Abstract
PurposeThis article aims to increase the understanding of the role of individual actors and arenas in dealing with multiple institutional logics in family firms.Design/methodology/approachThis study follows a case-study approach of two family-owned newspaper companies. Based on interviews and secondary sources, the empirical material was analysed focussing on three institutional logics, that is, family logic, management logic and journalistic logic.FindingsFirst, the authors show how and in which arenas competing logics are balanced in family-owned newspaper companies. Second, the authors highlight that family owners are central actors in the process of balancing different institutional logics. Further, they analyse how family members can become hybrid owner-managers, meaning that they have access to all institutional logics and become central actors in the balancing process.Originality/valueThe authors reveal how multiple institutional logics are balanced in family firms by including formal actors and arenas as additional lenses. Therefore, owning family members, especially hybrid owner-managers, are the best-suited individual actors to balance competing logics. Hybrid owner-managers are members of the owner families who are also skilled in one or several professions.
Highlights
Businesses have been described and analysed as hybrid organisations that combine the normative element of a family and the utilitarian element of a business (Arregle et al, 2007; Boers and Nordqvist, 2012, 2020; Foreman and Whetten, 2002)
The purpose of the paper is to increase the understanding of the role of individual actors in dealing with multiple institutional logics in family firms
We propose that it is more natural for the individual actor who balances these multiple logics to be a member of the owning family; a hybrid owner-manager who possesses the necessary formal qualifications and, by belonging to the owning family, can access the formal and informal arenas
Summary
Businesses have been described and analysed as hybrid organisations that combine the normative element of a family and the utilitarian element of a business (Arregle et al, 2007; Boers and Nordqvist, 2012, 2020; Foreman and Whetten, 2002). Researchers have argued that the hybrid character is based on multiple institutional logics (Pache and Santos, 2013; Perkmann et al, 2019). In 2011, the organisation’s turnover was approximately V500m, and it had 4,700 employees It is owned by four families and Company C, a competing publishing house with interlocking Logics Formal arenas Informal arenas Family. River News and Company C compete and collaborate in several markets. The four owning families are the publishers of River News
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