The antecedents of family firms’ resilience to crisis in hospitality and tourism

Abstract

Drawing on Miller and Le Breton-Miller’s (2005 & 2022) conceptualization of family firms’ priorities (continuity, community, connections, and command) and the organizational psychological capital theory (Luthans and Youssef, 2004), we develop a mediation model of how organizational psychological capital and family firm image affect resilience capability and risk taking (which in turn influence resilience). This model is tested on 200 family-owned small and medium sized (SME) hotels in Turkey. Our study demonstrates that intangible forces can be differentially leveraged to build resilience capability. This in turn strengthens resilience in firms confronting the Covid crisis. This paper further highlights that while the development of capabilities and strategic actions is important in generating firm resilience, the assets that are used to achieve this outcome matter the most.