zones.

Three case studies of companies located in the Puuc biocultural region in Yucatan, México, are presented and discussed.

The cases presented are family businesses: “Vida Vida,” “La Vaquita,” and “Lool-Beek” in which similarities were found in the way they face the particularities of their environment and how the integration of family members responds to uncertainty due to the precarious legal framework and the scant economic development they face.

This paper proposes that the structural barriers faced by emerging countries should be integrated as a differentiated variable, especially those located in rural areas since there imply greater challenges than urban areas. Likewise, it highlights that the emotional connections of family businesses with their territory give them roots, and this contributes to the continuity of their businesses and empowers them to face challenges such as natural disasters and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Marquis de Sade wrote that people behave differently in separate spaces and that, in different environments, they more easily reveal their true predilections. Throughout de Sade's writings, he reveals ways that hidden rooms, closets, castles, brothels, and monasteries can be used as spaces to unleash inner evil. Conveyed within de Sade's writings are ways in which characters actively change their settings in order to create these heterotopias – or spaces that are separate from normal routines. The role that separate spaces play in maintaining alternative behaviors has not been adequately examined in either de Sade's writings or in heterotopia literature. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the inner workings of a heterotopia frozen in time and space – a small town family business. This query merits exploration because the incestuous, atemporal behaviors that de Sade enacted can manifest themselves in family businesses. To examine this facet of family business, a customized methodology will be introduced – the Sadean duography. This manuscript is beneficial to practitioners in family businesses who seek to understand the hazards of inherting or purchasing new businesses, and to scholars in entrepreneurship and organizational studies seeking a deeper understanding of the role of heterotopias, also known as third spaces.

Entrepreneurship and family businesses are fundamental factors in economic activity since, through the generation of new ideas, it is possible to generate new businesses that trigger employment, innovation, and economic growth. Recently, an emphasis on seeing both research streams from a kaleidoscope perspective has given new insights into the development and evolution of this area. Thus, exploring the differentiation between true and false entrepreneurs seems vital for today's efficient allocation of resources. A theoretical model is proposed, including micro, meso, and macro analytical spheres, adding the behavioral aspects that determine whether a person is a true or false entrepreneur and the effects that can have on the business. To observe the viability of the approach, the case of an enterprise, called “family business S,” is examined. Specifically, the results show the feasibility of applying the analytical proposal to observe the positive and negative behaviors of the family business. In the case of S, these are false entrepreneurs, given that free time and unemployment were the main reasons for starting the company, but they lacked the will and long-term vision. Also, a novel view on how to diagnose a real entrepreneur for taking over a family business is proposed, where a clinical history approach might help in the succession process.

Founders have significant influence over many domains within family businesses, and their impact on companies may be felt even after leadership succession. Founders have therefore received much attention from scholars, policymakers, and entrepreneurship educators. This chapter characterizes the current literature on family business founders by identifying the topics explored and the range of methods and methodologies used in recent years to outline a research agenda for future study of founders of family businesses.

A scoping review was conducted to examine the extent and essence of contemporaneous research activity related to family business founders. Scoping reviews describe current research activity without evaluating individual studies and are effective in summarizing significant concerns and themes, identifying areas of deficiency, and establishing recommendations for future directions in research. This scoping review used elements of a rapid review due to resource restrictions and this chapter discusses efforts to mitigate the limitations introduced as a result.

After summarizing the current academic conversation about family business founders, opportunities for future research topics and methodological approaches to the study of founders of family businesses are introduced.

The work approaches the concept of family from a legal perspective, starting from the idea of interest, which leads to the deployment of subjectivity and concrete ethical development, thus allowing to visualize the alluded concept. Once the particularities of the family interest are established, filiation is constituted, from the point of view of civil society, in a specific group that faces diversity, having as a reference the principle of force, moral elements, or the same ethic. According to the above, in the family, the political formation of the individual is presented, its right and recognition with which an ethical relationship is established. However, the cultural ties thus created are the foundation of any family business, understood as the life project, to such a degree that everyone fulfills a function within the group and seeks to contribute creatively to the solution of economic, social, and political problems. It is concluded that the family can be an organic space of motivation that develops a whole experience, liberates experimentation, seeks empowerment, improves participation and involvement, allows collaborative work, and encourages creativity.