Purpose
The purpose of the perspective article is to review relevant literature on family business and ethnic fashion and establish links across identity (defined as culture, tradition, heritage and ...status) and fashion (color, design, pattern and fabric/texture) and internationalization (foreign market entry), and develop a conceptual model using the identity theory and qualitative method.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a qualitative study by design. We used a systematic research and ethnographic method for this study. Specifically, the author used the participant observation aspect of ethnography to collect information and images relating to ethnic fashion. Ethnography is a well-established methodology widely used in social sciences research, including fashion.
Findings
The study's conceptual model proposes that (1) ethnic fashion mediates the identity-internationalization relationship, (2) knowledge transfer moderates the identity-ethnic fashion relationship and (3) family business size moderates the ethnic fashion-internationalization relationship. It is also revealed that a person's status can be judged by their dress and fashion in under two minutes.
Research limitations/implications
This study is limited to the African continent, though it has 54 countries with a current population of about 1.5 billion people, which is expected to be roughly 2.5 billion by 2050.
Practical implications
Implications of the study for the entrepreneurs and family businesses are that they should realize the opportunities presented by ethnic African fashion and tap into the most crucial key to success—local design, color, fabric and patterns associated with meaning and messages. Cross-cultural collaborations and digital innovations can help the internationalization of African fashion while preserving local heritage and identity. Another implication is that quality and consistency in branding are equally essential to be on par with intentional luxury brands.
Social implications
The social implication of the study is that culture and fashion are correlated and influence designers' creations, reflecting and conveying identity, status and societal values. Fashion allows people to express their identity, individuality and values. The proper fashion and outfit can boost mood, self-esteem and confidence, resulting in healthy social interaction and mental health. Fashion can also raise social issues (e.g. inclusiveness, diversity and gender by featuring various models and designs) and environmental issues (e.g. sustainable practices local and ethical production).
Originality/value
The paper synthesizes ethnic fashion in the context of family businesses in Africa, highlights specific examples of ethnic fashion of African people with the potential for internationalization and proposes future fashion perspectives for family businesses. It adds value in that it focuses on fashion family businesses in the African continent.
The distinctiveness of family firms' goals, structures, resources, strategies, and performance has been studied in terms of what family firms do or are able to achieve that are different from those ...of nonfamily firms. This dominant approach to studying family firm behavior has contributed significantly to our understanding of such organizations. Currently, however, we know little about how family firm decisions are made and the processes by which family firms plan and execute. We develop a conceptual framework and set out an agenda for future research on how the distinctive/unique interaction between the business and the family influences the management processes by which family firms implement their strategies.
Purpose
Artificial intelligence (AI) and sustainable business represent the irrefutable future of all forward looking businesses in the world today. In this perspective article, the authors explore ...the confluence of these important topics by highlighting the role of family businesses in advancing sustainable brand activism aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs), like SDG 1, which emphasises poverty eradication. The authors fall on the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) and online brand communities in family businesses as an anchor for promoting sustainability practices that align with UNSDGs.
Design/methodology/approach
Using literature review, the authors fall on the transformative potential of AI and online brand communities in family businesses as an anchor for promoting sustainability practices that align with UNSDGs.
Findings
Scholarly research on AI-driven sustainability brand activism in family businesses is either limited or nonexistent. Family businesses have a unique opportunity to use AI for eco-friendly operations, personalised brand engagement, eco-friendly product development, global collaborations and education and advocacy in support of the UNSDGs. Future research could look at how family businesses align their values, their long-term effects, how they work across generations, how resilient and flexible they are and how they compare to non-family businesses when it comes to using AI and brand activism as long-term strategies for sustainability and survival.
Originality/value
The authors call for family businesses, governments and stakeholders to take theoretical and practical actions in promoting AI-driven sustainability brand activism aligned with the UNSDGs. It underscores the distinctive role of family businesses in driving sustainability and fostering brand activism through AI in a digital age.
This article investigates whether increase in concentrated shareholding impacts the internationalisation of family firms. Based on a multi-theoretic approach and using zero inflated beta model on a ...panel data set covering 307 largest Indian listed companies, we observe that concentrated ownership, adverse employee relations and business group affiliation discourage internationalisation. But as family shareholding exceeds 50%, concentrated ownership has an indirect positive balancing impact on internationalisation. Besides, status as a family firm has a significant favourable impact on internationalisation and it moderates the impact of concentrated ownership, adverse employee relations and group affiliation on internationalisation.
While evidence that contradicts a discipline’s hard core assumptions is essential to scientific progress, its accumulation is made difficult by the protective nature of the middle range theories that ...protect it. For this reason, progress tends to be most common in response to external shocks that expose the limitations of traditional ways of thinking. Given the impact COVID-19 has had on our collective understanding of business (family or otherwise), we propose that evidence against the hard core has reached the point where new thinking is necessary if we are to advance the field in productive ways. As the authors in this special issue demonstrate, such progress can be made by leveraging our intellectual roots in the social sciences. By looking to fields such as anthropology, sociology, jurisprudence, political science, and economics for inspiration, these authors use the current crisis as an opportunity to envision the future of family business scholarship.
