Asia Pac J Manag DOI 10.

1007/s10490-013-9350-z

Asian family enterprises and family business research

Pramodita Sharma & Jess H. Chua

# Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Abstract This article discusses some of the notable trends in family business research. The critical role of context in building usable knowledge on family enterprises is highlighted. The Asia Pacific region offers a plethora of unique opportunities to build such knowledge as illustrated by some articles in this Special Issue. Families and their enterprises are integral to all Asia Pacific countries. However, the heterogeneity of institutional development and conditions in which these enterprises must operate offer unique research opportunities for scholars to build deeper understanding of family enterprises and contribute to the global knowledge in this important field of study. Keywords Family business . Asia Pacific . Heterogeneity . Strategic management . Context Research on family enterprises has made impressive strides in the past 25 years as shown by the fields growth in terms of number and diversity of scholars, dissertations, and articles being published in the best of outlets. As noted by the editors of the 25th anniversary issue of the Family Business Review, the field has made great
P. Sharma School of Business Administration, University of Vermont, 320 Kalkin Hall, 55 Colchester Avenue, Burlington, VT 05405, USA e-mail: psharma@bsad.uvm.edu P. Sharma Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices, Babson College, Wellesley, MA, USA J. H. Chua Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive, NW, Calgary, AB T2N1N4, Canada J. H. Chua (*) School of Management, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China e-mail: jess.chua@haskayne.ucalgary.ca

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progress in the three Rs of researchrigor, relevance, and reach (Sharma, Chrisman, & Gersick, 2012). Perhaps even more stimulating for scholars in the field is that much exciting and important work remains to be done and the future is bright (Craig & Salvato, 2012). Among the notable trends revealed by recent reviews of family business studies, two are particularly relevant to this Special Issue: (1) the Western slant of the current literature on family enterprises; and (2) the increased dominance of business approaches and virtual disappearance of family focused ones. Based on a comprehensive review of the 251 most-cited articles on family enterprises published in 33 journals between 19962010, De Massis, Sharma, Chua, and Chrisman (2012) observed that 73 % of the empirical studies focused on American and European family enterprises indicating a Western skew in our current knowledge about these firms. These authors called for understanding contextual nuances by conducting more research on the under-represented areas of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Such an approach, they argued, is necessary to test the robustness and generalizability of current theories and research findings, and build new knowledge applicable to family enterprises around the world. Another wide-ranging review and analysis of 2,240 articles on family enterprises published between 19852010 led James, Jennings, and Breitkreuz (2012) to conclude that not only is there the increased dominance of publication outlets and theoretical perspectives associated with business but also the near disappearance of those associated with family (87). James et al. (2012) join a growing coterie of researchers urging family business scholars to devote efforts to: understanding variations among families and their involvement in business, and how such variations affect and, in turn, are affected by the survival, growth, and performance of family enterprises (e.g., Colli, 2012; Yu, Lumpkin, Sorenson, & Brigham, 2012). This Special Issue of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management (APJM) is a timely counterpoint to the heretofore Western focus of researchers and a response to the call for more attention to the family side of the familybusiness dyad. By bringing together insightful articles on key aspects of strategic management in family enterprises from China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan, the papers in this Special Issue form an important compendium of research broadening the geographic reach of the field. By taking a nuanced view of family and the effects of its involvement in business, this Special Issue responds to the call by James et al. (2012) and De Massis et al. (2012), thereby opening rich avenues for future research. Our aim in this introductory article is to bring attention to a few notable trends in family business studies and point toward a few promising opportunities for future research. To accomplish this objective, we start with a brief discussion of the role of context in research and some of the particularities of the Asia Pacific context. Against this contextual backdrop, we discuss the tenacious and persistent question of defining the family business and how it influences and opens opportunities for family enterprise research in the Asia Pacific region. In the section on strategic management, we briefly share the status of current knowledge on some of the most studied topics and how articles in this Special Issue contribute to those discussions. Throughout the article, we suggest avenues for future research. Some reflections from a practitioner perspective are shared in the concluding section.

