Toward a Conceptual Model of the Role of Entrepreneurship in the Family Office

Abstract

This study explores the development of the family office as an entrepreneurial process.We focus on how multigenerational family ownership groups reinvent themselves to manage and govern a family office beyond its main operating business as if it was its main business for the purpose of wealth acceleration across generations. There is a diverse understanding of what a family office is across family-owned firms. We draw attention to the entrepreneurial nature of the process of implementation and development of the family’s other investments, ventures, and services, which is conceptually more widely understood by those family enterprises that do not consider themselves as having a family office. We examined 32 enterprising families, of which 40 individuals were interviewed. We put forth a conceptual model that incorporates entrepreneurship antecedents, elements, and consequences whose factors are keys to sustainability of the family office. Six propositions are suggested for future research.Implications are discussed.