Transgenerational Entrepreneurship in the Global World

Co Guest-Editors

Kevin Au (Area Editor of CCSM; STEP Asia Pacific), K. Ramachandran (STEP Asia Pacific member), Andrea Calabro (STEP EU member), Francisca Sinn Rocende (STEP Latin America member), and Matt Allen (STEP North America member) 

Families and their ventures are the dominant form of business organization worldwide.  Increasing amount of research has appeared in recent years to study them as they play a leading role in the social and economic wealth creation of communities and countries. To achieve continued growth and continuity, they must pass on the entrepreneurial mindsets and capabilities that enable them to create new streams of wealth across many generations—not just pass a business from one generation to the next. The Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurial Practices Project (STEP) for Family Enterprising refers to this practice as transgenerational entrepreneurship. And the Project is the first global research study to focus on entrepreneurship in business families. Since 2005, the STEP Project has developed into a consortium with membership from over 40 schools spanning across four continents. It has hosted its first focused Research Conference in October, 2016. See below for several book publications by STEP.

Cross Cultural & Strategic Management (CCSM) is dedicated to providing a forum for the publication of high quality cross-cultural and strategic management research in the global context. Renamed and expanded from Cross Cultural Management journal after a new editorial team took over in 2015, CCSM is interdisciplinary in nature and welcomes submissions from scholars from international business, strategic management and other disciplines, such as anthropology, economics, political science, psychology and sociology. The goal of CCSM is to publish discerning, theoretically grounded, evidence-based and cutting edge research on issues relevant to all aspects of global management.

The editorial team welcomes the opportunity to work with STEP on a special issue devoted to advancing transgenerational entrepreneurship in the global context.  The Special Issue seeks both theoretical and empirical papers on transgenerational entrepreneurship particularly, but not exclusively, using the STEP research framework and methodology.  We do encourage authors from different schools and disciplines to collaborate, and to use either the 100+ in-depth case studies or the 700+ observations in the first STEP Global Family survey. Non-STEP members can partner with STEP members to obtain access rights to the special data sets.  The co guest-editors and the STEP office will facilitate interested scholars to team up with STEP members (see http://www.babson.edu/Academics/centers/blank-center/global-research/step/Pages/home.aspx).

Transgenerational entrepreneurship may simply be defined as two or more generations of family members driving for new business activities, strategic renewal, and innovation (Habbershon, Nordqvist, & Zellweger, 2010; Habberson & Pistrui, 2002). In recent years, family businesses have garnered the attention of wide range of disciplines in a number of different outlets. In this special issue of CCSM, we encourage collaboration and seek papers in the broader context of transgenerational entrepreneurship and encourage scholars of different disciplines to submit a manuscript. On one hand, scholars can submit a paper as long as it is on transgenerational entrepreneurship with cross-cultural comparison or a global perspective in its discussion, for example, comparing succession practices across the US, Canada, and Hong Kong, and studying cultural uncertainty avoidance and family wealth management. On the other hand, scholars can submit a paper dealing with strategic issues related to transgenerational entrepreneurship, for instance, examining family control rights and innovation and studying family governance and competitive strategy, preferably with implications beyond a single country.

The following are examples of potential research questions that we are interested in, but this list is not exhaustive:

• What may be the relationship between successful succession and transgenerational entrepreneurship? How do entrepreneurial families and firms prepare for a successful transition?
• Preserving transgenerational wealth, ­which means a continuous stream of wealth that spans generations, is an important objective of business families. To what extent does transgenerational entrepreneurship contribute to this objective?
• Do good ownership structure and family governance encourage the incoming generations of a family to take risk, venture overseas, and spin off a company across international borders?
• Setting up a family council is regarded as a hallmark in family governance. Could the establishment of such family governance structure promote transgenerational entrepreneurship? 
• Does the meaning of transgenerational entrepreneurship vary across different institutional environment? To what extent do different institutional environments influence how family businesses create new ventures or invest in them?
• Aside from quantitative studies, theory-based single or multiple cases across countries or within countries that raise new issues with international implications, yields new insights, and challenges existing ideas are also encouraged
• Methodological papers that test construct validity across cultures, multi-level interactions, or develop new constructs for transgenerational entrepreneurship are welcome.
• Deadline for submission to the Special Issue is May 31, 2017.
• The special issue editorial team will turn around the manuscripts quickly and send them to experts in the field to ensure good feedback on your submission.

Submission instructions

All manuscripts will undergo a double-blind review process.  Submissions should be between 6,000-9,000 words, including references, figures and tables, and follow the manuscript requirement outlined on the journal’s website:

http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/author_guidelines.htm?id=ccm#10.  The submission deadline is May 31, 2017.  Please direct queries to: Professor Kevin Au, e-mail: kevinau@cuhk.edu.hk - See more at: http://www.emeraldgrouppublishing.com/products/journals/call_for_papers.htm?id=5630#sthash.TnwEXH1c.dpuf

References

Habbershon, T.G., M. Nordqvist, and T. Zellweger. 2010. Transgenerational entrepreneurship. In Transgenerational entrepreneurship: Exploring growth and performance in family firms across generations, ed. M. Nordqvist and T. Zellweger, 141–60. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Habbershon, T.G., and J. Pistrui. 2002. Enterprising families domain: Family-influenced ownership groups in pursuit of transgenerational wealth. Family Business Review, 15(3): 223–37.

STEP Book Publications

Nordqvist and T. Zellweger (eds.) 2010. Transgenerational entrepreneurship: Exploring growth and performance in family firms across generations. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Mattias Nordqvist, Giuseppe Marzano, Esteban R. Brenes, Gonzalo Jiménez, Maria Fonseca-Paredes (eds.) 2011. Understanding entrepreneurial family business in uncertain environments: Opportunities and research in Latin America. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Au, K., Craig, J., & Ramachandran, K. (eds.) 2011. Family Enterprising in Asia: Exploring transgenerational entrepreneurship in family firms. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Sharma, P., Sieger, P, Nason, B., Gonzalez, A. C., Ramachandran, K. (eds.) 2014. Exploring transgenerational entrepreneurship: The role of resources and capabilities. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Sharma, P., Auletta, N., DeWitt, R.-L., Parada, M. J., & Yusof, M. (eds.) 2015. Developing next generation leaders for transgenerational entrepreneurial family enterprises. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.