Entrepreneurial decision-making and family social capital

Abstract

<jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title><jats:p>The purpose of this paper is to adopt a collective perspective in the study of entrepreneurial decision-making processes and empirically analyse the ways in which social relationships between family members can shape their collective entrepreneurial decision-making behaviour (ED).</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title><jats:p>This paper considers the family social capital (FSC) in inducing overall conformity to the focal family member's decision to exploit an opportunity. In terms of the seminal construct of social capital, the authors propose three FSC dimensions that can be used to induce conformity: structural, relational and cognitive dimensions. Then, the authors design questionnaires to collect data pertaining to the relationships between the family members' ED and the FSC. Finally, the authors collect 152 valid questionnaires from Chinese family firms.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title><jats:p>The data analysis consists of two parts. The first section of this paper analyses conformity by testing the discriminant validity of models. Regression analysis is then used to test the relationship between family members' ED and the FSC. Significant relationships between the cognitive dimension of FSC and the entrepreneur's decision-making are found.</jats:p></jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title><jats:p>The research contributes towards academic literature concerning both entrepreneurship and social capital. On the one hand, this paper is one of the rare pieces of entrepreneurial research that responds to the call for the study of entrepreneurship from a collective perspective. On the other hand, our study quantitatively tests the impact of FSC at a multidimensional level. It provides conclusions regarding the social influence of other family members and provides insights into social capital by studying entrepreneurship from a social/community perspective.</jats:p></jats:sec>

Board's gender diversity and international entrepreneurship: intensity versus quality?

“…Secondly, this paper enriches entrepreneurial decision-making studies through its use of a multi-subject perspective (Gartner et al, 1994;Shepherd et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2021). Specifically, it explores the advantages and disadvantages of gender diversity in relation to IE.…”

“…To fully understand the decisionmaking processes made by a BoD, a multi-subject entrepreneurial decision-making approach must be used (Shepherd et al, 2015;Caputo and Pellegrini, 2020;Pappas et al, 2021). From a collective perspective, the synergy of multiple subjects' judgments can shape a more holistic entrepreneurial vision about decision-making (Wang et al, 2021). Therefore, this article focuses on the BoD as a typical, multi-subject, entrepreneurial decision-maker, and stresses the effects of BoD features on IE approaches.…”

“…, 2021). From a collective perspective, the synergy of multiple subjects' judgments can shape a more holistic entrepreneurial vision about decision-making (Wang et al. , 2021).…”

Family ownership and control as drivers for environmental, social, and governance in family firms

“…Berrone et al 2012 ) summarised the features of the SEW theory and organised them into five dimensions: (i) Family influence concerns the tendency of a family to foster consistent family-like values into the business during a family-to-firm transfer; (ii) the identification mainly refers to the conviction that the family reputation is intimately and indissolubly bound to business success and reputation (Chrisman et al 2012 ; Naldi et al 2013 ); (iii) binding social ties concerns the tendency of family firms to have strong relationships, both internally, with non-family employees, and externally, with suppliers and business partners. More generally, however, these binding ties are also created with society (e.g., through community development initiatives and with other institutional entities, such as commercial associations, research centres, and financial institutions) (Wang et al 2021 ; Bichler et al 2022 ); (iv) emotional attachment can be used to explain the commitment that a family has to the business, investing resources and time in the company and its development, as this forms part of their family history (Kraus et al 2018 ; Fritz et al 2021 ), and (v) the renewal of family bonds refers to long-term orientation and the intention of succession, implying that a family wants to maintain control over the business for the next generation of family members (Lazzarotti et al 2020 ).…”

Guest editorial

“…The second paper titled "Entrepreneurial decision-making and family social capital" (Wang et al, 2020) is contextualised in the Chinese family firms environment. Using survey questionnaires, the authors provide evidence that the entrepreneurial decision-making in family firms relies on an intersection of cognition, emotion and social influence, contributing to a deeper understanding regarding the impact of the family social capital on entrepreneurial decision-making (Shepherd et al, 2015).…”