Building legacy through brand change: Insights from multigenerational family businesses

Abstract

Brand change is an important but overlooked factor in enabling family businesses seeking to build legacy. Extensive research has focused on external aspects of brand change, with little attention to the internal dynamics, which can ultimately limit successful change to build legacy for family businesses. We conducted in-depth interviews with four multinational family businesses whose brand change journeys have passed through different generations and covered multiple industries. We uncovered different brand change elements, which form layers of “Outside” and “Inside” brand change. These findings provide further insights into where a family business is in relation to its brand change journey and how to navigate brand change to build family business legacy.