Family-owned enterprises and their role in entrepreneurial development: a bibliometric and content analysis of the literature

Abstract

PurposeFamily business has been widely discussed in the literature. Still, a holistic approach summarizing the family business concept in entrepreneurship is fragmented to date. This paper aims to explore the multimedia view of family business research in entrepreneurship and finds the key theme discussed by researchers.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, a systematic literature review on family business and its role in entrepreneurship have been conducted. The literature review consists of bibliometric and content analyzes. Bibliometric research offers quantitative insights, whereas content analysis provides the qualitative evaluation of the literature.FindingsThe findings suggest that recent research in this area focuses on exploring the role of women entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship in the family business. The literature also finds that because of the nature of family businesses, successors get the opportunity to use their family’s network, social status, financing and opportunity toward a well-developed market.Research limitations/implicationsThis paper may help researchers and practitioners to identify the past and current research trends related to family business and entrepreneurship.Originality/valueThe concepts from network theory are applied for content analysis to identify and explore various family business and entrepreneurship literature sub-domains.