Contemporary Issues in Family Business Entrepreneurship
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Edited by:
Mario Situm
About the series
Family businesses are established as major economic actors worldwide and have been the focus of academic research since the 1980s. The mixture of three elements – family, business and ownership – expands classical management theory through the need to consider aspects of the social interactions between the actors. From a business perspective, the different overlapping sub-areas must therefore be managed and included in decisions, which increases the complexity both for practical implementation and scientific debate. In addition, the business environment is changing at an ever-increasing pace, presenting business family entrepreneurs with new challenges that can often no longer be reliably anticipated. A lack of foresight and strategic action can trigger crises of varying degrees of severity, so that approaches to transformation and restructuring are necessary to develop to ensure that companies have long-term sustainable futures. This is all made more difficult by the influences of the VUCA world, so that issues such as plannability, risks and security cannot be easily estimated or quantified.
Overall, this leads to yet further increases in complexity in family business management, making it necessary that emerging problems are dealt with at an early stage. This series of volumes considers all of these issues and is intended to generate academic discourse to address and trigger current research fields in entrepreneurship and family business and to provide both a basis for further research and food for thought for consultants and managers.About the first volume
From a business perspective, companies are facing new and unprecedented challenges due to technological (e.g., Industry 4.0, digitalization, etc.) and non-technological (e.g. demographic developments, silver society, etc.) trends. Adaptability is playing an increasingly important role, as environmental and surrounding conditions are rapidly changing, which means that companies need to be more agile, faster and willing to adapt and change. Despite the realization that change is necessary or unavoidable for the successful and sustainable continuation of one's own company, the current lack of reliable empirical findings and practical experience means that it is often not possible to determine which path should be taken in entrepreneurial transformation to successfully reorientate and reposition the company without taking too high a risk. In this book, current findings from research and practice will be presented (qualitative, quantitative, literature analysis, etc. are welcome), which will support researchers with ideas for future work and provide managers and consultants with resources to support the development of solutions and assistance in decision-making.
We welcome contributed papers on the following topics based on the three main themes of the first volume:
Family business transformation in a VUCA world
- New challenges within the strategic management process
- Business modelling in times of rapid change
- Planning the family business succession in times of rapid change
- Entrepreneurial opportunities and threats in context with industry 4.0
- Digitalization as driver for strategic and business modelling decisions
Family business transformation under demographic and organizational aspects
- Demographic trends and their influence on entrepreneurial orientation
- Organizational agility and flexibility as necessary behaviors of family businesses
Family business transformation under cultural and regional perspectives
- Entrepreneurial eco-systems in interaction with family businesses
- Generations, cultural differences and changes in entrepreneurial mindsets
- Urban-rural economics – Networks as critical resources of corporate success
- Transformation as an opportunity for family business in emerging markets
If you are interested in contributing a chapter proposal or have any questions please contact:
Stefan Märk University of Applied Sciences Salzburg Austria, stefan.maerk@fh- salzburg.ac.at
Mario Situm University of Applied Sciences Kufstein Austria, mario.situm@fh-kufstein.ac.at
Topics
How can family businesses build resilience in a world of rapid change and uncertainty?
The challenges faced by family businesses are growing: volatile markets, digital transformation, succession complexities, and strategic reorientation in times of crisis. While resilience is widely discussed, there is a lack of actionable insights on how family businesses can proactively adapt and thrive.
This volume brings together leading researchers and practitioners to explore resilience from multiple perspectives: strategy development, business transformation, succession planning, and corporate recovery. Contributions cover topics such as strategic responses to VUCA environments, the role of resilience in business modeling, early warning indicators for organizational decline, and the impact of downsizing as a recovery strategy. Real-world insights and empirical research provide a roadmap for navigating disruption and seizing new opportunities.
With a unique combination of theoretical depth and practical relevance, this book is essential reading for scholars, students, and decision-makers in family business management. It offers fresh perspectives on resilience and equips businesses with the knowledge to sustain long-term success in turbulent times.
Family businesses play a pivotal role in the global economy, and their successful development is of utmost importance. This first volume of the Contemporary Issues in Family Business Entrepreneurship series, focuses on the topic of family business transformation, which is causing drastic changes in companies' strategies and business models.
Decisions to adapt or change family business strategy and/or the business model are always associated with risk. Family Business Transformation integrates work on the broad topics of transformation, strategy development, business model development, with the study of family businesses to provide family business owners, managers and entrepreneurs much-needed recommendations from best practice examples and/or empirical findings that can support decision-making in regard to the future direction of their companies.
This book calls for a specialized examination of the social interactions among stakeholders, substantially expanding classical management theory. Scholars of family business, entrepreneurship and strategic management, institutional libraries and postgraduate students will find it an essential read and benefit from its insights.
