Stick to the knitting? Legacy beyond the original family businesses through rhetorical history

Ge, Bingbing, Bauer, Florian and Pecis, Lara 2024. Stick to the knitting? Legacy beyond the original family businesses through rhetorical history. Presented at: 84th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, IL, USA, 9-13 August 2024. Academy of Management Proceedings. , vol.2024 (1) Academy of Management, 10.5465/AMPROC.2024.226bp

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Abstract

Our research addressed one of the most common in practice but least looked into question of what happens to family businesses after family ownership is ceased. We argue that family business research has so far maintained a “family bias”, which may significantly limit the understanding of family businesses’ contributions to social-economic development in reality. Based on business restructurings (and in particular acquisitions) and through the rhetorical history lens, we address the question through one of the most important managerial rhetoric – legacy and how its agentic and co-constructive nature. We conceptualize a model of family business legacy that goes beyond the family to legacy beyond the original family (LBOF). We illustrate the theoretical mechanisms of LBOF, de-coupling, selecting, and re-coupling, with two exemplifying extreme family business restructuring cases. We further develop an agenda for future research aimed at understanding different forms of legacy and the wider process of LBOF. Our research expands the boundary of family business research by highlighting its potential contribution to the economy beyond its existence. Managers can navigate the framework to narrate and leverage LBOF to create competitive advantages during business restructuring.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General)
Publisher:	Academy of Management
ISSN:	2151-6561
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 July 2024
Last Modified:	08 Nov 2024 01:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/170613

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