Exploring Transgenerational Entrepreneurship

Transgenerational entrepreneurship, as a discipline, examines the processes, resources and capabilities that allow family enterprises to create social and economic value over time in order to succeed beyond the first generation of business owners. While tangible resources such as financial and physical capital are certainly important factors in the long-term success of a family-run business, this book focuses specifically on the role of intangible resources and capabilities, which are less easily quantifiable but equally vital.

Introducing a new concept in family businesses Transgenerational Entrepreneurship addresses how these businesses achieve growth and longevity through entrepreneurial activities. It focuses on the resources, capabilities and mindsets that families develop and draw upon in order to be entrepreneurial across generations, and presents findings from an international research collaboration between family business researchers and practitioners. In addition to a comprehensive conceptual chapter, the editors include a unique set of empirical case-based research papers that investigates transgenerational entrepreneurship in different European contexts. They bring together and integrate frontier research on entrepreneurship and family business, as well as provide a basis for future research. Academics, teachers and students in business and management, entrepreneurship and family business will find this path-breaking book of value, as will libraries, policy makers and consultants.

'This book represents a breakthrough in our knowledge of family businesses. You will read some fascinating stories in this book. But it is more than a collection of stories. the authors show you how you can learn from the stories others tell, and the lessons are both positive and negative. Here we are introduced to real family businesses, addressing real problems, both regarding the future of the firm and the relationships among family members. the authors of these chapters show us how theories can be practically applied in understanding and managing the family enterprise.' - Frank Hoy, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, US

This book analyzes the findings reported in the first Asia Pacific summit of the Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) project. Researchers in Australia, China, and India discussed eleven in-depth case studies to shed light on the challenges that business families and family businesses faced in continuing and extending their entrepreneurial capabilities across multiple generations. Based on a common research framework from STEP, each chapter introduces key findings and challenges existing theory, offering answers to two broad questions in the Asia Pacific context: How do business families and family businesses generate and sustain entrepreneurial performance across generations and how does entrepreneurial performance relate to the continuity, growth and transgenerational entrepreneurship of business families and family businesses? In doing so, the authors look at key issues faced by family business including dealing with communication issues across generations, resolving conflict between siblings, preparing and luring younger generations back to family business, and professionalization of business. The chapters go beyond the succession and governance challenges and explore the processes and outcomes of entrepreneurship in the AustralAsian family context. Academics, teachers and students in business and management, entrepreneurship and family business, and Asian studies will find this path-breaking book of great value, as will libraries, policymakers and consultants.

This illustrative book considers the interface of business structures, contexts, and leadership building blocks to explore the contingent nature of leadership development in transgenerational entrepreneurship. Longitudinal case studies of 27 family firms in nine different countries provide a rich, global selection of leadership development insights by examining the roles of values, professionalization, leadership style and other contingent factors. The diversity of cases and chapters provides a rich foundation for insight into the pathways currently in use to develop the next generation leaders, illuminating the strategies and pathways of successful transgenerational family enterprises. By examining the available literature and one or more case studies, each chapter draws pragmatic conclusions, with findings that suggest the importance of focusing on leadership as a shared capability, transmission of values to maintain an entrepreneurial culture, the fit between professionalization and values to increase transgenerational potential, the need to address the structure of the business and the focus on parenting to develop next generations. This path-breaking book will inform family business researchers as they explore the ways in use to develop the next generation. Each chapter starts with a mini-case study focused on a dilemma related to leader development, making this book an excellent resource for educators in undergraduate, graduate, or executive programs.

Social media offers an opportunity for people to enlarge their exposure to information; information about important changes and trends in technology, markets, government policies, or society in general that can facilitate entrepreneurship, business development, and more. Despite the widespread cultural and social effects of social media in the way people communicate and interact, little research has addressed the role of social media in entrepreneurship. This book fills this gap by exploring the influence and consequences social media has on entrepreneurship at the individual level, group level, venture (firm) level and societal level. Specific social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) will be explored as well as topics such as gender, education and socioemotional wealth.

Within corporate media industries, adults produce children’s entertainment. Yet children, presumed to exist outside the professional adult world, make their own contributions to it—creating and posting unboxing videos, for example, that provide content for toy marketers. Many adults, meanwhile, avidly consume entertainment products nominally meant for children. Media industries reincorporate this market-disrupting participation into their strategies, even turning to adult consumers to pass fandom to the next generation. Derek Johnson presents an innovative perspective that looks beyond the simple category of “kids’ media” to consider how entertainment industry strategies invite producers and consumers alike to cross boundaries between adulthood and childhood, professional and amateur, new media and old. Revealing the social norms, reproductive ideals, and labor hierarchies on which such transformations depend, he identifies the lines of authority and power around which legacy media institutions like television, comics, and toys imagine their futures in a digital age. Johnson proposes that it is not strategies of media production, but of media reproduction, that are most essential in this context. To understand these critical intersections, he investigates transgenerational industry practice in television co-viewing, recruitment of adult comic readers as youth outreach ambassadors, media professionals’ identification with childhood, the branded management of adult fans of LEGO, and the labor of child YouTube video creators. These dynamic relationships may appear to disrupt generational and industry boundaries alike. However, by considering who media industries empower when generating the future in these reproductive terms and who they leave out, Johnson ultimately demonstrates how their strategies reinforce existing power structures. This book makes vital contributions to media studies in its fresh approach to the intersections of adulthood and childhood, its attention to the relationship between legacy and digital media industries, and its advancement of dialogue between media production and consumption researchers. It will interest scholars in media industry studies and across media studies more broadly, with particular appeal to those concerned about the current and future reach of media industries into our lives.

This edited collection analyses the unexplored concept of the family business group, evaluating the opportunities and advantages that it creates for entrepreneurs. Raising a number of important questions, the authors construct a new research agenda for the complex topic of the family business group, which will ultimately assess its contribution towards the economy and society in general. The chapters provide a core understanding of the phenomenon and cover its formation, nature and complexities, as well as offering a holistic perspective and exploring factors such as scale, size and regional contexts. A useful tool for those researching small businesses, organisation, and business strategy, this book highlights the key advantages of family business group structures in both developed and developing countries, and local and national contexts.