Asian family enterprises and family business research

Role of context in family enterprise research Context refers to the surroundings associated with the phenomenon of interest (Cappelli & Sherer, 1991). For example, an organization or a family provides context for an individual and the economic, political, social, and technological environment provides context for family enterprises. Commenting on research in organizational behavior, Johns (2006: 386) remarked that context can have both subtle and powerful effects on research results, as it is a likely culprit for the between-study variations in results as well as anomalous findings. He suggests that by taking the context into account, a scholar would be able to shed light on the relationships between variables at a lower level of analysis and help make research and theory part of the larger whole. The powerful influence of context is being experienced in family business studies as well. For example, in this literature, financial performance is among the most frequently studied variables (Yu et al., 2012). Reviews of empirical research focused on this variable reveal inconsistent findings and insignificant results that are affected by the definitions used and contextual factors such as location, industry, and institutional environment (e.g., Amit & Villalonga, 2013; Stewart & Hitt, 2012). These observations should caution family business researchers about paying more attention to context in their research. The Asia Pacific region is an important arena for considering context in family business research for several reasons (Globerman, Peng, & Shapiro, 2011). First, the national economies are dominated by family controlled businesses. Second, while there are some similarities across nations within the region, each country possesses its own unique history, culture, and socio-political environment. Third, the countries are at varying stages of institutional development. Fourth, there have been high rates of economic growth in the past few decades. These differences and changes are conditions that allow us to study the impacts of context on family enterprises and the variety of pathways adopted by them in pursuing their visions. In fact, several articles in this Special Issue incorporate the particularities of their context quite effectively. For example, private enterprises have proliferated in China since the government liberalized the economy in 1978 and established the Economic and Technology Development Zones (ETDZs) to build high-tech industries, attract foreign capital, and boost exports. This set of contextual factors enabled Deng, Hofman, and Newman (2013) to focus their study on understanding the impact of single versus multiple owners and firms zoning location on the R&D expenditure and product innovation by small- and medium-sized family firms across China. Au, Chiang, Britch, and Ding (2013) describe the evolution and remarkable growth of an enterprise that used the front shop, back factory split of value adding activities between Hong Kong and China to make the best of contextual changes in the relationship between these two economies. In Taiwan, as a reaction to the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997, the government instituted governance reforms in 2002 that require listed firms to appoint outside directors. This change of laws provided Su and Lee (2013) an excellent observation period to study the impact of outside directors appointed voluntarily before the law came into effect, and after it, on the risk taking behaviors of companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The Japanese electric machinery industry, having gone through highs

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and lows since the 1980s, provides another excellent context for studying how changes in industrial environment influence long-term investments by family firmsa behavior that is necessary for competitive advantage in this industry (Asaba, 2013). Aside from the empirical studies taking advantage of contextual changes, two theoretical articles in this Special Issue illustrate how contextual factors can be incorporated into theory building to provide unique insights. Drawing upon social identity theory, Sauerwald and Peng (2013) address factors that influence the formation of informal institutions such as shareholder coalition among minority shareholders and how such coalitions, in turn, impact principalprincipal conflicts. These authors challenge the assumption underlying most of the governance research that families vote their ownership stake collectively. Instead they develop theory to explain how and when such coalitions may or may not occur depending on the internal structures of families. While the study is especially pertinent in Asia with its prevalence of concentrated family ownership and weakly developed formal institutions, the direction of research is applicable to family firms in all other regions or countries that operate within similar contexts. On the other hand, Saxena (2013) uses the contextual changes in the Indian political and legal environment before and after the independence of the country from British rule in 1947 to help us understand the formation and growth of large family business groups in India. By further separating the context into eastern and southern India, he makes interesting observations about the differential impact of family cohesion on family business group formation. He finds that compared to the more traditional south, family feuds are more rampant among family business groups in eastern India. Thus, the article suggests that future research should not ignore within-country differences in contextual forces. These empirical and theoretical articles illustrate the importance of incorporating context to build rich insights into the behaviors of family enterprises. In short, while scholars in management have argued for the critical role of context for many decades, effective incorporation of context in management research has remained lackadaisical largely because of the challenges in designing and implementing such investigations (Johns, 2006). As evidenced by the conflicting research results concerning the financial performance of family enterprises (Jiang & Peng, 2011), the field of family business studies also seems to suffer from the same deficiency. Thus, this Special Issue is refreshing in its coverage of how the Asia Pacific regions many unique cultures, observation periods, and institutional arrangements affect family enterprises and are, in turn, affected by them. It is a great start but much more work lies ahead for scholars as we begin to incorporate context in our research studies.

