This paper focuses on the socialization of potential successors in family business and attempts to relate this process to values that founders intend to convey to the next generation. We found that founders' values condition potential successors' socialization and that there are two different phases common to all socialization processes. The first stage, characterized by family socialization and common to all founders' descendants, comprises value transmission and training. The second stage is characterized by business socialization and reserved only for the founder's potential successors. We also identified two models of socialization that pursue two different aims: (a) the Founder Homosocial Reproduction Model and (b) the New Leader Development Model. These socialization models are consistent not only with values that the founder intends to convey to potential successors but also with the founder's own business perception. We present and explain the distribution of these two models according to each group of founders. Finally, we reveal the content of what we call the founder's dependence paradox and the effect on the next‐generation socialization process.

With the European Commission looking for ways to incentivize the adoption of circular economy (CE) activities by small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the European Union (EU), further insights into the implementation of CE activities across member states are needed. We analyse a European Commission survey conducted in 2016 among approximately 11,000 firms in EU‐28 member states in order to throw light on the conditions in which SMEs engage in five specific CE activities. In contrast to previous studies arguing that CE activities are independent of each other, we present novel findings demonstrating that seven patterns of engagement in CE can be identified in which activities are systematically interdependent. Further, we show that these patterns are associated with the organizational properties of SMEs and are differentially distributed among EU member states and industrial sectors. The interdependency of activities forms a hierarchy in which waste minimization is the most likely activity to be implemented in SMEs, followed, in descending order of likelihood, by replanning of energy use, redesigning products and services, and finally using renewable energy and replanning water usage. The findings have theoretical, managerial, and policy implications for the adoption of interdependent CE activities.

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The new economy offers a large range of opportunities to family businesses if they are able to promote values that allow constantly innovative behavior and business evolution. Although family firms are commonly associated with a traditional way of doing business, this paper shows the heterogeneity among first‐generation family firms by building a taxonomy of four groups of founders based on values. The results show the relevance of identifying founders' value systems to understand the founders' influence on family business behavior. This value profile can be a valuable tool for family business owner‐managers and advisors in identifying and promoting values that add value to firms without compromising next‐generation family firm development.

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