Successfully navigating the paradox of control and autonomy in succession: The role of managing ambivalent emotions

Abstract

This article theorises how, why and with what outcomes successors manage the paradox of control and autonomy emerging as role conflict through emotion management strategies; thus, it contributes to theory building on paradox and emotion management in family business. Drawing on 20 interpretive case studies of French family businesses operating in wide-ranging industries, we highlight emotional ambivalence towards the father/incumbent, the mother, siblings and cousins, and leadership and document their prevalence in enmeshed family businesses. We show that when motivated by self-conformity and self-protection motives, successors accept the incumbent’s control and manage ambivalent emotions through defensive strategies, such as avoidance or compromise, which contributes to the pursuit of successor legitimacy. We reveal that during successor installation, successors might reject the incumbent’s control and instead promote personal autonomy by managing ambivalent emotions through confrontational strategies, such as hyperbolised emotional reactions, emotional display of negative emotions or holism, which contributes to successor emancipation.

Keywords

paradoxical tensions ambivalent emotions autonomy and control emancipation emotion management strategies legitimacy role conflict succession

Introduction

Managing the paradox of incumbent control and successor autonomy is the Gordian knot to ensure successfully passing the baton from one generation to the next of a family business (McAdam et al., 2018). This paradox is at its crux during succession (De Massis et al., 2008; Ingram et al., 2016) and can jeopardise intergenerational transfer (Helin and Jabri, 2016; Lam, 2011). Prior research indicates that when incumbents exert excessive control, successors feel frustrated, which hinders their ability to reach autonomy (García-Álvarez et al., 2002; Pitts et al., 2009). At the opposite, when incumbents step aside and offer guidelines and socialisation, this generates positive feelings in successors and enhances their autonomy, thus facilitating business transfer (Sharma et al., 2003; Schuman et al., 2010). Successors need appropriate emotion management strategies to deal with this paradox (Lüscher and Lewis, 2008; Seo et al., 2004) in order to achieve legitimacy (Dalpiaz et al., 2014; Hytti et al., 2017; Marlow and McAdam, 2012) and emancipation (Jennings et al., 2016; McAdam et al., 2018; Rindova et al., 2009).

The paradox of control and autonomy is a belonging and performing paradox (Jarzabkowski et al., 2013; Smith and Lewis, 2011) arising as individuals embrace different yet coexisting social roles in the family, business and ownership systems (Gersik et al., 1997; Tagiuri and Davis, 1992). This paradox emerges as role conflict during succession, role overlap affecting family member emotions and relations (Brundin and Sharma, 2011; Yu et al., 2019; Zellweger, 2014) in different ways compared to how it occurs and it is managed in non-family firms (Shepherd and Haynie, 2009). Successors experience high amounts of emotional ambivalence, meaning that they feel both positive and negative emotions at the same time (Brehm and Miron, 2006; Radu-Lefebvre and Denis, 2015; Randerson et al., 2017; Rees et al., 2013), which generates a sense of dissonance or at least of discomfort (Brundin and Härtel, 2014). However, how successors manage ambivalent emotions while dealing with the paradox of control and autonomy emerging as role conflict remains underexplored (Marshall et al., 2006; Radu-Lefebvre et al., 2017).

Drawing on prior insights in family business and psychology, this article examines how successors cope with the paradox of control and autonomy by managing ambivalent emotions stemming from role conflict. We address our research aim by answering the following questions: RQ1: What types of ambivalent emotions stem from role conflict during successor selection and installation? RQ2: How do successors deal with ambivalent emotions during successor selection and installation (emotion management strategies)? RQ3: Why do successors use different emotion management strategies (emotion management motives)? RQ4: What are the outcomes of the successor’s emotion management strategies of ambivalent emotions? We adopt a multi-case inductive research design with 20 French family businesses operating in wide-ranging industries to develop theory inductively (Reay and Whetten, 2011).

