Purpose

This study explains how managers in family-owned real estate firms achieve flexibility in orchestrating their resources under conditions of uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper draws on a single-case design, utilizing 21 interviews with top managers and archival material from 18 Swedish family-owned real estate firms to capture how the phenomenon of resource orchestration (RO) unfolds under uncertainty.

Findings

The results reveal how the family phenomenon can be understood as a key driver of the family firm’s RO mechanisms, shaping the RO activities of its managers.

Originality/value

Three distinct RO configurations of family firm managers are identified: (1) flexible network structuring, (2) incremental flexibility and stakeholder-focused bundling and (3) cautious and societal flexible leveraging. These configurations explain how the family dimension enables the manager’s RO flexibility under conditions of uncertainty.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to understand how family and ethnic social ties, both as distinct and interrelated forms, support immigrant entrepreneurs in developing their businesses in their host country. This is identified through the following research question: How do family and ethnic social ties support immigrant entrepreneurs in developing their businesses in their host country?

Design/methodology/approach: This study draws on the study of three immigrant entrepreneurs from Sweden, who run their businesses in different industries. The study used interviews and complementary data sources such as annual reports and press clips.

Findings: The results reveal three concepts of immigrant entrepreneur social ties: (1) the control-based social ties of the immigrant entrepreneur, (2) the responsibility-based social ties of the immigrant entrepreneur, and (3) the inclusive and ethnic urgency-based social ties of the immigrant entrepreneur.

Originality/value: This paper develops three ideas on immigrant entrepreneurs' use of social ties in Sweden. The paper particularly focuses on the central roles of family ties for entrepreneurship in combination with ethnic social ties.

The purpose of this article is to identify different decoupling mechanisms and to conceptualize on how decoupling and possibly recoupling processes evolve over time. Drawing on case studies of eight firms from Germany and Sweden, the study presents different coupling mechanisms resulting in four configurations of coupling based on family control and involvement. the present study contributes to explaining how and why the configurations of coupling mechanisms change over time, as well as how and why control-based coupling mechanisms tend to dominate over those based on visibility. Furthermore, we formulate four propositions based on the configurations.

Purpose – This study explores how entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) enable SME manufacturing firms to orchestrate their resources for innovation processes in response to evolving market demands.

Design/methodology/approach – This paper draws on a case study approach comprising 26 interviews with ESO key actors and SME managers, as well as archival material from these organizations.

Findings – The results indicate that the resource orchestration (RO)–driven translation capabilities of ESO staff across different business contexts constitute central mechanisms in the innovative solutions of SMEs. However, the SME managers’ interpretation of the RO mechanisms that generated innovative solutions diverged from that of the former group.

Originality – This study contributes by extending resource orchestration theory beyond the firm level, uncovering the mediating role of entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) in shaping innovation-oriented RO processes in SMEs. By identifying the microfoundations of ESO-driven translation capabilities and their divergent interpretations by SME managers, the paper offers novel insights into the contextual contingencies of RO and provides a more nuanced understanding of how external actors foster innovation under dynamic market conditions.

Purpose – This study explores how family firm retail managers orchestrate firm resources to adapt to shifting market dynamics.Design/methodology/approach – The present paper draws upon a case study approach, covering 30 interviews with family firm managers, along with archival material from 22 family owned micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).Findings – The findings suggest that managerial interactive orchestration capabilities act as key enablers shaping the evolution and configuration of resource orchestration (RO) practices in retail family firms.Originality/value – This study introduces the novel concept of family firm managerial interactive creativity to explain how retail managers shape distinct resource orchestration configurations for adapting to uncertain market dynamics.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how the family firm identity is affected when it is no longer publicly communicated. Design/methodology/approach: A case study approach was used to follow a third-generation family business, a large Swedish home electronics firm that acquired a competitor and, initially, continued using its family firm identity after the acquisition. This study longitudinally tracks the company and its owning family using archival data combined with interviews. Findings: The case company decided to stop communicating their identity as a family business. Such a move initially appears counterintuitive, since it potentially threatens the family firm identity and leads the firm to forgo other advantages, e.g. in branding. However, the decision was based on arguments that were rational from a business perspective, leading to a decoupling of family and firm identity. Originality/value: This study contributes to the literature by showing a decoupling of internally experienced and externally communicated identities. It further contributes to the understanding of the family firm identity concept.

