Non-family employee strategic renewal in family firms: the transformational leadership role of family board members and psychological ownership

Abstract

PurposeThe study aims to reveal the strategic renewal (SR) of non-family employees in family small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with the effects of transformational board member leadership and psychological ownership (PO) dimensions.Design/methodology/approachNon-family employees at 82 export and import family firms (FFs) in Vietnam were selected for the study, which used a partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) approach.FindingsFamily board members with transformational leadership (TL) qualities and PO play an essential role in developing non-family employee SR.Originality/valueThe authors grant advanced family roles and relationships knowledge to the renewal and transformation of FFs' strategies and organisational structures.

Adapt or Perish ! A Systematic Review of the Literature on Strategic Renewal and the Family Firm

“…The second group of empirical studies comprises those studies that apply quantitative methodologies (9 studies). All of the studies included in this group are based on primary information reached via questionnaires (Au et al, 2018;Cucculelli et al, 2016;Giang & Dung, 2021;Huynh, 2021;Issah et al, 2023;Luu, 2022;Pé-rez-Pérez et al, 2019;Pérez-Pérez & Hernández-Linares, 2020;Weimann et al, 2021). In some cases, the survey data are complemented with data retrieved from a secondary database (e.g., Cucculelli et al, 2016;Pérez-Pérez et al, 2019;Pérez-Pérez & Hernández-Linares, 2020).…”

“…Further, all quantitative studies are cross-sectional studies. In terms of methodologies used for the data analysis, a 44.44% of quantitative studies performed regression analysis (Au et al, 2018;Cucculelli et al, 2016;Issah et al, 2023;Weimann et al, 2021), another 44,44% used structural equations modelling, in all cases by using the Partial Least Squares software (Giang & Dung, 2021;Huynh, 2021;Luu, 2022;Pérez-Pérez & Hernández-Linares, 2020) and the last 11.11% used two-step cluster analysis (Pérez-Pérez et al, 2019).…”

“…Regarding sample diversity (see Table 3), only Au et al (2018) and Issah et al (2023), have researched firms from more than one country, 26 and 69 countries respectively. In the case of Issah et al (2023), they used data from a global survey conducted by the Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) global consortium, which is an independent association with members from universities around the world.The remaining empirical papers have researched firms from only one country, with Finland (Sievinen et al, 2020a(Sievinen et al, , 2020b(Sievinen et al, , 2020c, Italy (Cucculelli et al, 2016;Di Toma, 2012;Lionzo & Rossignoli, 2013) and Vietnam (Giang & Dung, 2021;Huynh, 2021;Luu, 2022) being the most researched countries (with 16.67% of empirical studies studying each country), followed Spain (Pérez-Pérez et al, 2019; Pérez-Pérez & Hernández-Linares, 2020), researched by the 11.11% of the studies included in our literature review. Other countries researched are Germany (Weimann et al, 2021), Hungary (Németh et al, 2017), Indonesia (Anggadwita et al, 2022), Tunisia (Mzid et al, 2019), and United Kingdom (Jones et al, 2013).…”

“…Other countries researched are Germany (Weimann et al, 2021), Hungary (Németh et al, 2017), Indonesia (Anggadwita et al, 2022), Tunisia (Mzid et al, 2019), and United Kingdom (Jones et al, 2013). It is also interesting to note that 94.44% of empirical studies (17 from 18) study exclusively family firms, with the only exception being Pérez-Pérez and Hernández-Linares (2020), who researched both family and non-family firms Finally, focusing on studies with a quantitative design, it seems necessary to notice that they are based on samples of different size, ranging from 82 (Luu, 2022) to 2139 firms (Issah et al, 2023), with the average size of the samples being 512 firms. Considering the size of firms researched, five studies focused on small and medium-size firms (Cucculelli et al, 2016;Luu, 2022;Pérez-Pérez & Hernández-Linares, 2020;Weimann et al, 2021), one study focused on medium to large companies (Au et al, 2018) and one on firms of all sizes (Issah et al, 2013).…”

“…Hence, understanding the strategic renewal process in the context of the family business is especially relevant not only because they account for approximately twothirds of all firms worldwide and account 70-90% of annual Gross Domestic Product and 80% of employment (De Massis et al, 2018), but also to help public administrations to identify ways of improving survival rates of such firms (Cucculelli et al, 2016;Handler Miller, 2008). That is, for ensuring that family businesses are passed down from generation to generation, emphasis should be placed on strategic renewal (Luu, 2022). For this reason, scholars have started to pay attention to the strategic renewal of family firms (Cucculelli et al, 2016;Jones et al, 2013;Weimann et al, 2021), generating a complex body of research.…”