•COVID-19 is an attack on the hard core assumptions of the family business field.•A response requires a return to our intellectual roots, namely social science.•The authors in this special issue lead the way by leveraging five social sciences.
Purpose
Despite the potential benefits of family businesses, their dynamics present peculiar challenges that hinder the realisation of their full potential. This paper sought to assess the ...relationship between family dynamics and business development in Africa. The authors explored the dynamics of African family structures and how these structures impact family businesses.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopted an analytical and interpretative approach to existing literature and contemporary practices in family business operations. The approach helped to synthesise emerging trends in family business operations and offered novel insights into family-owned businesses.
Findings
The findings revealed that, though family businesses have a lot to contribute to development, family dynamics can threaten their sustainability if not well moderated. Based on the findings, the authors recommend trust and transparency as critical pillars for sustained family-owned business growth. They recommend further that communication channels, documented policies and procedures and well-established feedback channels are strategies that can guide stakeholders in family businesses to build trust and transparency in the business.
Originality/value
The paper throws light on the unique contributions of family businesses to communities and individuals and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). It is also an eye-opener to this relatively grey area and opens deeper discussions about sustaining family businesses.
Understanding family firms’ debt maturity structure is important because it plays a key role in making strategic decisions and mitigating agency conflicts. This study investigates the relationship ...between family involvement in governance and debt maturity structure in family firms by drawing on governance literature and insights from the socioemotional wealth perspective. Based on a sample of non-financial Italian public family firms, comprising 383 firm-year observations, we find differences in the proportion of long-term debt depending on variations in components of family involvement in governance. In particular, later-generation involvement on the board is associated with a lower proportion of long-term debt. Furthermore, family ownership positively moderates this relationship such that the proportion of long-term debt is higher with high family ownership. This study contributes to literature by adding further nuance to our understanding of the heterogeneity of family firms, by considering the relationship between variations in family involvement in governance and debt structure. Our study has practical implications that may inform investors about factors related to family involvement in governance, which are likely to influence debt maturity structure, and thus long-term strategies of family firms.
•We examine the relationship between family involvement in governance and debt maturity structure in family firms.•We analyze a unique sample of Italian public family firms.•Later-generation involvement on the board is negatively associated with the proportion of long-term debt.•Family ownership moderates the relationship, with proportion of long-term debt being higher with high family ownership.
Purpose
This perspective article provides a compact view on past and promising future research of family business in tourism/hospitality research, an industry that is dominated and driven by family ...firms.
Design/methodology/approach
This article draws on a review of key literature from family business and tourism/hospitality research, and synchronizes this literature for understanding the groundings and development of the field.
Findings
The article finds that there are peculiar research gaps and needs concerning gender roles, sub-industries/family networks, later generation conflicts as well as differences in life cycle stages between emerging and developing countries.
Originality/value
This article summarizes the state of the art of research for family business in tourism/hospitality and provides a novel agenda for theory advancement and research of practical relevance.
Abstract
Family owners monitor managers, attenuating principal–agent conflicts and improving firm performance. However, family owners also appropriate resources, creating principal–principal ...conflicts that harm firm performance. Although these effects occur simultaneously, research does not explain when one outweighs the other. We theorize that agency costs are minimized when the family's involvement on the board of directors is proportional to its ownership; too little board involvement fuels principal–agent conflicts, and too much fuels principal–principal conflicts. Consistent with our theorizing, evidence from French panel data shows firm performance increases as family board involvement and family ownership jointly increase, and performance is maximized when family board involvement and family ownership are proportional.
Operationally defining family SMEs: a critical review Roffia, Paolo; Moracchiato, Stefania; Liguori, Eric ...
Journal of small business and enterprise development,
03/2021, Letnik:
28, Številka:
2
Journal Article
Recenzirano
PurposeIn this study, we investigated the dilemma of devising an operational family business definition in the SME context. The existing family business literature mostly agrees with the validity of ...a theoretical model called F-PEC, which identifies family businesses by evaluating three dimensions: power, experience, and culture. Nonetheless, empirical studies on family SMEs still use just one or a few elements with many different thresholds to operationally define family SMEs, highlighting an unsolved definitional divergence among scholars, which limits the possibility of investigating the potential effects of family attributes on firms’ goals, structures, processes, and performance.Design/methodology/approachEmploying ancestry searching, online databases, and issue-by-issue searches from two decades (1990–2019), we analyzed 255 empirical studies that specified a family business’s operational definition (despite posing different research questions) and used a sample of small-sized and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).FindingsResults showed ownership and governance/management are the most used elements in the operational definitions provided in the literature to date, but that there still is not a universally adopted operational definition of family SMEs in use today.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first to comprehensively analyze and review the operationalized use of family SME definitions in the literature.
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