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OWNERSHIP, PURPOSE & RELATIONSHIPS: A HUMAN-CENTRIC VIEW ON FAMILY FIRMS
Ownership is a fundamental dimension that uniquely defines family businesses (Brundin et al., 2014; Connelly et al., 2010). Unlike business structures where ownership is widely dispersed or formed through coalitions of institutional and industrial investors pushing more towards profit as a pure goal, family businesses are generally characterized by a combination of personal values, traditions, and long-term commitments. Specifically, dispersed ownership structures tend to emphasize profit-driven goals due to market orientation and the need to establish common ground among diverse shareholders with potentially conflicting interests (Durand, 2023; Gedajlovic & Carney, 2012). In contrast, family businesses are characterized by the integration of several key nonfinancial elements of ownership into the strategic and operational decisions of the business: the relationship among the owning family and their interactions with various stakeholders—including employees, customers, suppliers, and the local community (e.g., Aguilera, 2023). These close connections between family and nonfamily stakeholders create an organizational environment where nonprofit-driven goals, such as preserving the family legacy, ensuring employee welfare, building lasting customer relationships, fostering loyal supplier partnerships, and contributing to community development, are as prominent as financial objectives.
This purposeful approach to ownership stands in stark contrast to the impersonal nature of technostructural algorithmic in decision-making that is increasingly prevalent in many market-driven contemporary business environments (Lindebaum, Vesa, & Den Hond, 2020). While algorithms and data-driven strategies offer efficiency and scalability, they largely lack human elements that are instead embedded in family businesses. The purpose of family businesses depends on the people and relationships behind the organization (DesJardine et al., 2023). For instance, families exercise ownership rights and leverage their competence to bring shared values, traditions, and long-term commitments to the business (e.g., Foss et al., 2021; Schulze & Zellweger, 2021). These values often include a sense of responsibility towards preserving the family legacy, maintaining the family’s reputation, and ensuring the business remains a source of pride for future generations. Furthermore, family businesses often develop solid and loyal relationships with nonfamily internal and external stakeholders grounded in trust and mutual respect. Employees are treated as extended family, customer relationships are built on long-term satisfaction rather than short-term profits, and suppliers are seen as partners in success (e.g., Cennamo et al., 2012). The local community benefits from the family business’s commitment to social responsibility and community development. These relationships foster a sense of loyalty and shared purpose (e.g., Suddaby et al., 2023). Decision- making in this context is relational (e.g., Ben-Shahar et al., 2023), considering the impact on family dynamics and stakeholders’ well-being.
Although Artificial Intelligence and algorithms may improve decision-making efficiency and maximize short-term profits, they often overlook the long-term impacts on relationships and community well-being. This is because they lack the ability to understand the contexts that human relationships and values bring to business decisions. Purposeful ownership in family businesses often involves personal accountability, where family members take responsibility for the outcomes of their choices and often tie them to ethical ideals (Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2020). This accountability is deeply rooted in their personal and family identity, unlike algorithmic decisions that can diffuse responsibility, making it challenging to assign accountability for adverse outcomes.
Thus, ownership with purpose in family businesses is fundamentally dependent on people and relationships. This human-centric approach ensures that business decisions are aligned with the values, missions, and long-term goals of the family, fostering a sense of purpose that transcends mere profitability (e.g., George et al., 2021).
Based on these crucial considerations, we propose as a theme for IFERA 2025 “Ownership with Purpose: People and relationships.” The theme aims to explore the unique role that family firms play in fostering purposeful ownership that involves and prioritizes people and relationships over impersonal algorithmic decision-making. We invite scholars to investigate how the interplay of family and business dynamics drives purposeful ownership and the implications of such endeavors. Key areas of focus include but are not limited to:
Purpose and impact:
Family conflict and resolution:
Succession and Leadership:
Employee relationships and retention:
Interpersonal relationships:
Gender roles and inclusion:
Motivation and engagement:
Mentorship and development:
Work-family balance:
We look forward to your submissions!
IFERA 2025 welcomes a varied and wide range of submissions to create a vibrant conference environment among family business scholars. Submission types include:
Aguilera, R. V. (2023). Corporate purpose in comparative perspective: The role of governance. Strategy Science, 8(2), 193-201.
Ben-Shahar, D., Carmeli, A., Sulganik, E., & Weiss, D. (2023). Power and dominant coalitions in family business. Academy of Management Review, 48(3), 530-555.
Brundin, E., Samuelsson, E. F., & Melin, L. (2014). Family ownership logic: Framing the core characteristics of family businesses. Journal of Management & Organization, 20(1), 6- 37.
Cennamo, C., Berrone, P., Cruz, C., & Gomez–Mejia, L. R. (2012). Socioemotional wealth and proactive stakeholder engagement: Why family–controlled firms care more about their stakeholders. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 36(6), 1153-1173.
Connelly, B. L., Tihanyi, L., Certo, S. T., & Hitt, M. A. (2010). Marching to the beat of different drummers: The influence of institutional owners on competitive actions. Academy of Management Journal, 53(4), 723-742.
