Nurturing offspring’s affective commitment through informal family governance mechanisms

Mira Bloemen-Bekx, Anita Van Gils, Frank Lambrechts and Pramodita Sharma

Journal of Family Business Strategy, 2021, vol. 12, issue 2

Abstract: Informal family governance mechanisms are the self-enforcing interactions and symbols used by a business family to nurture family relationships and manage expectations. While previous research points to the positive influence of identity and career alignment on the engagement and commitment of next-generation members towards their family enterprise, it has remained unclear how this alignment develops. This exploratory study of a European business family, founded in 1826, points to informal family governance mechanisms and ownership alignment —a previously neglected phenomenon— to bind the identity and career alignment, thereby nurturing the affective commitment of offspring towards the family business. In addition to the theoretical contributions to the family governance and affective commitment literatures, this study builds usable knowledge for business families and their advisors.

Keywords: Informal family governance mechanisms; Affective commitment; Business families; Pre-entry stage of succession; Symbolic interactionism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877858517302693
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:fambus:v:12:y:2021:i:2:s1877858517302693

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/719791/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 719791/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.jfbs.2019.100309

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Family Business Strategy is currently edited by J.H. Astrachan

More articles in Journal of Family Business Strategy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().