Family enterprise and enterprising family In addition to context, a second factor that has led to conflicting observations about family firm behavior and performance is the definition used in research (e.g., Amit & Villalonga, 2013). Since inception, researchers have focused on the business unit level when defining the family firm. At this firm centered level, distinction is made in terms of family involvement in the business and the essence produced through such involvement (Chrisman, Chua, & Sharma, 2005; Chua, Chrisman, & Sharma, 1999).

Asian family enterprises and family business research

Family involvement has typically been conceptualized in terms of ownership, management, and governance while essence has been attributed to resources (Habbershon & Williams, 1999), intention (Churchill & Hatten, 1987), and behavior (Chua et al., 1999). Operationally, involvement has been easier to measure than essence. As a result, researchers have been employing multiple criteria in their attempts to capture both involvement and essence and the heterogeneity among family firms along these two dimensions (De Massis et al., 2012). More recently, however, with the realization that families are often involved simultaneously in multiple enterprises, the attention of scholars is beginning to shift to family centered definitions (e.g., Zellweger, Nason, & Nordqvist, 2012). There are some early articles beginning to study the different family members such as different types of in-laws in the Philippines (Santiago, 2011) or adopted versus biological sons in Japan (Mehrotra, Morck, Jungwook, & Wiwattanakantang, 2011). Overall, however, despite a general agreement that family involvement distinguishes family business studies from other disciplines (Litz, Pearson, & Litchfield, 2012; Yu et al., 2012), much of the research fails to either define family clearly or distinguish families in terms of structure, composition, or behavior. Even measures such as F-PEC or the family climate scale aimed to capture the nature and mode of family involvement in business or family processes are silent on the items required to capture the dimensions of variations or boundary assumptions of the respondent on the key construct of family (Bjrnberg & Nicholson, 2007; Holt, Rutherford, & Kuratko, 2010; Klein, Astrachan, & Smyrnios, 2005). Thus, the data collected may contain a mix of assumptions and dimensions making the key construct unreliable. Some green shoots of ideas are emerging on the components and essence based definitions of family. For example, Sharma and Salvato (2013) proposed that when thinking of family involvement in business, a component based instrumental definition of family could address the boundary related questions such as which family members can be owners, managers, or governors of a firm. Variables such as relationship (by blood, marriage, or adoption), birth order, generation, or habitation can be considered in such a definition and measures could be developed to capture related variations within the sample studied. On the other hand, the essence based definition of family could incorporate features such as shared history and commitment to a future together (cf. Hoy & Sharma, 2010). Variables such as family cohesion and adaptability can then be used as antecedents or moderators or consequences of variations in family involvement and behaviors (Reay & Whetten, 2011). In the West, due to the changed societal norms and the transition into the digital age, family structures now include cohabitating couples, nuclear families, blended families, and extended families (Becker, 1991). As kinship groups in the more traditional Asia Pacific region slowly evolve from the predominance of extended families toward a larger variety in family composition, the region offers family business researchers an exciting laboratory for studying how the dynamics of such changes affect the behavior and performance of family enterprises (Globerman et al., 2011; Jiang & Peng, 2011). The choice of couples to have fewer children will result in a beanpole structure of the familyincreased height with more generations in the work place but reduced breadth for each generation (Markson, 2007). This effect may be more pronounced in China than in other parts of the world because of its one child policy; however, this remains to be seen because wealthy families

