Free U. of Bolzano, IMD Business School and Lancaster U., Italy
Drawing from an 18-month ethnography of BuildCo (pseudonym) – a family business that transferred ownership and leadership from first to second generation – we articulate the process that follows formal role transitions, role settling. At the broadest level, role settling explains how role entrants and incumbents infuse their roles with new meanings, broadening their previously taken-for-granted role boundaries. Understanding this process is important because the meanings that individuals ascribe to their roles guide their behaviors. In the context of role transitions, specifically, these meanings undergird organizational continuity, a precursor to firm longevity. At BuildCo, central to role settling were four phases: (1) identity auditing – the curated questioning of who I am as an organizational member and who we are as a collective; (2) expressing distinctiveness through artistic artifacts and activities; (3) manifesting care via extra-role behaviors; and (4) developing new role meanings by broadening previously taken-for-granted role boundaries. In explaining these phases, and articulating the connections between them, we make primary contributions to research on role transitions in organizations and, given our context, to family business scholarship.
