Unbundling Strategic Change in Family Firms: the Influence of Familiness on the Strategic Change Process

The viability and adaptation of family firms is a key research area owing to the longevity and transgenerational vision of the family. Throughout their development, firms transition through strategic change episodes with a potentially significant impact on their performance and survival. In this article, we combine family firm with strategic change research to propose how familiness supports or limits strategic change. We put forward three tendencies of family firms in their ability to deal with strategic change. First, familiness creates an overemphasis on the cognition of gradual change triggers but limits the cognition of radical change triggers. Second, familiness creates a tendency to inappropriately scope and dimension strategic change in radical change episodes to protect the value of legacy resources. Third, familiness supports endurance during strategic change implementation while also creating a tendency to be too slow or stubborn when implementing an insufficient change decision.