Objectives – the purpose of this paper is to explore how family-owned real estate firm managers entrepreneurially orchestrate their resources to enable firm strategy in an environment characterized by uncertainty. Literature – based on the seminal work of Sirmon et al. (2007, 2011) on resource orchestration (RO), this study advances the research of Chirico et al. (2011), among others, on how the family dimension influences family firm managers' RO for strategic enabling.Approach – this paper draws on a case study using 21 interviews with family firm managers and archival data from family-owned Swedish real estate firmsResults – The results indicate how the family dimension in family-owned real estate firms influence family firm managers’ strategic RO.Implications and Value - Three family-based strategic enabling mechanisms and their underlying microfoundations are identified, explaining how real estate family firm managerial RO configurations are shaped: (1) flexible network structuring, (2), incremental flexibility and tenant focus bundling, and (3) cautious and societal flexible leveraging. The manifestation of these RO configurations highlights how managers of family-owned real estate firms can facilitate firm strategy in conditions of economic uncertainty.

Purpose: This study explores how retail family firm managers’ cognitive capabilities are used to enable firm strategy in a context of economic uncertainty.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper is based on a case study using 31 interviews with family firm managers and archival data from retail micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs).

Findings: The results indicate how managerial cognitive enabling mechanisms shape the manifestation of retail family firm dynamic capabilities (DCs) configurations.

Originality/value: Three retail managerial cognitive strategic enabling mechanisms and their microfoundations are identified, explaining how three retail family firm DC configurations are shaped: (1) retail family firm customization-based sensing, (2) retail family firm lateral seizing and (3) retail family firm trust-based reconfiguring. The manifestation of these DC configurations illuminates how retail family firm managers can enable firm strategy in a context of economic uncertainty.

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to understand venture capital family businesses (VCFBs) governance of portfolio companies through the deal process.

Design/methodology/approach – This study applies a theory-developing approach. A model of VCFB governance is developed whose key aspects are illuminated by four examples (cases) of VCFBs.

Findings – Recent research suggests that a venture capital firm’s corporate deal processes can be divided intothe pre-deal, deal and post-deal phases. Based on the age, size and succession dimensions, propositions for how a governance trajectory develops for VCFBs, affecting the deal process of target family firms (TFFs), are presented. These propositions highlight how the family owners’ actions and behavior are related to VCFB governance, which in turn, influences the three phases involved in making an investment.

Originality/value – The propositions suggest how personal and administrative VCFBs’ governance of the deal process of portfolio companies is significantly affected by centrifugal and centripetal forces that drive the respective types of governance where third-generation family owners appear as changers of governance approach.

Purpose: This study explores how the family influences the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) process in immigrant businesses. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on inductive multiple-case studies using 34 in-depth interviews. This paper relies on three cases of immigrant entrepreneurs originating from Mexico and Colombia that established firms in Sweden. Findings: The results suggest that EO development trajectories vary in the presence of family roles (i.e. inspirers, backers and partners), resulting in the immigrant family business configurations of family-role-influenced proactiveness, risk-taking and innovation. Originality/value: The immigrant family configurations drive three EO-enabling scenarios: (1) home-country framing, (2) family backing and (3) transnational translating. Immigrant family dynamics facilitate the development of EO over time through reciprocal interaction processes across contexts. This study indicates that, through family dynamics, EO develops as mutually interactive processes between the immigrant entrepreneur's family in the home and host countries.