Corporate Entrepreneurship in Family Firms, Business Families, and Family Business Groups[1]
Guest Editors
Alain Fayolle
EMLYON Business School, France
Cristina Bettinelli
University of Bergamo, Italy
Kathleen Randerson
EDC Paris Business School, France
Salvatore Sciascia
IULM University, Milan, Italy
Background
Corporate Entrepreneurship includes a set of entrepreneurial activities such as corporate venturing, innovation, strategic renewal (Chua, Chrisman, and Sharma 1999), sustained regeneration, domain redefinition, organizational rejuvenation, and Business model innovation (Kuratko, and Audretsch 2013), and different processes such as Corporate Effectuation (Brettel, Mauer, Engelen, and Küpper 2012).
Research at a macroeconomic level shows that developed economies experience higher growth when firms within them engage in more entrepreneurial behaviors (Van Stel, Carree, and Thurik 2005). Similarly, entrepreneurship researchers have found that corporate entrepreneurship helps firms gain competitive advantage (Covin, and Miles 2006; Zahra, and Covin 1995). In turn, considerable effort has been devoted to understanding attributes and behaviors of firms that help them enact potentially profitable corporate entrepreneurship actions (Corbett, Covin, O'Connor, and Tucci 2013).
Sadly, while family-owned and managed firms are among the most significant in terms of their worldwide economic impact (Astrachan, and Shanker 2003; Corbetta, and Salvato 2012), the literature on corporate entrepreneurship in family firms is still quite fragmented and recent literature reviews show that it needs further theoretical and empirical development (McKelvie, McKenny, Lumpkin, and Short 2014; Sciascia, and Bettinelli forthcoming), which can only be fully comprehended considering the broader context, for example the influence of the family (Alsos, Carter, and Ljunggren 2014) or the family business group (Corbetta, and Salvato 2012; Habbershon, and Pistrui 2002; Manikutty 2000). In order to understand Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context, researchers need to investigate at the intersection of family, family business, and entrepreneurship (Randerson, Bettinelli, Fayolle, and Anderson forthcoming).
Aims and Scope
The topics developed in this special issue will be in line with the Journal of Small Business Management areas. This list of questions is illustrative and not exhaustive in identifying topics that are relevant for the special issue. Without being exhaustive, the research questions addressed in this special issue could be:
- Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context: What does Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context mean? What are the Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context antecedents? What are the processes leading to Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context? What are the drivers and barriers of Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context? How important is Corporate Entrepreneurship compared to other strategic behaviors and how distinct are they? What are the performance consequences of Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context?
- The epistemological and conceptual roots of Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context: What theories can be used to frame and anchor the phenomena? How can Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context research invigorate the field of management? How can the gap between theory and practice on Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context be filled in? How can Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context be operationalized and measured?
- What are the family, the individual, the firm level and institutional factors enabling or limiting the emergence as well as the success of Corporate Entrepreneurship in the Family Business context?
- The drivers, processes and outcomes of Corporate Entrepreneurship in different Family Business contexts: Does business Corporate Entrepreneurship play different roles in different contexts (e.g., firms of different ages, sizes from different areas) and in different industries (e.g., manufacturing vs services; high tech versus low tech, etc.)?
- Corporate Entrepreneurship in Family Firms types: what are the consequences of different types of Corporate Entrepreneurship in Family Firms (e.g., business model innovation vs strategic renewal)?
-Transgenerational entrepreneurship: What are the processes through which a family uses and develops entrepreneurial mindsets and family resources to create new streams of entrepreneurial, financial and social value across generations? How do the manifest over time and with what consequences? Is transgenerational entrepreneurship always good?
-Circular effects: How does the family affect corporate entrepreneurship in family firms and vice-versa, what are the effects of entrepreneurial behaviors in family firms on the owning families?
Expected contributions
The literature is growing, and a community of scholars that deal with corporate entrepreneurship in the Family Business context is emerging in various fields (e.g., management, organization theory, family science, finance, economics, strategy and entrepreneurship).
Due to the potential for debate inherent in the topic, we expect to receive empirical and theoretical submissions that meet the Journal of Small Business Management standards of rigor, novelty, and relevance for practice. We are expecting papers rigorously dedicated to corporate entrepreneurship in the Family Business context using qualitative or quantitative methods or both. Longitudinal observations are particularly appreciated especially in papers aiming at testing causal effects.
Deadlines, Submission and Review Process:
Initial desk reviewers: By December 30, 2015
Round 1 review: By February 28, 2016
Revisions/resubmissions: By May 30, 2016
Round 2 review: By July 30, 2016
Revisions/resubmissions: By October 30, 2016
Final editorial and delivery to JSBM: January 30, 2017
Target publication date: Fall 2017
[1] Hereafter we use the term « Family Business Context » as synonym for "Family Firms, Business Families and Family Business Groups"
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