Call for Papers for the 2023 Family Business Review (FBR) Special Issue on History-informed Family Business Research

Abstract

History is pervasive in family business settings, where values, beliefs, narratives, and artefacts of the founding family are handed down from generation to generation (Colli, 2003). The history of a family and its business therefore pervades family business goals, practices, and outcomes, creating a close link between the history of family businesses, their present traditions, and future aspirations (De Massis et al., 2016; Jaskiewicz et al., 2015; Zellweger et al., 2012). Because of the prominence of history in family businesses, these firms have often been stigmatized as a form of business organization that is steadfast to its history and traditions, path dependent, conservative, resistant to changes and unable to adapt to dynamic and constantly evolving markets (Chandler, 1977; Morck & Yeung, 2003; Poza et al., 1997). Yet, family businesses remain dominant in any economy (La Porta et al., 1999), many of them are highly innovative (De Massis et al., 2018), resilient to crises, and equipped with the stamina to pursue entrepreneurial projects over generations (Jaskiewicz et al., 2016; Sinha, Jaskiewicz, Gibb, & Combs, 2020). The latter is consistent with emerging research suggesting that the history and traditions of families and their businesses do not have to be a rigid burden but, in some cases, can be a holy grail for enduring innovation and change (Erdogan et al., 2020; Jaskiewicz, Combs, & Ketchen, 2016; Suddaby & Jaskiewicz, 2020). While researchers thus recognize the paradoxical nature of the family business as an organization that can be burdened or empowered by history, theory on how history actually ties into family business’ tradition, change, and aspiration remains scarce (De Massis, Frattini, Kotlar, Messeni Petruzzelli, & Wright, 2016; Erdogan et al., 2020; Sinha et al., 2020; Suddaby, Coraiola, Harvey, & Foster, 2020; Suddaby & Jaskiewicz, 2020). One reason for this unsatisfactory status quo is the weak connection between history and family business scholarship that has limited current understanding of what family business scholars can learn from the wealth of history and historical research, and how they can integrate related learnings in the study of family business (e.g., Colli, 2003; Colli & Fernandez Perez, 2020). Considering the rapidly growing interest in studying the link between history and family businesses, we believe that it is warranted and timely to build a strong foundation for a history-informed approach to the study of family businesses, by which we refer to family business research that draws on historical research methods and/or leverages history as a key component (or variable) of theory or empirical analysis (Argyres et al., 2020; Sasaki et al., 2020; Sinha et al., 2020; Suddaby & Foster, 2017; Suddaby et al., 2020). 945053 FBRXXX10.1177/0894486520945053Family Business Review research-article2020