Construals Matter: Painting the Big Picture or Drawing the Brushstrokes of the Family Firm

Abstract

Over the past few years, scholars have increasingly called for a shift of focus in family business research from a macro view to one that studies micro foundations (e.g., De Massis & Foss, 2018), which investigate individual-level constructs such as emotions (e.g., Shepherd, 2016), identity (e.g., Deephouse & Jaskiewicz, 2013), or attitudes (e.g., Ramos, Man, Mustafa, & Ng, 2014). In particular, there is much potential for integrating theoretical and empirical insights from psychology to further advance our knowledge on family businesses by better understanding the decision making of family members and specifically owner-managers of family firms. In this regard, a recent systematic review on family firm advisors (Strike, Michel, & Kammerlander, 2017) has revealed that family firm research focusing on the individual level has developed largely independently of research in the field of psychology and, as such, has forgone important opportunities to integrate psychological perspectives into family firm research. Moreover, the specific setting of the family firm in which professional and family lives are closely intertwined has the potential to inform other fields and challenge traditional perspectives, such as work in organizational psychology on work–family balance (e.g., Valcour, 2007), work on entrepreneurial role models (e.g., Bosma, Hessels, Schutjens, Praag, & Verheul, 2012), or work on managerial goal setting (e.g., Bateman, O’Neill, & KenworthyU’Ren, 2002). Consequently, it is not surprising that scholarly calls have aimed to encourage more interdisciplinary work to advance our knowledge on family firms. As a current example, de Massis, Piccolo, Picone, and Tang are editing a Family Business Review special issue on “Psychological Foundations of Management in Family Firms.” While recent studies represent commendable, early achievements, we suggest that understanding the cognitions of the people in (and supporting) family firms still represents a rather untapped potential to broaden our insights into interesting idiosyncrasies that stem from family owner-managers’ cognition. Specifically, these insights will shed light on drivers of heterogeneity in family firms, for example, in their goals or long-term orientation (Diaz-Moriana, Clinton, Kammerlander, Lumpkin, & Craig, 2018). This editorial emerged from a discussion of a family business scholar with a strategy background and an entrepreneurship scholar with a major in psychology sitting together and reflecting about the nature of family business and their idiosyncrasies. As an outcome of these inspiring, interdisciplinary discussions, we realized that family business owner-managers might perceive or construe their family business in a particular way and that such perception might explain both, differences between family versus nonfamily firms as well as heterogeneity among family businesses. The aim of this editorial is hence to briefly introduce a promising psychological theory to the research studying family businesses and business families and to stimulate further research in this and related research fields. We also want to encourage family firm researchers to seek more collaboration with researchers from other fields, such as psychology, in order to identify and integrate other promising theories.