How Family and a Migrant Background Influence Family Entrepreneurship: Findings from a Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

This article aimed to survey the literature on the authenticity and influence of family and migration in the context of family entrepreneurship with the goal of highlighting thematic trends within the existing literature, mapping and outlining existing knowledge in the field, and recommending future research directions. The method used in this study is a systematic literature review approach consisting of five stages. Out of the 320 articles indexed in Web of Science’s Core Collection in 2014–2020, 64 were selected and studied extensively. Additionally, NVivo software Windows (Student License) software—Windows (12-month Student License) was used to examine the most frequently researched thematic areas by analysing the occurrence of the keywords in the articles concerned. The study provides an overview of six major research streams on the influence of family and migration background within the context of family entrepreneurship: (a) the influence of family on the entrepreneurial orientation of family firms, (b) the socio-cultural influence of family in family entrepreneurship, (c) family influence in corporate family enterprises, (d) family influence in family-governed firms, (e) the influence of gender within family entrepreneurship and (f) the influence of the family in the context of migrant-run family entrepreneurship. However, the survey was only conducted in the Web of Science database and only focused on work written in English, limiting the range of studies that were analysed. Thus, multilingual teams could expand the research by studying non-English texts and identifying studies in other scholarly databases.