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appear to be able and willing to pay the penalties imposed by the government for having more than one child. In short, when it comes to studying family involvement in business, more attention will have to be paid to defining the family variable and understanding its variations. The important task of developing scales to capture such variations is pending. Scholars interested in family enterprises in the Asia Pacific region have a great contextual advantage to understanding the nuances of variations in family, not only because of the above mentioned reasons, but also because of the large immigrant populations in Western countries with roots in Asia. For example, how does migration influence family boundaries, processes, and in turn, the family enterprises? For scholars interested in undertaking this important work to enrich our understanding of family firms, three sources are likely to be a great starting point: (1) A compendium of scales used in family business studies by Pearson, Holt, and Carr (2013); (2) Yu et al.s (2012) comprehensive review of all dependent variables studied in the literature; and (3) James et al.s (2012) review of theories from family science that would complement the frequently used agency or resource based theories. Strategic management of family enterprises and enterprising families Between 1996 and 2010, the most studied topics in family business, based on the 251 articles reviewed by De Massis et al. (2012), are the following: & & & & & Corporate governance (45; 17.9 %) Succession (27; 10.7 %) Economic performance (20; 7.9 %) Resources and competitive advantage (16; 6.3 %) Entrepreneurship and innovation (13; 5.2 %)

Listed in parentheses is the number and percentage of articles on each topic. In this section, we briefly comment on the current status of knowledge about each topic and some reflections on areas where more research would be helpful. Corporate governance Two recent thorough reviews from the theoretical and implementation perspectives of studies about corporate governance in family firms point toward the need to incorporate the contextual factors such as legal system, capital market, or cultural traditions in such research (Gersick & Neus 2013; Goel, Jusilla, & Ikheimonen, 2013). Both observe the US and European focus of the extant literature and urge more studies about family firms within the emerging economy context in which we might find more variations. Goel et al. (2013) explain contexts fundamental effect on corporate governance issues of interest as follows: In developed economies, because ownership and control are often separated and legal mechanisms protect owners, the governance conflicts that receive the lions share of attention are the principalagent (PA) conflicts between owners (principals) and managers (agents) (Jensen & Meckling, 1976). However, in emerging economies, the institutional context generally makes the enforcement of agency contracts more costly (North, 1990; Wright et al., 2005). This results in the prevalence of a more concentrated firm ownership (Dharwadkar et al.,

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2000). Concentrated ownership, combined with an absence of effective external governance mechanisms, is believed to result in more frequent conflicts between controlling and minority shareholders (Morck et al., 2005). This new perspective has come to be known as the principalprincipal (PP) model of corporate governance. Against this backdrop, the PP focus of theorizing by Sauerwald and Peng (2013) in this Special Issue, which extends Young, Peng, Ahlstrom, Bruton, and Jiang (2008), is not only timely but also critical. Clearly more work is needed to understand whether the governance structures adopted in other countries might also be useful in the Asia Pacific region. Or, as Au et al.s (2013) impressive longitudinal study indicates, are there governance practices and systems being developed by progressive enterprises in Asian countries that may be usefully adopted by family enterprises in other regions of the world. Researchers need to understand how variance in family structures and composition or behaviors influence business related variables of interest. For example, Gersick and Neus (2013) reflected on the critical role of family circle on governance of family enterprises and how it distinguishes these enterprises from all others: [The] first two sets of governance tasks (ownership and management) are generic to all corporations. It is the governance tasks in the family circle that are distinctive in family enterprise. Here the effectiveness of governance depends on its ability to serve the needs the family, extending beyond current shareholders to include all those who are related by blood, adoption, or marriage and share a psychological sense of enterprise ownershippast, present, and future. The purposes of governance in this circle are to clarify the demands and rewards of family membership in relation to the business, to define and communicate the opportunities for involvement in all of the familys collaborative ventures, to facilitate information flow in ways that maximizes trust and minimizes manipulation, to establish and oversee the non-business/non-financial aspects of the enterprise (often including philanthropy), and most of all to enhance a sense of belonging throughout the extended family, across the subcategories of branch and generation. When governance in the family circle is working well, it nurtures the emergence of the familys shared dream (Lansberg, 1999; Gersick et al., 1997), and then it structures the operationalization of that dream in organizational practice. Governance failure in this circle risks loss of commitment and, as a result, loss of continuity. Future research on corporate governance will need to incorporate family related variables to understand how systems and processes used to govern the family influence (and are influenced by) those established for oversight of ownership and management of an enterprise (Sharma, 2004). Gersick and Neus (2013) call for more research to understand changes in governance over time as families and their enterprises evolve. Another promising area of research is the role of non-family directors. In this Special Issue, Su and Lees (2013) study begins to understand this role pointing to the need to distinguish outside directors according to their varied degrees of separation from the controlling family. As the legal and financial institutions evolve in the Asia

