Purpose – The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to review the notion of social capital and its dominant dimensions and appraise the ways in which social capital and these dimensions have been applied within family business research. Second, to develop a number of suggestions of ways in which the concept could be extended, from a symbolic perspective, to provide greater insight into the complexity and heterogeneity of family systems. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual paper designed to stimulate new ways of thinking about social capital and the competitive advantage of family firms. Findings – This paper suggests that social capital has a symbolic dimension, which has been largely overlooked both within the field of family business and across social capital research more generally. Within the field of family business the authors connect this neglect to an over-emphasis on business theories. The authors offer ways in which incorporating a family theory – symbolic interactionism – could help to better understand family firms, social capital, and competitive advantage. Originality/value – This paper proposes an original approach to social capital. Guided by the notion of informed pluralism the paper integrates seemingly unrelated theories and identifies opportunities for new and innovative research. By espousing a symbolic interactionist approach the argument developed within this paper is valuable for helping to advance new ways of thinking about social capital and the competitive (dis)advantage of family firms.

While much family business research has examined how family ownership affects businesses, this paper raises a question consistent with enquiries in the latter direction: How can family firms be operated to enhance the well-being of owning families and their members? We address this question by analyzing ethnographic data collected from an “extreme case” of both family enterprising and familial well-being: Hutterite colonies in Western Canada. Our findings suggest three enterprise-level strategies and three task-level practices that strengthen family member satisfaction and family system effectiveness.

We are interested in how morality can be sustained in entrepreneurial practice. We examine the interesting case of the Hutterites, a communal society who practice community entrepreneurshipentrepreneuring by the community and for the community. Arguing that culture provides values and that morals are cultural artefacts -we show how ethics determine the entrepreneurial practices of this remarkably successful entrepreneurial society. Our analysis explains how in this close-knit society, cultural morals and ethics of practice are perfectly aligned, embodied in practice and determine how entrepreneurship is practiced. The result is an economically viable society that preserves its ancient way of life and combines piety and profit. We demonstrate how cultural values shape entrepreneurial practice and how enterprising in this community is a change mechanism, yet also maintains social stability.

This article explores how to inspire youth to volunteer. Drawing on ideas of inspiration and motivational framing, we develop insight into how constructing and cultivating a sense of efficacy and obligation pushes a young individual passively inspired by the good deeds and acts being performed in the third sector into becoming someone who is inspired to take action and volunteer. Getting out into the real world of practice allowed us to explore the situated practices carried out in a youth summer internship program. We find that five program practices—authorizing, creating safe relational spaces, reflecting, revealing privilege, and simplifying—fostered an emergent action-oriented set of beliefs that supplied the impetus youth needed to become inspired to volunteer. This has implications for our understanding of the inspirational process as well as for philanthropic foundations looking to design effective programs. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.

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