Evolution of Stewardship Across Family and Business Goals: Toward a Stewardship Transition Framework

Nehad Ali, Boyka Simeonova and Mathew Hughes

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2025, vol. 49, issue 4, 1162-1188

Abstract: Drawing on goal-setting and stewardship theories, this study examines the management of family and business goals in family firms under transgenerational complexity, presenting a dynamic model of family stewardship. Through multiple case studies, we identify four distinct stewardship strategies, each with a corresponding governance structure: cultivating family stewardship (with family-dense governance), professionalizing family stewardship (with professionalized governance), harnessing external stewardship (with externally dense governance), and perpetuating external stewardship (with public companies’ governance). These strategies shift from family-centric to business-centric goal-setting approaches in sustaining the family firm. The study introduces stewardship transition capability as a missing cog for managing these transitions.

Keywords: stewardship; governance; family business; transition; transgenerational complexity; firm-level; capability; qualitative study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10422587241311155 (text/html)

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:sae:entthe:v:49:y:2025:i:4:p:1162-1188

DOI: 10.1177/10422587241311155

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().