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Pacific region, it would be interesting to understand how the informal and formal means of governance are balanced. Succession A perennial favorite of family business scholars, succession lost its number one spot as the most researched topic in the field only in the most recent reviews (De Massis et al., 2012; Yu et al., 2012). Nevertheless, it remains a core topic encompassing a breadth of sub-topics such as process and the event of succession; the incumbents and the organizations readiness; and the motivations, preparation, and desirable attributes of the successor. Based on a review of research on succession in family business studies, Long and Chrisman (2013) observed that research has heretofore been directed toward understanding intra-family transitions in a family firm. Although scholars differentiate between management and ownership transition, most work remains focused on top management transition. For interested scholars, the systematic and thorough description of the current status of knowledge on succession and avenues for future investigation by Long and Chrismans chapter is a great resource. These scholars suggest the need to simultaneously model the micro-, meso-, and macro-level constructs and cross-level interactions if we are to understand succession in family enterprises more completely. Highlighting the importance of context, they encourage researchers to explicate the social dynamics and institutional factors amidst which succession is taking place. Resonating with studies from other regions, some research from India indicates the reducing importance of primogeniture and gender in successor selection (Sharma & Rao, 2000). Related to this, Saxena (2013) models the role of family relations and changes in the external environment on succession in family business groups. Au et al. (2013) describe how providing the next generation family members with systematic guidance, through educational and experiential targets to accomplish in different life stages, can imbue in the next generation the entrepreneurial spirit needed to keep the family enterprise competitive and growing. The Asia Pacific offers a large diversity of family enterprises ranging from some of the oldest ones in the world, such as the Japanese innkeepers Houshi Ryokan founded in 717 and operated by the Houshi family for 46 generations, to young high growth firms such as the Automatic Manufacturing Limited in Hong Kong (Au et al., 2013). Following the cue from Long and Chrismans (2013) encouragement of including institutional and multi-level factors in the study of succession, research can be designed to understand the similarities and differences in long-lived firms across the world in terms of how cultural factors and economic evolution impact succession. Additionally, the younger firms within the region can be compared to the long-lived ones in terms of their strategic orientation when it comes to planning for survival and transitions. Economic performance Research on economic or financial performance of family enterprises has largely been focused at the firm level of analysis (Jiang & Peng, 2011). While conflicting results are common, in general, founder managed family firms tend to outperform their non-family counterparts but superior performance is less clear for descendant managed firms (Amit & Villalonga, 2013; Stewart & Hitt, 2012). Most of the research has focused on publicly listed large firms although a small segment of literature has involved private firms. The empirical relationship

