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Open research questions in Family Business Performance and Succession

220 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 1,931 Family Business Performance and Succession papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • The findings also indicate a need for theoretically decoupling sale from exit outcomes as an important but understudied window for imprinting theory.

    Exit Staged Right? Understanding Founder Imprints and Strategy Effects on the Sale and Transfer of a Hybrid Social Enterprise · 2026 · DOI

  • While the value of a founder’s emotional support is widely acknowledged, its impact on new venture performance remains underexplored.

    Emotional support and new venture performance: The role of founders’ family, friends and cultural context in East Asia · 2026 · DOI

  • Traditional leadership models remain underexplored as drivers of family business sustainability in non-Western contexts.

    Traditional leadership and firm performance in Indonesian family businesses: The mediating role of organisational citizenship behaviour · 2026 · DOI

  • Financial constraints sharply accelerate cash holding adjustment speed in family firms, suggesting that survival pressures override conservative strategies when external financing is scarce.

    Family control and optimal cash holding adjustment speed: evidence from African listed firms · 2026 · DOI

  • An important limitation of this research is not having a data panel for each company to estimate their evolution over time thus, as well as information related to compensation contracts for management teams.

    Women’s Participation in Top Management Business Positions and the Internationalization Process. Evidence for Chilean Companies · 2025 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the existing literature on family businesses, particularly in relation to the role of emotional intelligence in promoting talent retention. The research notes that prior studies have highlighted the importance of professionalizing management in family businesses, but have not fully explored the impact of emotional intelligence.

    GESTÃO DE PESSOAS E RETENÇÃO DE TALENTOS EM EMPRESAS FAMILIARES DE PEQUENO E MÉDIO PORTE · 2026 · DOI

  • Operational inefficiencies driven by undocumented workflows and centralized decision-making. Lack of clear decision rights and minimum process control mechanisms. Excessive concentration of decision authority at the owner level.

    Designing A Functional Organizational Structure for Business Sustainability in A Family-Owned Garment Sme: A Case Study of Ragam Jaya Garment House · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of structured coordination mechanisms in family-owned SMEs can lead to operational inefficiencies. The absence of clear decision rights and minimum process control mechanisms can hinder long-term business sustainability. The study addresses the gap in understanding organizational challenges in family-owned SMEs.

    Designing A Functional Organizational Structure for Business Sustainability in A Family-Owned Garment Sme: A Case Study of Ragam Jaya Garment House · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies substantial conceptual fragmentation and heterogeneous measurement practices in family involvement research. There is a need for more integrated, multidimensional approaches that reflect the complexity of how families participate in ownership, management, governance, and other aspects of family firms.

    Family Involvement and Firm Outcomes: a Bibliometric-Systematic Literature Review · 2026 · DOI

  • However, the issues of the development of successive behavior and the involvement of young people in family business (FB) remain largely understudied in Russia.

    Correlation Between Family Relationships and Entrepreneurial Intentions of Youth in Family Business Context · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the understanding of how emotional attachment and family identity influence financial decision-making in family SMEs. Prior research has not fully examined the impact of family influence and identification on cash holdings.

    Emotional attachment and cash holdings in family SMEs: the effect of family influence and identification · 2026 · DOI

  • The existing literature lacks a comparative analysis of Japanese and Indian family businesses. There is a gap in understanding the role of cultural codification and patriarchal gridlock in family business longevity.

    Cultural Codification and Patriarchal Gridlock: A Comparative Study of Longevity in Japanese and Indian Family Businesses · 2026 · DOI

  • The study identifies a gap in the literature regarding the relationship between organizational politics and innovation in family-owned SMEs. The research aims to address this gap by examining the mediating role of organizational climate.

    Redefining Organizational Politics: Implications for Organizational Climate and Work-Role Innovation in Family-Owned SMEs · 2026 · DOI

  • The research identifies a gap in the understanding of the factors that contribute to successful implementation of generational changes in family businesses. The study highlights the need for more research on the succession practices of domestic family businesses.

    The Challenges of Generational Changes and Their Awareness in the Life of Family Businesses · 2026 · DOI

  • Originality/value This study extends the F-PEC framework beyond its quantitative origins, integrates it with the dualistic model of passion and surfaces gender as a conditioning, intersecting influence largely absent from prior F-PEC-based research – a data-generated hypothesis warranting further investigation, contributing context-specific insight from an underrepresented Gulf setting.

    Family influence, gender and entrepreneurial passion in Saudi family businesses · 2026 · DOI

  • The tension between change and continuity in family firms. The need to sustain viability while navigating persistent demands for legacy preservation, professionalization, innovation, and growth.

    Strategic tensions and adaptive equilibrium in family firms: A middle-range theory of sustainable transformation · 2026 · DOI

  • Existing theories explain the pattern of family firm transformation only partially. Configuration theory often treats organizational forms as states to be classified rather than positions to be traversed, explaining the existence of configurations more readily than the movement between them.

    Strategic tensions and adaptive equilibrium in family firms: A middle-range theory of sustainable transformation · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a lack of research on how the characteristics of family SMEs affect their digital transformation. The study addresses the gap by examining the effect of family involvement, culture, and human resource skills on digital transformation.

    Digital Transformation in Family SMEs: The Effects of Family Involvement, Culture, and Human Resource Skills · 2026 · DOI

  • There is a need to understand the management particularities of family businesses. The study identifies a gap in the literature regarding the challenges faced by family businesses and the strategies for overcoming them.

    ANÁLISE DE ALGUNS DESAFIOS VIVENCIADOS POR EMPRESAS FAMILIARES NO BRASIL · 2026 · DOI

  • The literature on the link between leadership succession and performance remains mixed. There is a gap in understanding the intermediate mechanisms through which succession influences performance. The paper identifies a need to articulate the logic of disruption, adaptation, and strategic arbitrage in the context of executive succession.

    Executive Succession and Performance of European Listed Companies: The Mediating Role of ESG Performance · 2026 · DOI

  • The mixed evidence on the relationship between family ownership and CSR outcomes. The lack of understanding of how family ownership influences governance design to shape CSR behavior. The need to clarify how ownership and CSR committee composition influence CSR spending beyond compliance.

    Family Ownership and CSR Overspending: Evidence from India on the Mediating Role of CSR Committee Composition · 2026 · DOI

  • Methodologically, the combination of PLS-SEM and NCA provides new insights into the sufficiency and necessity of family firm resources – an underexplored area in family business research.

    How does familiness drive knowledge accumulation in family firms? PLS-SEM and NCA insights on the role of family essence · 2026 · DOI

  • Consequently, how family CEOs’ temporal focus shapes BMI, and how these effects vary across environmental conditions, remains insufficiently understood.

    CEO's temporal focus and business model innovation in family firms under environmental dynamism · 2026 · DOI

  • While existing research has extensively examined corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies, the role of individual decision-makers in initiating and structuring these engagements remains underexplored.

    Leader commitment: owner’s motivations for involvement in their small business · 2025 · DOI

  • Future research could examine whether similar patterns hold in private firms and explore the mechanisms and institutional conditions that shape ESG outcomes during succession.

    Leadership succession and corporate sustainability: international evidence from family firms · 2025 · DOI

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220 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 1,931 Family Business Performance and Succession papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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