18823: Corporate Governance Research of Family Enterprises 3.0

The systematic integration of family business governance research across academic disciplines (entrepreneurship, strategy, finance, and family business) has occurred haphazardly. The first wave of research was driven by finance researchers and focused on the efficiency of corporate governance in family versus non-family firms (Anderson & Reeb, 2003; 2004). The second wave of research was led by research in strategy, finance, and family business and focused on how common best practices in corporate governance could help improve the efficiency of family businesses (Villalonga & Amit, 2009; Miller et al., 2011). While many important insights were gained, the growing complexity of the body of knowledge has led to many sub-discussions focusing on some aspects of family business governance within each discipline. Fewer efforts have been focused on overcoming the mixed and disjointed body of knowledge across disciplines. It has only been more recently, in what we coin the third wave of research, that academics have started to bridge the traditional family business literature with more modern family business research in other disciplines, recognizing that business-owning families different needs and challenges, such as their lived traditions and history, the larger family’s influence over the family owners, and the particular family dynamics, require tailored governance to enable business efficiency (Combs et al., 2020; Jaskiewicz et al., 2017). This symposium will focus on emerging theories, approaches, and insights that offer promise for strengthening and integrating research across disciplines to identify the unique drivers, characteristics, and outcomes of tailored family business governance. Despite the growing recognition that new forums are needed to unify parallel discussions on this topic, opportunities for such dialogue have been scarce. We have rallied academic experts who have led important discussions on different aspects of family business governance over the last few years to fill this gap. Each of these experts will share their perspective before engaging with the other experts and the audience about making contributions that transcend the siloed discussions on family business governance. Our symposium aims to synthesize current discussions across disciplines and develop a research agenda of vital interdisciplinary research opportunities