Family dynamics and gender perspective influencing copreneurship practices

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to understand the family dynamics factors and gender roles influencing the functioning of copreneurial business practices, to propose a conceptual framework based on these factors/roles. Design/methodology/approach For this purpose, a qualitative approach was adopted, through the analysis of seven businesses created by copreneurial couples in an emerging economy – Brazil. Data were obtained from an open interview with each member of the selected couples who are in charge of firm management. Findings The empirical evidence obtained shows that the most important factors for successful copreneurial family businesses are professionalization, dividing the couple’s tasks and business management. Trust, communication, flexibility and common goals are other essential relational-based factors for the good functioning of this type of family business and stability in the personal relationship. Practical implications It is clear that professionalization and the separation of positions and functions are fundamental for a balance between business management and the couple’s marital life. When couples are in harmony and considering factors such as trust, communication and flexibility (relational-based factors), the firm’s life-cycle and business success become real and more effective. Originality/value From the family dynamics factors and gender roles, this study focused on one of the most important and integrated family firm relationships, copreneurial couples. As there is little research on the heterogeneity of family firms runs specifically by copreneurial couples, this study is particularly important and innovative in the context of a developing economy, such as Brazil. Based on empirical evidence, this study was proposed an integrative and holistic framework that shows the functioning of copreneurial businesses practices.

Institutional influences on entrepreneurial behaviours in the family entrepreneurship context: towards an integrative framework

“…The collective contribution of this special issue As noted in Table II, the collection of papers featured in this special issue provides an intricate picture of the complex institutional elements and mechanisms in family entrepreneurship. Going beyond the dichotomous approaches embraced by previous research, Table II shows how different institutions complement and compete. We see, for instance, that national cultures permeate and are complemented by other elements and at other levels (reinforcement according to Scott, 2010 normative elements of a field relay this assumption of difference (Franco and Piceti, 2020) or cognitive-cultural elements on more micro-levels such as within the family reinforce them (Xiong et al, 2020). In collective cultures (or those self-perceived as such), the assumption of "we vs they" is relayed and reinforced on the family level, influencing, for example, which resources are shared and how (Estrada-Robles et al, 2020), and permeates the family firm to influence the process of legitimacy acquisition by the successor (Wasim et al, 2020).…”

“…Family dynamics and gender perspective influencing copreneurship practices: a qualitative analysis in the Brazilian context. Franco and Piceti (2020), in their qualitative study of seven copreneurial couples based in the State of Rio Grande do Sul, chose the context of Brazil to study how the institutional factor culturehigh in masculinity according to Hofstede (2001) and ensuing "traditional" family dynamicsinfluence copreneurial entrepreneurial practices. Indeed, in highly masculine cultures, individuals strongly prefer role differences between genders.…”

Social Involvement of Polish Family Businesses

“…Almost all enterprises start as FBs [19]. The family business sector is growing rapidly and the importance of these enterprises in the economies of many countries is increasing [9,20,21]. The lack of an agreed definition of FB in research conducted in different scientific centers, not only in Poland, means that both their theoretical and empirical contributions can be compared only to a limited extent [12,22].…”

“…Regardless of the FB's age, the decisions of company founders and their successors are modelled by family influence [21,24]. Consequently, succession has received much attention in both literature and practice.…”

“…Of course, it is a condition that the company makes a profit from its business in the long term, and that the policy of distributions to owners is restrained. Studies have shown that the retention of profits in the company is a common practice in FBs, which allows them to survive temporary perturbations in finance and, at the same time, allows them to maintain a certain independence from the financial market and especially from banks [9,15,21].…”