No Consensus in Sight: An Analysis of Ten Years of Family Business Definitions in Empirical Research Studies

Tanja Steiger (), Christine Duller () and Martin R. W. Hiebl ()
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Tanja Steiger: BRP Powertrain, Rotaxstraße 1, 4623 Gunskirchen, Austria
Christine Duller: Institute of Applied Statistics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria
Martin R. W. Hiebl: Institute of Management Control and Consulting, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Altenberger Straße 69, 4040 Linz, Austria;

Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC), 2015, vol. 23, issue 01, 25-62

Abstract: Family business (FB) scholars often criticize the fact that FB research has not yet developed a commonly accepted definition of what constitutes an FB. At the same time, the literature lacks empirical evidence for this claim. Hence, we collected all empirical FB research articles published between 2002 and 2011 in the five leading FB research journals to examine the types of FB definitions used in the literature and to determine how their usage relates to bibliographical and methodological contextual factors. The resulting 238 articles were analyzed in terms of their underlying approaches to defining FBs. Our paper provides empirical support for the notion that FB research has not yet found a commonly accepted definition of FB. Most definitions can be classified as being rooted in the components-of-involvement approach (44% of all evaluated articles), in the essence approach (21%), or in a combination of the two (33%). We also find that the type of FB definition used in empirical research in our sample is significantly associated with the publication outlet, the continent of data collection, the number of authors and the stock market listing status of analyzed firms.

Keywords: Family business; family firm; definition; components of involvement; essence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

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DOI: 10.1142/S0218495815500028

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