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The paper provides a detailed historical account of Douglass C. North's early intellectual contributions and analytical developments in pursuing a Grand Theory for why some countries are rich and others poor.

The author approaches the discussion using a theoretical and historical reconstruction based on published and unpublished materials.

The systematic, continuous and profound attempt to answer the Smithian social coordination problem shaped North's journey from being a young serious Marxist to becoming one of the founders of New Institutional Economics. In the process, he was converted in the early 1950s into a rigid neoclassical economist, being one of the leaders in promoting New Economic History. The success of the cliometric revolution exposed the frailties of the movement itself, namely, the limitations of neoclassical economic theory to explain economic growth and social change. Incorporating transaction costs, the institutional framework in which property rights and contracts are measured, defined and enforced assumes a prominent role in explaining economic performance.

In the early 1970s, North adopted a naive theory of institutions and property rights still grounded in neoclassical assumptions. Institutional and organizational analysis is modeled as a social maximizing efficient equilibrium outcome. However, the increasing tension between the neoclassical theoretical apparatus and its failure to account for contrasting political and institutional structures, diverging economic paths and social change propelled the modification of its assumptions and progressive conceptual innovation. In the later 1970s and early 1980s, North abandoned the efficiency view and gradually became more critical of the objective rationality postulate. In this intellectual movement, North's avant-garde research program contributed significantly to the creation of New Institutional Economics.

This study examines the potential impact of capital structure on the financial performance of family-owned firms in Jordan.

Using panel data of 107 listed companies from 2019 to 2021, the authors use a multivariate regression model to empirically examine the role that family firms' capital structure can play in engendering financial performance in the short and long terms.

This study's evidence indicates that family businesses rely on equity as their primary source of funding. This approach has been proven to be detrimental to their financial performance, as evidenced by the negative impact of capital structure on family firms' financial performance in the current study.

Capital structure-related decisions are essential to a firm's performance. Thus, there have been numerous empirical studies examining the relationship between capital structure and corporate performance in various settings worldwide. However, the findings of these studies are inconclusive. Also, there are relatively few empirical studies investigating the association between capital structure and the performance of family firms in emerging countries, particularly Jordan. This study, therefore, addresses this empirical gap in extant literature.

This chapter discusses conceptual links among Hazel Kyrk’s A Theory of Consumption (1923), the overall work of Thorstein Veblen, and Wesley C. Mitchell’s essays on spending and money. The three authors are concerned with transformations in production, related changes in the organization of consumption, and the effects on people. The approach is based on reading of Kyrk’s book in light of an integrated view of Veblen’s overall work. This chapter explains how Mitchell’s essays on money and spending built on Veblen’s work and discusses their relevance for understanding Kyrk’s book as conceptually linked to institutional economics. This chapter delineates the following commonalities: conception of living humans and money as an institution; distinction between business and industrial concerns; connection between distribution, waste, and consumption; and Veblen’s “machine process” of standardization in production and its relation to consumption. This chapter brings more detail in the conceptual and theoretical discussion of Veblen’s influence on Kyrk’s book.

The aim of this paper is to explore the family firms' propensity to undertake R&D investments after going public, showing how it varies due to the ownership structure.

The analysis is based on a sample of 132 French and Italian family and nonfamily IPOs in the period 2013–2018.

The empirical findings show a positive relationship between the quantity of post-IPO shares retained by family owners and R&D investments. Furthermore, the abovementioned relationship is negatively affected by the generational stage and positively by the presence of a lone founder.

Outside investors of family firms may be assured in buying shares of founding family firms after going public because they are stimulated to undertake R&D investments and therefore create overall value in the long term. Furthermore, external managers of lone-founder and first-generation family firms can adopt innovation investments without fear of being replaced as a consequence of a hostile takeover. Lastly, private equity should support later generation family IPOs, providing them with capital and managerial skills in order to generate value for shareholders.

