Family firms and sensegiving in a global crisis: Nudging toward a sunspot

Sebastien M. Fosse, Carl J. Kock, Luis R. Gomez-Mejia and Marianna Makri

Journal of Small Business Management, 2025, vol. 63, issue 6, 2544-2568

Abstract: Many firms are resilient when facing critical external events such as pandemics or major economic crises. However, little is known about how and why this resilience develops. In this article, we focus on firms with strong socioemotional traits: family firms. Combining rational expectations equilibrium (REE) and socioemotional wealth (SEW) theories, we argue that family firms uniquely distill positive narratives to promote sunspots—or cycles of self-reinforcing, positive expectations—in the face of adversity. We use a novel human–artificial intelligence hybrid approach to test our sensegiving argument. We apply supervised machine learning sentiment analysis to a matched sample of letters to shareholders from 72 family and nonfamily firms during an unprecedented three-year period of difficulty and uncertainty: the 2007–2009 global financial crisis. We discuss how this study on the communication-related foundations of family firms’ resilience adds to our understanding of this phenomenon.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/00472778.2024.2438327

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