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between family involvement and firm performance appears to be multi-faceted and complex, influenced by factors such as the definition of family firm used (Villalonga & Amit, 2006), espoused goals of the enterprise (McKenny, Short, Zachary, & Payne, 2012), balance of economic and non-economic goals of the controlling family (Berrone, Cruz, & Gomez-Mejia, 2012), and the nature of family involvement in business (Sciascia & Mazzola, 2008). Reflecting on the measurement of family firm performance, business historian Andrea Colli (2012) noted the critical role of context as follows: Performance as value creation and transmission thus becomes a mobile, or multiple, concept, which varies across time and space, according to prevalent values, which are, in turn, the production of culture and institutions (italics added; 255256). Scholars interested in pursuing research on performance of family firms will benefit from thinking of this variable as a pluralperformanceS rather than a singular because enterprising families have long been known to embrace a combination of economic and non-economic objectives (e.g., Ward, 1987). Furthermore, given that the large majority of family enterprises are private and capital market measures of value creation are unavailable, researchers will benefit from employing multiple methods to capture performance and value creation by these firms. For this purpose, measures of performance and value creation are now available in the literature (e.g., Amit & Villalonga, 2013; Berrone et al., 2012; Colli, 2012; Pearson et al., 2013; Stewart & Hitt, 2012). Of course, which combination of measures is the most appropriate for a study will vary depending on the objectives of the investigation and context within which it is conducted. A recent Special Issue of Family Business Review on this topic is likely to be a good resource for this line of inquiry (Sharma & Carney, 2012). Another fruitful direction of research lies in understanding performance at the group or portfolio level rather than at the firm level of analysis (cf. Zellweger et al., 2012). Resources and competitive advantages It was in 1999 that Habbershon and Williams introduced the construct of familiness to describe the idiosyncratic resources created as a result of family involvement in business. According to these authors, family involvement in business could have a positive or negative effect on resources (Habbershon, Williams, & McMillan, 2003). This work sparked interest of scholars to understand the creation and utilization of different forms of resources such as the social-, human-, survivability-, knowledge-, and family-capital (e.g., Sirmon & Hitt, 2003). Hoy and Sharma (2010) built a conceptual framework indicating the key role of human capital in effective building and utilization of other forms of capital. De Massis et al. (2012) provide a succinct summary of this research. While research focused on financial capital is largely conducted under the rubric of economic performance, several interesting studies of pathways used by dynastic and progressive family firms to expand their human and family capitals are available. For example, boundaries and networks of the controlling family are expanded through arranged marriages in Thailand or adoption of adult sons in Japan (Bunkanwanicha, Fan, & Wiwattanakantang, 2008; Mehrotra et al., 2011). Non-family directors and executives have been found to play an integral role in the continuity and transformation of firms in all regions of the world (e.g., Hatum, 2007; Landes, 2006; Salvato, Chirico, & Sharma, 2010; Salvato, Minichilli, & Piccarreta, 2012). Au et al.s (2013) article in this Special Issue is likely to open new avenues of research as it provides the first indication in the field of how entrepreneurial family firms are using their

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enterprises to imbue and build the entrepreneurial skills and capabilities of the next generation of family members. It is interesting to note that, in some stages of the developmental process, non-family executives play a critical part while, in others, they do not. Such warp and weft of family and non-family members in dynastic innovative firms as they professionalize has been observed in other regions as well (e.g., Bergfeld & Weber, 2011; Stewart & Hitt, 2012). Much interesting work on the development and career planning of family and non-family members in family enterprises awaits attention. For example, how do family business groups use the resources and opportunities available to them in developing and testing the leadership talents of its high potential family candidates? Social capital is another type of resource that has attracted the attention of family enterprise researchers. For example, Arregle, Hitt, Sirmon, and Very (2007) and Pearson, Carr, and Shaw (2008) theorized the dimensions of social capital, while Steier (2007) traced the role of familys social capital in the creation of a new venture. Distinction is made between internally focused bonding capital and externally focused bridging capital (e.g., Sharma, 2008). Based on multiple case studies, Su and Carney (2013) distinguish between four levels of bridging social capital: (1) ties with government or state-owned organizations, (2) geographical or interest based community social capital, (3) organizational social capital between employees, and (4) kinship based family social capital. They suggest that as kinship based capital is abundant in China, the competitive advantages for family enterprises lie in richer orchestration of the other forms of capital. Song and Wangs (2013) article provides empirical support for the second form of social capital proposed by Su and Carney (2013). Their study of 132 small and medium enterprises in the Yangtze River Delta region of China indicates that relational strength lowers interest rates and collateral required to support the loan. These are important pioneering works in this direction, but more work lies ahead to understand how family enterprises build different forms of social capital and how social capital at different levels and aggregates may work in complementary and opposing ways in different contexts. Sauerwald and Peng (2013) highlight a finding from previous research that, due to lower levels of out-group trust, individuals from collectivistic societies such as Japan have been found to cooperate less with groups external to the family than those from individualistic societies such as the United States (e.g., Yamgishi, 1988). Similar results are found in Deng et al.s (2013) study of 43,728 small and medium manufacturing firms in 31 provinces and regions of China. These firms face significant challenges in attracting and retaining skilled non-family employees, thereby becoming more reliant on family members. Labor market demandsupply conditions cause firms to be reluctant to invest in training and development of non-family employees for fear of losing them and the firms trade secrets to rival firms. Recent studies from Europe have been directed toward understanding the career development pathways of CEOs and non-family directors of family firms (e.g., Salvato et al., 2012). More research is clearly needed to compare and contrast the buildup of human capital in family enterprises within different institutional contexts. Entrepreneurship and innovation About 77 % of new ventures in the United States are established with significant family involvement in business and another 3 % become family firms within the first two years (Chua, Chrisman, & Chang, 2004).

