Composition of familiness: Perspectives of social capital and open systems

Abstract

The literature has usually omitted family factors from the development of strategic models of family firms. These businesses have instead been analysed using traditional models and this has led to divergent results about their performance. This paper considers the overlap of family, business, and individuals in producing the concept of familiness – whose composition is approached from the perspective of social capital and open systems. This approach bridges the research gap regarding the composition of familiness (which has been traditionally measured as an indicator of the implication of the family in the business) and the component and essence approaches to family business are compared.