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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the process of family equity creation and its role for transgenerational entrepreneurship.

This paper combines a systematic literature review on family equity with conceptual theory building, resulting in a model of family equity creation.

The proposed model contains three phases of equity creation that ulitmately leads to transgenerational entrepreneurship: harvesting, institutionalization (via a single family office) and reinvestment.

This paper conceptually introduces the family equity creation model, which may serve as integrative framework for future research on transgenerational value creation by entrepreneurial families. The presented findings are of relevance for family entrepreneurship scholars, entrepreneurial families, as well as for practitioners.

This study aims to extend the research in the field of external investments in family firms. It contributes to the literature by analyzing the drivers of the family firm owner-managers selling a minority stake to a strategic investor. This type of external investment might be of great interest to family firms because the family firm owner-managers can secure control over the firm and preserve socioemotional wealth while simultaneously generating additional financing and gaining strategic and managerial know-how. Likewise, minority investments in family firms might also be of high interest to strategic investors, thus enabling close collaborations (e.g. in R&D, purchasing and sales) with minor equity investments.

This study tests the hypotheses using a vignette study leveraging 327 observations from family firm owner-managers.

Based on the socioemotional wealth perspective, this study hypothesizes that the degree of family prominence, the degree of employee orientation and pure family management influence the willingness to sell. In addition, this study hypothesizes that the moderating effect of a below-average financial performance weakens the abovementioned direct effects. This study finds support for most hypotheses.

This study extends the research in the field of external investments in family firms. It contributes to the literature by analyzing the drivers of the family firm owner-managers selling a minority stake to a strategic investor.

Ownership structure plays a significant role in determining board demographic diversity. However, it is still unclear how different ownership configurations impact the structures of firm's boards and how board diversity influences firm performance. This study aims to investigate the relationship between family ownership and board diversity. Therefore, in this study, the authors argue that family firms have a lower level of board demographic diversity (in terms of age, gender and nationality) than non-family firms and that board diversity moderates the relationship between ownership and firm performance.

To test the authors’ hypotheses, we draw data from a sample of 341 German family and non-family firms for a period of five years.

The results show that family firms are less diverse in terms of age, gender and nationality diversity than non-family firms.

This study contributes to the general understanding of family firms and in particular the role ownership plays in shaping board demographic diversity.

Learning in organizations is well-recognized as a key determinant of innovation and success in competitive markets, and a rich literature examines learning mechanisms in large-sized and professionally-run organizations. Relatively little is known about the learning processes in family-run firms, most of whom are small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) led by a single family SME owner-manager connected in a family network. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate how family SME owner-managers engage in learning and how those learning processes are affected by family SME-specific characteristics.

Using pragmatic learning theory as an interpretive lens, this study conducts a qualitative multi-case study involving 61 interviews in family SMEs with family SME owner-managers, family members, employees and customers.

The within- and cross-case analysis helps identify the mechanisms, barriers and enablers of learning and innovation in family SMEs. The study develops and pinpoints the family owner managers’ “functional overload” as a major barrier to learning and employee empowerment, family-members’ support and customer feedback as critical resources in overcoming such functional overload. Yet, these resources turn out to be major amplifiers of functional overload in later phases of the learning process, thus impeding learning and innovation.

The study provides novel insights into learning processes and innovation within family SMEs, outlines the double-edged involvement of family members, employees and customers for learning processes, and provides nuance to pragmatic learning theory.

Despite much progress in the field of family business research, there is still no unequivocal quantitative evidence on how many family businesses are generally transferred within the family and how many are sold to nonfamily members. Accordingly, the purpose of our paper is to overcome this data problem and to try to get a better estimate of these rates.

To determine a better estimate of intrafamily successions in Germany, we conducted a meta-analysis of 33 samples from 27 studies covering 75,522 firms facing or having already faced a business transfer.

Our results indicate that 62% of these family firms are (planned to be) transferred to family members. This type of industry strongly determines the mode of succession. However, methodological issues like study quality and sample design also influence estimated succession rates.

Policymakers need robust statistics so they can base their actions and economic policies on reliable information. However, in the absence of official statistics – as in the case of family firms handing over their company within or outside the family – information is difficult to generate. Our findings provide a generalizable estimate of prevalence rates, providing German policymakers, and those in other countries when applying these methods, with useful information.

This paper suggests that a theory of family firm succession needs to consider more deeply the context in which succession decisions occur. By exploring variables affecting succession rates such as firm size and industry but also methodological issues like sample design and study quality, our analysis also provides a better understanding of central determinants of successions within and outside the family.

The purpose of this study is to test the thesis that the family firm’s success hinges on effective strategic knowledge management (SKM) capability coupled with an entrepreneurial orientation (EO). Contingency theory holds that entrepreneurial success is contingent on strategic capabilities and resource orchestration theory explains how well family firms nurture capabilities to structure, bundle and leverage resources that define competitive advantage (CA). This study combines these two theoretical viewpoints to propose the effects of EO and SKM capability on CA to achieve successful performance in family firms.

This study uses a hybrid approach applying structural equation modelling (SEM) and deep-learning artificial intelligence (DL-AI) analysis to survey data on 268 Malaysian family firms.

SEM results confirm that CA mediates the relationship between innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking dimensions of EO and firm performance. Autonomy and competitive aggressiveness have no bearing, however. The relationships among innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking with CA and performance are positively moderated by SKM capability, becoming more potent at higher levels. Moreover, four additional DL-AI models reveal the necessity of specific EO dimensions and the interacting effects of EO–SKM capability to influence CA and to attain performance success subsequently.

This study theorizes and presents two new boundary conditions to a knowledge-based theory of the family firm and its firm performance. First, CA mediates the relationship between EO and performance; and second, SKM capability moderates the relationships between EO and CA and between EO and family firm performance. Methodologically, this study uses DL-AI to embrace non-linearity and prioritize predictor variables based on normalized importance to produce greater accuracy over regression analysis. Hence, DL-AI adds methodological novelty to the knowledge management and family firm literature.