The Family Effect: A Compass for Research on Heterogeneity of Family Businesses in Embedded Contexts

Abstract

Abstract We highlight recent research on the intertwinement of family, entrepreneurship, and strategy with a particular focus on entrepreneurial and business families. Our efforts lead us to untangle the nodal points by suggesting an interpretative framework of their main dimensions, motivators, and impacts. The family logic transcends entrepreneurial, strategic, and psychological decisions and dimensions by shaping in different ways their processes from the motivations to the outcomes. It appears, therefore, as an essential unit of study that ought to inform future research of family businesses in embedded contexts. Towards this direction, we suggest a series of theoretical and empirical route(s) along with methodological recommendations.