Past studies have mostly shown family firms' reluctance to undertake R&D investments; however, scholars have focused on private or public family firms, ruling out the analysis of family firms' innovation behaviour within the setting of an IPO. To the best of the author's knowledge, this study represents the first empirical attempt to investigate the relationship between family firms and post-IPO innovation investments, when the capital infusion relaxes the financial constraints of family firms.

The aim of this research is to investigate the association between perceived overqualification and leisure crafting in the context of immigrants. Drawing on the cross-cultural adaptation theory, the study tests the moderating role that acculturation plays in this relationship.

Data were collected from a total of 226 immigrants living in Northern Cyprus. In the initial survey, data were collected on perceived overqualification and acculturation, which was followed by the measurement of leisure crafting. Data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling.

Perceived overqualification asserts a significantly positive impact on leisure crafting. Assuming that acculturation plays a moderating role, the research shows that the positive effect that perceived overqualification has on leisure crafting is increased in cases where positive acculturation is elevated as opposed to reduced.

The study results were based on self-reported surveys and data were limited to overqualified immigrant groups in Northern Cyprus.

The study provides significant practical implications for management teams. They can design managerial interventions to increase the acculturation of immigrants, which may in turn reduce the perceived overqualification and increase the positive impact of leisure crafting. Also, the government needs to implement policies targeted at immigrants in order to help them rapidly adapt to the host society.

This research will be a pioneering attempt to explore the positive relationship between perceived overqualification and leisure crafting. The results suggest actions that can be taken to promote leisure crafting behaviors through the use of acculturation to enhance organizational commitment, belongingness to the host society, and well-being in overqualified immigrants.

Hazel Kyrk, one of the first women economists at the Economic Department of the University of Chicago and author of A Theory of Consumption (1923), conducted groundbreaking research for the Bureau of Home Economics of the US Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Kyrk made a considerable contribution to the development of standards for a “decent living,” the Consumer Price Index, and the conceptualization of what would later turn into the definition of the poverty line. This chapter evaluates Kyrk’s use of eugenic notions of gender and race that were widely used in Kyrk’s day. This chapter shows that eugenic reasoning impacts Kyrk’s theoretical work only superficially but does structure her research on consumption standards through her focus on the white middle-class family as the unit of analysis for consumer behavior. This chapter also makes clear that the American Institutionalist approach to consumer behavior, rather than marginalized and side-tracked due to a lack of theoretical progress, was relegated to the margins of economics science together with the research of women economists into Home Economics departments and policy research at government institutions.

Hazel Kyrk’s recognised contributions include a shift in analytic focus from production to consumption, pioneering work to measure household production as part of family income, empirical studies of family behaviour, and contributions to policy. But her account of ‘wise’ consumption and its intersection with ‘high’ living standards is not well understood. The three aims of this chapter are to explain ‘wise’ consumption across Kyrk’s three major books, to consider its role in Kyrk’s empirical studies, and to explain why it fell into oblivion. Tackling what Wesley Mitchell described as the ‘most baffling of difficulties’, Kyrk explained what constitutes a family’s ‘good’ in a manner that was critical of mere emulation. Her 1923 book required that wise consumption include new and personal elements. Her 1929/1933 book detailed five qualitative criteria (balance between interests, full and varied experiences, originality, rational sources of satisfaction, and the use of scientific information). But her 1953 book weakened this normative language, reflecting Margaret Reid’s view that Kyrk’s account was too demanding. Although Kyrk felt wise consumption avoided paternalism, her peers disagreed (Hoyt, 1938/1945; Reid, 1938/1945). We close with some problems with Kyrk’s account and a brief consideration of its continuing relevance.

Leveraging the mindfulness theory and the social exchange theory, this study examines the influence of perceived leader mindfulness (PLM) on turnover intentions (TOI) of non-family employees (NFEs) working in family firms. The study investigates whether the above relationship is mediated by employee perceptions of leader–member exchange quality (LMX quality) and their affective commitment (AC).

