Transmission of entrepreneurial identity across generations in business families: Understanding the effect of family communications

Business families aspire to nurture entrepreneurial characteristics of their later generations to ensure the prosperity of their families and businesses. Given that individuals’ identities direct their behaviors and that their social contexts and, most importantly, their families shape individuals’ identities, we develop a theoretical framework to explain the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurial identity in business families. More specifically, we explain the role of emotions resulting from parent-entrepreneurs’ identity enactment on their children’s entrepreneurial identity formation. Furthermore, our conceptual model accounts for the role of family communication patterns in facilitating the effects of parents’ emotions on children’s identity formation. Overall, our paper extends our understanding of transgenerational entrepreneurship and sheds new light on family business succession using a family perspective.