DesJardine, M. R., Zhang, M., & Shi, W. (2023). How shareholders impact stakeholder interests: A review and map for future research. Journal of Management, 49(1), 400-429.
Durand, R. (2023). From the boardroom: Making purpose research relevant for practice. Strategy Science, 8(2), 149-158.
Foss, N. J., Klein, P. G., Lien, L. B., Zellweger, T., & Zenger, T. (2021). Ownership competence. Strategic Management Journal, 42(2), 302-328.
Gedajlovic, E., Carney, M., Chrisman, J. J., & Kellermanns, F. W. (2012). The adolescence of family firm research: Taking stock and planning for the future. Journal of Management, 38(4), 1010-1037.
George, G., Haas, M. R., McGahan, A. M., Schillebeeckx, S. J., & Tracey, P. (2023). Purpose in the for-profit firm: A review and framework for management research. Journal of Management, 49(6), 1841-1869.
Le Breton-Miller, I., & Miller, D. (2020). Ideals-based accountability and reputation in select family firms. Journal of Business Ethics, 163(2), 183-196.
Lindebaum, D., Vesa, M., & Den Hond, F. (2020). Insights from “the machine stops” to better understand rational assumptions in algorithmic decision making and its implications for organizations. Academy of Management Review, 45(1), 247-263.
Schulze, W., & Zellweger, T. (2021). Property rights, owner-management, and value creation. Academy of Management Review, 46(3), 489-511.
Suddaby, R., Manelli, L., & Fan, Z. (2023). Corporate purpose: A social judgement perspective. Strategy Science, 8(2), 202-211.
Submit before January 27, 2025.
We strongly believe that sessions that do not relate with paper presentations are equally important and beneficial to the delegate’s experience. We also realized that this is a great opportunity for our community to actively contribute to the conference program and bring fresh perspectives and people to the floor.
So, we would like to invite all of you to challenge yourself and finally bring to life that idea currently sitting in the back of your head.
As much as we love building our scientific program, we really think that you can be more innovative and improve the IFERA experience even more.
We are looking for sessions in the form of panels, workshops, debates, interviews, invited speakers, experiments and any other innovative format you can think of.
The session should be relevant to our audience and should be:
Please send a proposal to office@ifera.org by January 20 that includes the following points:
The proposal must be sent as a word file.
This proposal is referred to a one-hour session at the IFERA 2025 Annual Conference in Punta Skala, Zadar, Croatia.
Slots dedicated to special sessions will be on June 11, 12 and 13 and will be allocated in any of these 3 dates by the Program Committee.
The author/s of the proposal, if selected, will be the session chair/s.
As a chair you will be responsible for the overall organization and coordination of the session, and you will provide the IFERA Office with all relevant info in a timely manner.
All speakers are welcome to contribute to their session and attend all other academic sessions on the same day at no charge. However, we would kindly ask them to register if they have a paper to present at the conference or they wish to participate in the full program and the social events.
May you need any further information about the process, please write an email to office@ifera.org.
Good luck with your proposal!
GO TO THE SUBMISSION WEBSITE AT: IFERA 2025 – ExOrdo
Once you have accessed the website click on “New Submission” from the Submissions section.
The conference is organized around multiple tracks. Please read carefully the general and track-specific guidelines, and make sure you are making the correct choice for your submission. Once you make your selection you will be guided by the system to input all the relevant information for your selected track.
IFERA 2025 welcomes a varied and wide range of submissions to create a vibrant conference environment among family business scholars. The program will be organized in two main parts: the Academic Program and the Research Development Program. These include the following submission types:
The Program Committee reserves the right to change the original submission type at its discretion, based on reviewers feedback and conference program constraints. In such a case, the Program Committee will contact the authors and offer the alternative presentation format.
Upon completion of peer review, if your submission is selected for inclusion in the conference, you will be notified with the decision on the presentation format of your submission.
All submissions are deemed as final after the main deadline. Therefore the following will not be accepted after the deadline.
Cancellation of registration is not eligible for refunds. In case of cancellation the registration can be transferred to another author of the same paper. In case of single authored papers, 50% of the paid registration will be applied to the next year’s conference registration fee
The following guidelines apply to all submission types:
The title page should not contain author information. Just include the title of the manuscript and abstract in the first page.
Limit: 150 words
A concise abstract is required. The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal results and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separately from the article, so it must be able to stand alone. For this reason, references should be avoided, but if essential, then cite the author(s) and year(s). Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself.
Please follow APA style for references both in-text and in the reference section located at the end of the paper. References within the text of your manuscript: Use the author-date method of citation. For instance, “As noted by Smith (1776).”
Reference to a journal publication:Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J. A. J., & Lupton, R. A. (2010). The art of writing a scientific article. Journal of Scientific Communications, 163, 51–59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk, W., Jr., & White, E. B. (1979). The elements of style. (4th ed.). New York: Longman, (Chapter 4).
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G. R., & Adams, L. B. (2009). How to prepare an electronic version of your article. In B. S. Jones, & R. Z. Smith (Eds.), Introduction to the electronic age (pp. 281–304). New York: E-Publishing Inc.
Please follow a consistent format and for more details regarding the APA style please visit: http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/henrichsenl/apa/apa01.html
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