Articulating Values Through Identity Work: Advancing Family Business Ethics Research

Marleen Dieleman () and Juliette Koning ()
Additional contact information
Marleen Dieleman: NUS Business School
Juliette Koning: Oxford Brookes University

Journal of Business Ethics, 2020, vol. 163, issue 4, No 4, 675-687

Abstract: Abstract Family values are argued to enable ethical family business conduct. However, how these arise, evolve, and how family leaders articulate them is less understood. Using an ‘identity work’ approach, this paper finds that the values underpinning identity work: (1) arise from multiple sources (in our case: religion, culture and sustainability), (2) evolve in tandem with the context; and, (3) that their articulation is relational and aspirational, rather than merely historical. Prior research mostly understood family values as rooted in the past and relatively stable, but our rhetorical analysis unlocks a more dynamic and promising research direction advancing family business ethics.

Keywords: Identity work; Family business ethics; Religion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-019-04380-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:kap:jbuset:v:163:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1007_s10551-019-04380-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-019-04380-9

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().