A conceptual framework is proposed that hypothesizes inverse relationship between PLM and TOI, which is posited to be mediated by both LMX quality and AC. The hypotheses are tested through survey data collected from 254 NFEs working in various family-owned businesses in Malaysia. The data analyzed through partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The results indicate that PLM has a positive influence on both LMX quality and AC. Moreover, PLM has a strong negative affect on TOI. In terms of results of mediation analysis, it appears that two mediation hypotheses out of four are significant, that is mediating effect of AC between PLM and TOI and LMX quality between PLM and AC. However, the mediating role of LMX quality between PLM and TOI and the sequential mediation hypotheses were both non-significant.

The findings of the study imply is that to ensure retention of qualified and talented NFEs, mindfulness of family firm leaders plays a significant role in ensuring lower TOI. Furthermore, such a goal is better achieved by ensuring that such employees are supported through leadership that leads to their development of better LMX quality and AC towards the organization. The study however is limited, as other potential exogenous variables that may influence TOI were not considered.

Losing employees that join a firm and acquire valuable skills and experience is a significant concern for family firms that are known for discriminating between employees related to the owners and outsiders. This study presents evidence for owners and managers of family firms that by focusing on mindful behavior and working towards developing better LMX quality and AC of NFEs, the organization can reduce TOI of such employees.

This study contributes to the under-researched and fragmented literature on relationships between PLM among NFEs and TOI of such individuals working in family firms. Moreover, this appears to be the first study that investigates mediating roles of and LMX quality and AC among NFEs in the above relationship.

Workplace thriving (WT), self-job crafting (SJC), and workplace belongingness (WB) have been shown to lead to positive outcomes for organizations and their employees. However, there seems to be a dearth of insights into the relationship between the three constructs, and non-existent in the context of non-family employees (NFEs) working in private family firms. Therefore, this study examines whether enabling NFEs to craft their own jobs leads them to reappraise their position in the organization, thus influencing both WB and WT.

Leaning on the conservation of resources (COR) theory and with the support of the self-determination theory (SDT), a set of hypotheses is posited relating the dimensions of SJC (seeking resources, seeking challenges and job-demand reduction) to WT, through WB as a mediator. The hypotheses are tested through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) by collecting survey data from 256 NFEs working in private family firms in Oman.

The results indicate that all three dimensions of job crafting have a positive influence on WB. In the case of direct effect on WT, only the relationship between seeking challenges and WT was significant. However, the relationships between all 3 dimensions of SJC and WT became significant through WB as mediator.

The implication of this study is that merely empowering non-family employees to craft their own jobs may not lead them to thrive in private family firms. However, if they appraise such empowerment as significant resource-gain that leads them to feel that they belong to the organization, then it is likely to enhance WT.

This study presents evidence for private family firms that by emphasizing on creating a sense of belongingness among their non-family employees, they can create a workplace where such employees can thrive.

Three novel contributions are presented through this research: (1) this appears to be the first study that integrates the COR theory with SDT to enrich the fragmented literature on NFEs in family firms by presenting an integrated framework that links SJC, WB and WT, (2) the study presents nuanced insights into the relationships between the dimensions of SJC and WT and (3) finally, this study provides evidence on the mediating role of WB between dimensions of SJC and WT, which seems to be overlooked in the past.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of family involvement in ownership and governance on the quality of internal auditing.

Leveraging a hand-collected data set of listed family firms from 2014 to 2020, this study uses regression analyses to investigate the impact of family ownership, family involvement on the board, family CEO and the generational stage of the family business on the quality of internal auditing.

The results provide evidence that family ownership is positively associated with the quality of internal auditing, while later generational stages of family businesses have the opposite effect. Additional analyses reveal that the presence of a sustainability board sub-committee moderates the relationship between generational stages of family businesses and the quality of internal auditing function.

This paper does not consider country-institutional factors and other potentially family-related antecedents or governance factors that may affect the quality of internal auditing.

The results are informative for investors and non-family stakeholders interested in understanding under which conditions family-related factors influence the quality of internal auditing functions.

This study offers fresh evidence regarding the relationship between family-related factors and the quality of internal auditing and board sub-committees that moderate such a relationship in family businesses.