Family entrepreneurship: a perspective article

Abstract

PurposeThe author synthesizes research at the genesis of the field of family entrepreneurship, allowing to distinguish it from the field of family business. Indeed, family entrepreneurship is at the intersection of family, entrepreneurship and family business and is dedicated to the understanding of entrepreneurial behaviors of family, family members and family businesses. Here, the author emphasizes the importance of context as well as bidirectional relationships to grasp the multiplicity of behaviors and their antecedents and outcomes. The author offers an overview of possible futures: how family entrepreneurship can be instrumental in understanding and taking action in face of ecological, economic and societal issues.Design/methodology/approachThe author synthesizes, critically assesses and integrates extant research, offering a state of the art of the field of family entrepreneurship accessible to a wide audience of readers.FindingsThe author reviews and integrates the literature that undergirds family entrepreneurship, flushing out its idiosyncratic value relative to family business. The author underscores how framing situations and issues with family entrepreneurship is a promising avenue to better understand and navigate pending ecological, economic and societal stakes.Originality/valueThis perspectives paper distinguishes family entrepreneurship from family business, the former building on and expanding the latter. It highlights how the augmented view is useful to understand entrepreneurial behaviors of families, family members and family businesses because it triangulates family, entrepreneurship and family business. Consequently, the present state of the art provides a useful synthesis and perspectives of possible futures. The originality of this research relies in offering a snapshot integrating prior research at the genesis of the field and demonstrating how the field can fruitfully support future research and practice, in particular to address grand challenges and wicked problems.