Extending the Field

FFI On Friday | April 06, 2018

Prepared Exclusively for FFI Members

Extending the Field

As we work toward furthering one of the board’s strategic goals – enhancing public awareness – we want to thank and highlight our FBR publisher, SAGE.

Through SAGE the influence of FFI and FBR is extended far beyond the FFI membership. For instance, at the end of 2017, FBR had more than 9,500 subscribers, including individuals and institutions. Moreover, SAGE partnerships with the UN’s Research4Life initiative, The International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications (INASP), and the EIFL Foundation have made the journal available to more than 5,000 institutions in the developing world.

SAGE journals also provide the opportunity for topics key to the family enterprise field to reach a much broader academic and professional audience. Here are some examples of articles on family enterprise that have appeared recently in SAGE journals. Thanks to SAGE for making these articles open to FFI members for the next two weeks.

From Business & Society

Family Business and the 1%

Michael Carney, Robert Nason

Using data from the triennial survey of consumer finance, the authors demonstrate that there is substantial heterogeneity within the 1%. Contrary to public discourse, the typical 1% household does not have wealth reflective of popular rich lists, but derives a significant share of its wealth from ownership and active management of small- to medium-sized private enterprise.

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Michael Carney, Concordia University, presented on this topic at the 2016 FFI annual global conference in Miami.

Robert Nason, Concordia University, is a 2016 Honorable Mention winner for FFI’s Best Unpublished Research Paper Award.

From Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice

Governance Challenges in Family Businesses and Business Families

Lloyd Steier, James Chrisman, Jess Chua

Articles and commentaries in this issue reinvigorate the theme of family business governance and extend its scope beyond the single business, single–family approach that has traditionally dominated the family business literature, charting a new and expanded research program for governance that addresses the challenges of the large and complex multifamily and/or multibusiness family enterprise.

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Lloyd Steier, University of Alberta, is an FFI Fellow and a faculty member for the FFI Global Education Network (GEN). He will be presenting in London in October on “Shakespeare and Family Business: To be or not to be?”

James Chrisman, Mississippi State University, is a member of the FBR Advisory board and recipient of the 2016 Best Unpublished Research Paper Award.

Jess Chua, University of Calgary, is the recipient of the 2008 FFI Best Unpublished Research Paper Award.

From Journal of Family Issues

Decreasing the Effects of Relationship Conflict on Family Businesses: The Moderating Role of Family Climate

Lavinia Nosé, Christian Korunka, Hermann Frank, Sharon Danes

The study examines how family climate counteracts the constraints in the business system created by relationship conflict that is known to negatively affect business outcomes (firm satisfaction and firm performance). Family climate includes measures of cohesion, adaptability, and open communication. Adaptability was significantly related to firm performance.

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Lavinia Nosé
University of Vienna

Christian Korunka
University of Vienna

Hermann Frank
Vienna University of Economics and Business

Sharon Danes
University of Minnesota

From Organization Studies

The Burden of History in the Family Business Organization

Daniel Hjorth, Alexandra Dawson

This article focuses on the study of history using narratives, within the context of the prevalent form of organization worldwide: the family business. Specifically, it considers the dilemma of the impossible gift of succession using Nietzsche’s discussion of the burden of history and paralleling the story of a family business succession with that of Shakespeare’s King Lear.

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