Based on a review of 217 refereed articles on family business studies, the literature is organized according to its focus on individual, interpersonal or group, organizational, and societal levels of analyses. An assessment of the status of our current understanding at each level is provided and directions for future research are suggested. A discussion of definitional issues, bases of distinctiveness, and family firm performance is used to help understand the domain or scope of the field. Methodological issues and strategies aimed to enhance the pace at which the field achieves a distinctive legitimate place in organizational studies are presented.

An Overview of the Field of Family Business Studies: Current Status and Directions for the Future

This article provides a review of important trends in the strategic management approach to studying family firms: convergence in definitions, accumulating evidence that family involvement may affect performance, and the emergence of agency theory and the resourcebased view of the firm as the leading theoretical perspectives. We conclude by discussing directions for future research and other promising approaches to inform the inquiry concerning family business.

Trends and Directions in the Development of a Strategic Management Theory of the Family Firm

Cet article analyse les relations conceptuelles (imprecises) de la vulnerabilite, de la resilience et de la capacite d’adaptation aux changements climatiques selon le systeme socio-ecologique (socio-ecologigal systems – SES) afin de comprendre et anticiper le comportement des composantes sociales et ecologiques du systeme. Une serie de questions est proposee par l’auteur sur la specification de ces termes afin de developper une structure conceptuelle qui inclut les dimensions naturelles et so...

Linkages between vulnerability, resilience, and adaptive capacity

Organizational culture is an important strategic resource that family firms can use to gain a competitive advantage. Drawing upon the resource-based view (RBV) of the firm, this study examines the association between four dimensions of organizational culture in family vs. non-family businesses and entrepreneurship. Using data from 536 U.S. manufacturing companies, the results show a nonlinear association between the cultural dimension of individualism and entrepreneurship. Further, there are positive linear relationships between entrepreneurship and an external orientation, an organizational cultural orientation toward decentralization, and a long- versus short-term orientation. With the exception of an external orientation, each of these dimensions is significantly more influential upon entrepreneurship in family firms when compared with non-family firms.

Entrepreneurship in Family vs. Non‐Family Firms: A Resource‐Based Analysis of the Effect of Organizational Culture

Social Vulnerability to Environmental Hazards

The impact of the family and the business on family business sustainability

This paper is based on a study of 391 family-business-owning couples where the husband is the business owner. The purpose of the study was to examine the work involvement of the wife in the business, the business tensions, and the impact of those tensions on family business success. Fifty-seven percent of wives worked in the business, 47% of whom were paid. Forty-two percent of wives were considered major decision makers. Having more than one decision maker in the business impacted certain types of inclusion tension. Business and family success outcomes varied by level of tensions. There was initial evidence of a threshold where business tensions begin to affect business success negatively.

Women's Role Involvement in Family Businesses, Business Tensions, and Business Success:

The proposed framework is intended to serve as a model for understanding the comprehensiveness of welfare assistance policies that contribute to the economic well-being of individuals and families. The framework uses a systems approach to move thinking from a narrow focus on welfare assistance as welfare for the few to well-being of the many. Such an approach provides a new way to understand policies and language related to welfare reform. With the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA, P.L. 104-193), a major social and economic policy shift occurred. The law, changing sixty-one years of history, affected eighty other laws and 175 parts of still others. [1] It was so complex that citizens, agency personnel, educators, policy makers, and public assistance recipients struggled to grasp the intricacies. The need for education and research arose out of this significant change. Considerable research and policy education is being done by family and consumer economists to assist professionals, citizens, assistance recipients, and policy makers in understanding what happened with the policy changes and in measuring the outcomes for families and communities in the context of the changing policy arena. To date, no framework, based on a family economic well-being perspective, exists for the emerging education and research. A framework for understanding the 1996 welfare reform legislation, with its emphasis on personal responsibility, work opportunity, and self-sufficiency, is needed for research, education, and outreach. Such a framework places the time frame, types of assistance, levels of family economic functioning, and sources of support into a long-term picture of family well-being. The proposed framework is presented as a starting point for understanding the aspects of welfare in relation to the economic well-being of individuals and families. BACKGROUND OF WELFARE ASSISTANCE To understand the need for a framework and to understand components of the framework, information about welfare assistance is required. The following section briefly reviews the legislation. For a more complete understanding, additional reading is advised. Legislation Income assistance is commonly called welfare. Programs for food, housing, health, child welfare, and supplemented income assistance came under the rubric of welfare. In addition, the 1960s War on Poverty added opportunities for gainful employment and state determination of programs (Braun, Craig, Bauer, Peck 1996; Orrick 1995). By the 1990s, states were granted waivers to experiment with other supports and an emphasis on work and job training. From a historical perspective, there have been few changes in public assistance or welfare as significant as that which arose out of welfare reform following the 1994 congressional elections. Income assistance or Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), which grew out of the great depression, was started with the Social Security Act of 1935. Over the years, the initial legislation changed with the passage of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in 1973, with subsidies for training and childcare, and with the addition of the Earned Income Tax Credit in 1975 for the working poor. However, the first major shift in welfare assistance occurred with the passage of the PRWORA Act of 1996 (P.L. 104-193). The law replaced the AFDC entitlement program for individuals with a fixed block grant to states to provide Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) (Braun, Craig, Henton, Knipp, and Naddaff 1995). Dependency--Welfare Assistance Replacing AFDC with TANF reflected an intent to shift people from dependency on entitlements, assistance given if eligible, to self-sufficiency and personal responsibility. Once dependency was a general-purpose term for all social relations with subordination. More recently, its use was given an economic meaning tied to relying on financial support from charity or welfare. …

Welfare to well-being framework for research, education, and outreach

With the increase in female self-employment, there is a need to examine the intersection between race/ethnicity and gender. This study examined whether gender differences in income exist for self-employed Hispanics residing in California using data from the 1990 U.S. decennial census. Theories stressing human capital, social capital, and acculturation were combined and income equations were estimated separately for Hispanic self-employed men and Hispanic self-employed women. The sample consisted of 7,760 Hispanic self-employed persons (64% self-employed men versus 36% self-employed women). Multiple regression analysis suggests income differences in self-employment do exist by gender. For example, having less than a high school education relative to being a high school graduate decreased self-employment income for both men and women, but the effect was larger for men. Furthermore, decomposition analysis suggests income differences between genders are due both to differences in worker characteristics and ra...

Hispanic self-employment: Does gender matter?

The study's major theme is that community sustainability after natural disasters depends on adaptive capacities of individuals, families and businesses. Action research grounded in a community resi...

Patricia D. Olson

Papers

The impact of the family and the business on family business sustainability

Women's Role Involvement in Family Businesses, Business Tensions, and Business Success:

Welfare to well-being framework for research, education, and outreach

Hispanic self-employment: Does gender matter?

The road to recovery from a natural disaster: voices from the community