Guest Editorial

Abstract

Family business forms the backbone of most economies worldwide, blending entrepreneurial drive with legacy and values. It is estimated that about 70% or more of the world’s GDP is contributed by family businesses. Families who start and own businesses come up with new ideas and innovations in products and services, generate employment, stay longer and contribute to professionalisation of management by creating benchmarkable management practices. In the early part of the last century and even now, it is some of the large global family businesses that have established scale and given birth to many new management practices. However, in recent times, as the bastion is being passed on from generation to generation, issues about intergenerational variations in effectively managing the business, values and culture are being raised. It is therefore natural that The Journal of Entrepreneurship chose to have this special issue explore critical dimensions of family enterprises, including governance, succession planning, intergenerational dynamics, conflict management and professionalisation. We aimed to deepen the academic and practical understanding of how families sustain and grow their businesses across generations while balancing tradition and innovation. We set out to get contributions offering theoretical insights, empirical studies and case analyses for this issue.