Looking at the Sky: An Ethnographic Study of How Religiosity Influences Business Family Resilience

Abstract

Despite the growing interest in resilience in the family business context, little attention has been devoted to understanding the influence of religion on the way business families respond to adverse environments. We use a unique ethnography of a Middle Eastern faith-led family firm to investigate how religiosity influences the way the business family resists and rebounds from environmental shocks. We identify religious role expectations as a pivotal driver of particularistic responses in family firms to advance a religious-based foundation for business family resilience.

Resilience in Family Businesses: A Systematic Literature Review

“…We conclude that the field of family business resilience would benefit from a comprehensive definition that encompasses both outcomes and resource flows, justifying our introduction of a specific process-based definition tailored to family businesses in response to the lack of a unified conceptualization in the literature. Building on established concepts from organizational resilience research, incorporating a process-oriented approach to defining family business resilience is crucial as it captures the dynamic and ongoing strategies that family businesses employ to navigate challenges and disruptions (Anggadwita et al, 2022; Azouz et al, 2022; Fisher et al, 2019). While an ability, capability, or capacity approach may seem appropriate to capture the potential of resilience, the actual demonstration of resilience is missing within this conceptualization.…”

“…Theme 3.1: Building and Sustaining Strong Social Capital. Most of the articles we have reviewed (n = 38) emphasized that the strong social capital that family businesses build over time acts as a central resource endowment that can be utilized for resilient responses to adversity (e.g., Azouz et al, 2022;Mahto et al, 2022;Mihotić et al, 2023). Referred to as "social capital" in the context of family business resilience (Nahapiet & Ghoshal, 1998;Stasa & Machek, 2022), the endowment of relational capability can be described as the reservoir of goodwill and robust relationships between family members and their external stakeholders, enabling them to facilitate actions and create value across generations (for a recent review on social capital, see Stasa & Machek, 2022).…”

“…Second, given the strong overlap between the family and business systems, resilience-triggering events (e.g., crises, conflicts) occurring in the business domain can spill over to the family, and vice versa, thus triggering critical downward spirals (Crouter, 1984). At the same time resilience is particularly important for family businesses as they aim to stay well-functioning and competitive so that next generations can take over a successful business (Lumpkin et al, 2010); the capacity to overcome challenges, however, is a prerequisite for this long-term sustainability (Azouz et al, 2022; Chrisman et al, 2011).…”

“…Despite the additional challenges and adversities that family businesses face, empirical evidence shows that family businesses are often more resilient than non-family businesses (e.g., Amann & Jaussaud, 2012; Ding et al, 2021; Eckey & Memmel, 2022). These findings create a scholarly puzzle (Alvesson & Kärreman, 2007) and indicate that there might be an idiosyncratic way of how family businesses develop and enact resilience (Azouz et al, 2022; Danes et al, 2009; Jaskiewicz et al, 2015). To better understand this puzzle, this article provides a comprehensive, systematic literature review of the literature on family business resilience to develop an understanding of organizational resilience in family businesses and to identify opportunities for future research.…”

Advancing Family Firm Research: The Importance of Multilevel Considerations

“…In the family firm context, the presence of legacy—given its values, traditions, and principles—is consequential to the firm’s resilience (e.g., Cucculelli et al, 2016; Zellweger et al, 2013). Furthermore, resilience, or the ability to successfully navigate adversity, is critical to the family firm’s transgenerational longevity (Azouz et al, 2022). Given its importance to the family business, a growing body of research has focused on resilience.…”