Jolien Huybrechts

The introduction to Women in Family Business: New Perspectives, Contexts and Roles reviews the dominant theoretical strands in previous research into women in family business, showing how they suggest new avenues to explore in this important arena of women’s presence in the workplace. It also briefly discusses the theoretical perspective/s or central research question of each chapter in the book, showing how new understandings of women’s roles, entrepreneurial behaviour, and approaches to family business succession illuminate some classic preoccupations of the family business literature.

This study focuses on family owner–nonfamily CEO relational practices and what these relational practices constrain and potentiate in family firm CEO succession. Our main contribution is developing a constructionist relational practice perspective and approach as an alternative to the entitative view that dominates the family business literature. We illustrate the relational practice perspective through our dialogically structured inquiries with family owners and nonfamily CEOs. We co-develop practical wisdom on how family owner–nonfamily CEO relational practices can construct stuckness in organizing or, conversely, open up new possibilities to go on depending on (i) the way the family owner and nonfamily CEO “handle” equivocality and tension they continuously (re)produce through their relational practices and (ii) the way they enact “relational balancing” to equilibrate their relation in the making in terms of value/self-worth maintenance by involving other actors, such as board members, management team members, or a coach.

This study examines the interplay between two influential yet opposing shareholder types—family blockholders and hedge funds—in relation to corporate innovation output. Using panel data on U.S. publicly traded firms listed in the S&P 1500, we find that family blockholders have a negative effect on radical innovation output in the form of citation-weighted patents and that this negative effect is intensified in the presence of activist hedge funds. Our study advances insight into the implications of ownership heterogeneity for innovation output choices in family-influenced firms.

Research Question/Issue: This study investigates the moderating role of social category faultlines in the relationship between firm performance and CEO dismissal. We also examine how two board contingencies—the presence of board evaluation and the number of board committees—affect how social category faultlines moderate the performance–CEO dismissal relationship.Research Findings/Insights: Using panel data on Belgian listed firms covering 2006 to 2014, we find that the negative relationship between firm performance and the likelihood of CEO dismissal is significantly weaker when boards experience social category faultlines. Further investigation of board contingencies demonstrates that social category faultlines have a stronger influence on the performance–CEO dismissal relationship when the board does not engage in board evaluation or has greater numbers of board committees.Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study builds on the social identity perspective by providing empirical support for social category faultlines within the context of boards of directors. Social category faultlines lead to identity‐based subgroups within the board, which reduce directors' identification with the board as a whole, ultimately impacting the board's capability to dismiss a poorly performing CEO. Moreover, our study demonstrates how board contingencies can promote and/or weaken directors' identification with the board, which affects the salience of identity‐based subgroups.Practitioner/Policy Implications: This study offers insights for practitioners interested in improving board effectiveness. Our evidence implies that decisions concerning the appointment of directors should be based on criteria that take faultlines and subgroups into account. Furthermore, our findings highlight the importance of strengthening the superordinate board identity by implementing initiatives such as board evaluation.

This paper is the first in a special section of the European Management Review dedicated to the growth of family businesses. We provide a literature review of 54 articles written in this research field, based on a framework that highlights the antecedents and the outcomes of growth at the family and the business levels. We also offer a brief overview of the contributions of each of the papers in this special section and conclude by identifying relevant research gaps to propose a number of future research directions.

Adopting an interpretive grounded theory approach, we find that key events in the early lives of next-generation family members fuel a sense of belonging and identity, which lies at the heart of their socioemotional wealth. As next-generation family members interact more with the family business, they interpret nonfinancial aspects of the firm as an answer to a larger variety of affective needs, which broadens and strengthens their interactive socioemotional wealth frame of mind. In line with our life course theory lens, we observe how key events that build up socioemotional wealth greatly influence the life paths of next-generation family members.