A battle of hearts and minds: social construction of founder identity in family business exit through a family drama

Trang Thi Quynh Dinh

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 2025, vol. 37, issue 7-8, 983-1003

Abstract: This paper analyzes the South Korean family drama ´What Happens to My Family´ to develop a relational perspective on founder identity and its role in family business exit. Drawing on a social constructivist lens, we explore how power dynamics, emotions, and the temporal context of the founder’s illness interact to shape the family’s construction of founder identity and influence decision-making during the founder’s exit. Our analysis reveals that the co-construction of founder identity enables the family to transcend financial and status-driven concerns. Under a sense of urgency and emotional intensity, the family engages deeply with affective dimensions, where love, fear, legacy, grief, and dormant passions emerge as transformative forces. We also identify a reversal narrative: the impending closure of the business becomes a crucible for collective identity negotiation and, ultimately, family reintegration. This narrative contrasts with traditional models, which often position the family as a source of integration for the business. Through engagement with the drama, we demonstrate how fiction can broaden entrepreneurship and family business research by challenging conventional assumptions and approaches.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08985626.2025.2459224 (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:taf:entreg:v:37:y:2025:i:7-8:p:983-1003

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/TEPN20

DOI: 10.1080/08985626.2025.2459224

Access Statistics for this article

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development is currently edited by Professor Alistair Anderson

More articles in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().