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2025 AOM Annual Meeting

ENT

SIM

OMT

10140: The Social Impact of Family Firms

Saturday, July 26, 2025
08:30 - 10:30 CEST (GMT+2)
Location: Bella Center: Hall D- D1-m4
Session Type: PDW (workshop)
Orientation: Research
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/yKALn6
Family firms are pivotal to economies worldwide; yet their social impact remains an open question. Existing literature shows puzzling findings, such as better or worse environmental practices, human rights protection, and community engagement. This inconclusiveness may stem from overemphasizing family owners and internal firm dynamics while ignoring other internal and external stakeholders. Therefore, we argue that a comprehensive exploration of the ‘bright’ and ‘dark’ sides of family firms is crucial to better understand their societal roles. This PDW aims to facilitate an interdisciplinary dialogue to critically discuss these societal impacts and formulate a research agenda addressing existing knowledge gaps. Specifically, we discuss the social impacts in five areas: (1) Well-being and (Mental) Health—how family members and non-family employees manage their psychology; (2) Strategy and Identity—how strategic transformations and identity shifts in family firms impact stakeholders, competitors, and industries; (3) Family Offices—how family investment companies influence society through investment choices and preferences; (4) Social Embeddedness and Capital—how the family’s connections in the local setting influence the regional development; and (5) Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)—whether family owners’ unique goals promote or hinder responsible behavior on firm level. This session features interactive roundtables led by the PDW panelists in their respective focus areas. These discussions aim to establish a research agenda across the five critical areas and stimulate interdisciplinary collaboration on the societal effects of family firms.