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Thus, family enterprises inspire new creations as a large majority of entrepreneurs who launch new enterprises are raised in business owning families (Fairlie & Robb, 2007). Not only are they the crucibles that imbue confidence in next generation members to launch their own new firms (e.g., Au et al., 2013), dynastic family firms branch out to create new ventures both in stable and turbulent contexts (e.g., Bergfeld & Weber, 2011; Hatum & Pettigrew, 2006). Researchers attention is now being directed to understand the processes and factors that enable some family firms to continue on innovative paths while others fade away after the first generations tenure (e.g., Miller & Le Breton-Miller 2005). A combination of factors such as the critical role of top management teams formed of a mix of family and non-family professionals working in concert is being revealed. For example, such teamwork was found to successfully turn around dynastic firms in Argentina (Hatum & Pettigrew, 2006), Germany (Bergfeld & Weber, 2011), and Italy (Salvato et al., 2010). While family members enable continuity of the core values held sacrosanct by the controlling shareholders, the non-family members energize the company by bringing new perspectives that contribute to the progress. It is interesting to note that such combination of family and non-family working together is incorporated in the career planning used at the Automatic Manufacturing Limited case presented by Au et al. (2013) in this Special Issue. Overall, research on entrepreneurship and innovation in family firms is getting more sophisticated and nuanced. For example, in their study of 740 CEOs of Belgian private firms, Lybaert, Voordeckers, and Huybrechts (2013) found a positive influence of non-family CEOs on the entrepreneurial risk taking levels of family firms. However, this relationship is at its highest in the earlier years of the CEOs tenure. As the CEOs tenure lengthens, this relationship weakens leaving no difference in entrepreneurial risk taking by family and non-family CEOs. Longitudinal research can reveal whether such leveling out of entrepreneurial activity is simply part of the exploration and exploitation cycle, or there are other factors such as plateauing on the job might be at play (cf. Sharma & Salvato, 2012). In addition to examining the antecedents of sustainable entrepreneurial firms and their activities, efforts are being devoted to understanding corporate, habitual, and portfolio entrepreneurship by family firms as indicated by reviews on these topics by McKelvie, McKenny, Lumpkin, and Short (2013) and Rosa, Howorth, and Cruz (2013). Other scholars have reviewed work on social and technological innovation in family firms (e.g., De Massis, Frattini, & Lichtenthaler, 2013; Zahra, Labaki, Gawad, & Sciascia, 2013). All these works review the limited but growing research on entrepreneurship and innovation in family firms suggesting several promising avenues for future research especially for scholars interested in the highly innovative region of Asia Pacific.

