Alex Stewart

The Yin and Yang of Kinship and Business: Complementary or Contradictory Forces?

Alex Stewart et al. — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:26 PDT

Why Can’t a Family Business Be More Like a Non-Family Business? Modes of Professionalization in Family Firms

Alex Stewart et al. — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:25 PDT

We survey arguments that family firms should behave more like non-family firms and “professionalize”. Despite the apparent advantages of this transition, many family firms fail to do so or do so only partially. We reflect on why this might be so, and the range of possible modes of professionalization. We derive six ideal types: (1) minimally professional family firms; (2) wealth dispensing, private family firms; (3) entrepreneurially operated family firms; (4) entrepreneurial family business groups; (5) pseudo-professional, public family firms; and (6) hybrid professional family firms. We conclude with suggestions for further research that is attentive to such variation.

Keywords: Professionalization; family firms; performance; entrepreneurship; hybrid organizations

A First Course in Entrepreneurship Fundamentals, Part I

Alex Stewart — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:23 PDT

This two-part article offers ideas for teaching students who are interested in entrepreneurship but unprepared for the widely-taught business plan course. Their lack of preparation is due less to a lack of business knowledge than it is to an awareness of their life and career needs and of the realities of entrepreneurial careers. Course content ideas are presented to help these students develop competencies in four areas: self-understanding, knowledge of entrepreneurial careers, a realistic sense of what ventures would work for them, and business-relevant creativity.

Artisans, Athletes, Entrepreneurs, and Other Skilled Exemplars of the Way

Alex Stewart et al. — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:22 PDT

We introduce management and spirituality scholars to the “knack” passages from the c. 4th century B.C.E. text, the Zhuangzi. The knack passages are parables about low status figures, such as wheelwrights, furniture makers and cooks, whose actions offer insights into the spirituality of ordinary work and, we argue, of entrepreneurship. Such non-corporate settings are lesser-studied domains for spirituality. Ancient Chinese writings have been noticed by spirituality and management writers but we call for deeper scholarly textual attention. We seek also to model more attention to the renaissance in scholarship on classical China. More ambitiously, we hope to show that these passages are not only germane but worthy of careful consideration. Our efforts reflect the influence of Slingerland's (2003) study of “effortless action” as a central soteriological goal in ancient China.

Sources of Entrepreneurial Discretion in Kinship Systems

Alex Stewart — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:21 PDT

Who Could Best Complement a Team of Family Business Researchers—Scholars Down the Hall or in Another Building?

Alex Stewart — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:20 PDT

This study explores which fields might potentially collaborate in family business research. It compares 14 research fields for their structure of topical attention. The most convenient collaborations, such as those between entrepreneurship, family business, and strategy researchers, prove to be the most appropriate for some research purposes. However, less common collaborations, particularly with scholars from law, history, and anthropology, appear to be the most appropriate for other projects. Family and marital therapy prove to be a less promising collaborator than one might expect because of their strong skewing to familial rather than commercial topics. Correspondingly, entrepreneurship also proves to be an outlier field, skewed to the commercial rather than the familial, with surprisingly little in common with the topical interests of family business researchers.

Help One Another, Use One Another: Toward An Anthropology of Family Business

Alex Stewart — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:19 PDT

Anthropological kinship theory is explored for potential contributions to a theory of family business. This paper considers the costs and benefits of a role for kinship in business. Both derive from the discrepancy between the normative orders of kinship and markets; respectively, long-term generalized reciprocity and short-term balanced reciprocity. Because the former reflects the morality of society as a whole, kinship integrates social fields more readily than more specialized orders like markets.

Skeptical about Family Business: Advancing the Field of Family Business in its Scholarship, Relevance, and Academic Role

Alex Stewart — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:18 PDT

The Prospects for Family Business in Research Universities

Alex Stewart et al. — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:17 PDT

Family business shows the promise of becoming a respected scholarly field in research universities. However, success is not a given. We inquire about its prospects, with reference to the sociology of science. A key requirement for success that has been met is identification with an important and distinctive domain of inquiry. This domain is at the intersection two phenomena - of kinship and business - but more attention has been paid to enterprise than to kinship. We suggest that this creates important windows for theoretical development, an important requirement for a core presence in research universities. We further suggest additional priorities, such as progress in journal and research quality, more developed links to pressing social issues such as international business, inclusion of family business issues in the credit curriculum, and faculty lines that create research continuity and legitimize research on family business.

A First Course in Entrepreneurship Fundamentals, Part II

Alex Stewart — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:56:16 PDT