Ubiquitous Munificence or Heterogeneous Deemsters? The Family Legitimacy Threshold

Abstract

Family stakeholders in nascent enterprises are regularly assumed to be, along with friends and ‘fools’, taken-for-granted supporters of early entrepreneurial efforts. By applying family systems theory to extant legitimacy research, this paper explicitly identifies the family as a key legitimacy-granting stakeholder in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. As such, the family evaluates entrepreneurs based on expected roles within the family system. In considering family legitimacy directly, we also contribute to legitimacy theory by qualifying foundational assumptions about entrepreneurial agency and legitimator response. Further, we argue that the simplification of the relationship between nascent entrepreneurs and family has persisted, in part, due to a confluence of economic gender norms and a persistent gender data gap in entrepreneurship research.