Concluding observations In 2012, as part of celebrating the 25th anniversary of Family Business Review, two Special Issues were produced. First, the March issue provided an overview of the field from different perspectives. Second, the September issue focused on the variety of methods and measures to capture the value creation and performance of private family enterprises. In addition, the annotated bibliography of the most cited research

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published between 19962010 rounded off these Special Issues (De Massis et al., 2012). In this article, we have mentioned several other notable review pieces on specific topics. Most of these are appearing in for the SAGE Handbook of Family Business (Melin, Nordqvist, & Sharma, 2013). In short, interested scholars have an effectively organized base of knowledge to become familiar efficiently with current knowledge and discourse in the field. From this launching point, interesting research can be designed to build a nuanced understanding of families, and the large variety of their enterprises. The inception and evolution of the field of family business studies has been driven by practice (Sharma, Hoy, Astrachan, & Koiranen, 2007). To ensure the maintenance of the crucial link between research and practice, we offer some thoughts on how best to ensure we do not lose sight of relevance of our work, as we continue to improve its rigor and reach in the Asia Pacific region (Sharma, 2010). The practitioner might be an owner manager of a family enterprise or an advisor, working with the mission of improving the performances of a family enterprise both on economic and noneconomic dimensions. Cautioned by the increasing gap between research and practice in management (e.g., Rynes, Bartunek, & Daft, 2001; Vermeulen, 2007), scholars and institutions in family business studies continue to devote significant efforts to build strong communication networks between scholars and practitioner communities. Examples include development and dissemination of practitioner friendly executive summaries of research published in Family Business Review; articles in practitioner outlets such as the Family Business Magazine and FFI Practitioner; research dissemination in the form of books some of which are classics in the field; active participation of scholars in practitioner conferences such as the FBN network and practitioners in research conferences such as IFERA and FERC; and projects such as the Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices (STEP) wherein knowledge is cocreated by scholars and practitioners. STEP Summits held in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and most recently in Thailand reinforce such linkages in the Asia Pacific region. The important role of context is further reinforced when considering how a practitioner might use research findings, as s/he must first decipher how the results apply to his/her enterprise. The contextual factors will include those related to the business (e.g., size, industry, profitability, capital adequacy, stage of professionalization, ownership distribution), the family (e.g., size, founder/sibling/cousin generation, gender mix of potential successors, willingness to accommodate/generosity toward each other), and the external environment (e.g., rate of technological obsolescence, competitive structure of the market in which the firm operates, intensity of the rivalry among competitors, societal norms, financial markets attitude toward family firms, government corruption). In the short run, most of these contextual factors cannot be changed and must be accepted as constraints within which the practitioner must operate. In the long run, however, many of the ones related to the family and the businesss internal attributes can be changed. From the viewpoint of the enterprising family, even the external context can be changed by altering the business mix in the familys portfolio, as has been observed by research on dynastic families (Bergfeld & Weber, 2011; Hatum, 2007). The family can sell out of businesses in which the rivalry is too intense or the rate of technological obsolescence is too high for family members to live with. The size or composition of a family might be altered either by trimming the family tree or adopting new family members (e.g., Lambrecht & Lievens, 2008;

Asian family enterprises and family business research

Mehrotra et al., 2011). Nevertheless, it behooves scholars to clarify the context and scope of their research findings, so as to enable practitioners to determine whether findings from a particular study are applicable to their situations. And, practitioners must equally be cautioned that as with any young discipline, findings from research must be questioned for applicability to their context. While family business advising has been at the core of the development of family business studies and continues on its fast growing trajectory (Sharma et al., 2007), it is only recently that efforts are being undertaken to investigate the efficacy and efficiency of such advising (e.g., Strike, 2012). The Special Issue of Family Business Review on this topic to be published in September 2013 is likely to provide an important boost to this line of inquiry. Similarly, other Special Issues of Family Business Review on accounting and marketing lay the grounding for more scholarly investigations along these lines. In short, the future of family business studies in general, and in Asia Pacific in particular remains bright as much exciting work awaits scholarly attention (Craig & Salvato, 2012).
Acknowledgment comments. We thank APJM Special Issue Editors Kevin Au, Mike Peng, and Yuan Lu for helpful

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