Salvatore Sciascia

Wars have always impacted society and economies. Today, more than ever, recent geopolitical tensions and armed conflicts – such as the Russo-Ukrainian war and the Arab-Israeli conflict – are affecting the global landscape, with effects reverberating to both local and worldwide economies, affecting business survival and their societal responsibilities. Businesses are presented with unique challenges for firms. Consequently, research on business challenges and responses to the wartime economy is timely and relevant. By identifying and examining five domains (i.e., financial, organizational, competitive, social, and psychological) we review the literature on war and firms, identifying challenges faced by businesses and offering insights into this topic. Then, we shed light into how family firms can leverage their strengths to transform challenges into opportunities, thereby informing management studies on ways to navigate the wartime economy. Lastly, we present a research agenda and practical lessons for family business and management studies to navigate turbulent times and ensure long-term success.

Network embeddedness is a crucial factor in the international growth of family businesses. However, the blurred boundaries between family and business, along with the pursuit of socioemotional goals, make it deeply intertwined with both business growth and family dynamics. Using a case study of a fifth-generation Italian family firm in the wine industry, this study examines the co-evolution of network embeddedness, family dynamics, and international growth. Findings reveal that network embeddedness facilitates internationalization but also impacts family relationships and socioemotional goals. Strong embeddedness often leads to non-transferable personal ties, resulting in market overlap among family managers. This underscores the need for new generations to build their own networks to gain legitimacy within the family. While network embeddedness supports initial international expansion, over-embeddedness and the non-transferability of networks can hinder professionalization and restrict further growth. Moreover, it influences family dynamics, creating tensions and role overlaps that depend on strong familial harmony and the balancing role of earlier generations. This study bridges the literature on network embeddedness and internationalization in family businesses, offering insights into their dynamic interplay over time.

The proposed research will offer a structured literature review on generational involvement in family firms. Then, we integrate family business and non-family business literature through generational theory which proposes that experiences and historical events that people have lived through shape individuals’ behaviour. The core assumption of this theory that will be used in the proposed study is that each generation differs in terms of leadership style, wealth management as well as attitudes toward balancing work and life. Hence, the integration of family generational issues with societal generational characteristics provides the opportunity to enhance our theoretical understanding of the drivers of decision-making and distinct family business behaviour, and ultimately the causes of family business heterogeneity. Additionally, we also offer a brief overview of the contributions of each paper, and drawing on this review we identify some important research gaps and suggest future research directions.

This study investigates how values affect family firm internationalization. Coherently with the exploratory nature of this study, we adopt a qualitative research design based on a comparative analysis of two case studies. In particular, we focus on two Italian family firms both founded in 1880 and operating in the wine industry, a sector where values such as the connection with the original terroir have a fundamental relevance. Our findings thus show how firm strategic choices related to internationalization can be traced back not only to different values, but also to a different interpretation and implementation of the same values by the owning family. By identifying four types of values (i.e., product quality, legacy with the territory, family harmony and time orientation), our study advances current understanding of the link between values and family firm internationalization.

Building on the signalling theory, the present study theorizes that family overhang, which indicates the quota of shares retained by the family over the quota of shares offered at IPO, positively affects the likelihood of choosing a non-family CEO versus a founder family CEO or a non-founder family CEO at the IPO stage. That is, family IPOs use the non-family CEO status as a non-family related signal for the market. Yet, in choosing between a founder family CEO and a non-founder family CEO at the IPO stage, the former is more likely to be selected. Additionally, family generational involvement strengthens the above-mentioned relationships. Drawing from a sample of Italian family firm IPOs, important theoretical contributions flowing from our study are shared in the concluding section.

Adopting a knowledge-based view of the firm, this paper explores how different contents of firm-level entrepreneurship may influence performance of companies in mature industries. More specifically, this paper aims at: 1) identifying what kind of entrepreneurial behavior (new-market entry, new-product development, diversification) is more suitable to survive and prosper in mature industries; 2) discussing if knowledge sharing is to be promoted to successfully compete in these industries; 3) identifying which kind of knowledge (market knowledge or technology knowledge) is most needed to develop entrepreneurial behavior in mature industries.