We make the following contributions. First, we reveal how successors use emotion management strategies to cope with tensions of belonging and performing while navigating contradictory expectations and aspirations of control and autonomy, thus extending paradox theory (Lewis, 2000; Smith and Lewis, 2011). We show how successors manage ambivalent emotions by either using defensive strategies (avoidance, compromise, domination, surface acting, deep acting) or what we term confrontational strategies (emotional display of negative feelings, hyperbolised emotional reactions, holism). The systematic approach for identifying and examining emotion management strategies that we introduce in our study contributes to the literature on emotions in family firms (Brundin and Härtel, 2014; Brundin and Sharma, 2011; Labaki et al., 2013) and answers the call for theorisation on emotions in family business (Astrachan and Jaskiewicz, 2008; Brundin et al., 2008). We highlight that the degree of overlap between the family and business systems (enmeshed, balanced, disengaged) moderates the relationship between ambivalent emotions and emotion management strategies and motives of the successors, which confirms and extends prior studies on family–business overlap (Labaki et al., 2013). Second, we reveal why and with what consequences the management of ambivalent emotions by the successors enables them to balance control and autonomy through the alternative pursuit of legitimacy and emancipation in succession, building knowledge about the paradox of control and autonomy in family firms (Pitts et al., 2009; Tatoglu et al., 2008). We show that when motivated by self-protection and self-conformity, successors tend to accept the incumbent’s control and use defensive strategies aimed at achieving successor legitimacy, whereas when motivated by self-differentiation and self-promotion, successors tend to reject the incumbent’s control and use confrontational strategies to challenge family and business role–related constraints, striving to break free from the incumbent’s control (emancipation). In this respect, we contribute to the literature relative to family business paradoxes (Erdogan et al., 2019), successor legitimacy (Dalpiaz et al., 2014; Hytti et al., 2017) and emancipation (McAdam et al., 2018; Rindova et al., 2009). Third, we take a processual experience-informed perspective to elaborate a model of managing the paradox of control and autonomy through emotion management strategies during succession, thus contributing to theory building on paradox and emotion management in family business. Our model conceptualises ambivalent emotions stemming from role conflict as surface indicators of the paradox of control and autonomy at successor level and offers the pursuit of legitimacy and emancipation as two opposite yet interrelated processes enabling successors to alternatively accept and challenge this paradox through emotion management gymnastics.

The article is structured as follows. First, we position our research in the paradoxical tensions literature by addressing the emotional micro-foundations of successor management of ambivalent emotions. Next, we broadly delineate how emotional ambivalence and emotion management strategies have been addressed in family business and psychology. We then present our methodology, main findings and discussion, followed by a brief conclusion.

The paradox of incumbent control and successor autonomy

Incumbents play a major role in deciding who can be the successor and how succession happens (De Massis et al., 2016; Long and Chrisman, 2014). Within the succession process, successors both depend on the incumbent’s control and experience and might seek to act autonomously as future leaders (Pitts et al., 2009; Tatoglu et al., 2008). The paradox of control and autonomy occurs during the different phases of the succession process. During successor selection and installation, this paradox is particularly intense when incumbents exert excessive control over successors, refusing to ‘fade into the background’ thus constraining successors to manage under a ‘generational shadow’ (Davis and Harveston, 1999: 314; see Umans et al., 2018). Prior research shows that conforming to incumbent and expectations of others relative to how a successor should behave in order to belong (Stead, 2017) supports successor legitimacy¹ (Dalpiaz et al., 2014; Hytti et al., 2017), whereas their attempts to break free from the incumbent’s control and perceived constraints support successor emancipation² (McAdam et al., 2018; Rindova et al., 2009).

We characterise the paradox of control and autonomy during succession as one of belonging and performing. Paradoxical tensions are inherent to family business members due to their belonging to different reference groups (family, firm, shareholders), triggering competing role expectations, internal contradictions and mixed emotions (Faherty et al., 2016; Helin and Jabri, 2016; Lam, 2011). Because of these tensions of belonging and performing, successors struggle to reconcile competing demands arising from their different social roles, which exacerbate the tension between their need to comply with the incumbent’s control and guidance and their need to enact their autonomy as future leaders. Managing control and autonomy requires embracing contradictory yet complementary roles through enacting potentially incompatible decisions and behaviours, which affects emotions and relationships of successors (Jay, 2013). Prior research has showed that ‘combinations of autonomy and control can co-exist’ (Gilbert, 2013: 1). In the following section, we present how ambivalent emotions result from role conflict.

Ambivalent emotions: a natural consequence of role conflict

Because of overlapping roles, business family members are likely to be confronted with identity clashes and role conflicts, generating ambivalent emotions, intergenerational power games, emotional confusion and unspoken expectations, which may lead to emotional dissonance, burnout and illness (Brundin and Sharma, 2011; Memili et al., 2015). Considerable communication (Bertschi-Michel et al., 2019; Helin and Jabri, 2016) and adaptation (Basco, 2014; Janjuha-Jivraj and Spence, 2009; Knapp et al., 2013) is necessary to manage multiple-role relationships such as those between successors and incumbents.

Traditionally, psychology scholars characterised affective experiences in bipolar terms, suggesting that individuals cannot, at the same time, be sad and happy (Brehm and Miron, 2006). According to more recent research, the affective dimensions of pleasure and displeasure are conceptualised as independent, which is why it is accepted that people can experience two opposite emotions simultaneously (Aaker et al., 2008; Oceja and Carrera, 2009).³ For instance, business family members experience various levels of emotional bonding and emotional ownership (Björnberg and Nicholson, 2012; Zellweger and Astrachan, 2008) that can be a source of both positive emotions, such as pride, gratitude and joy, and negative emotions, such as disappointment, anxiety, guilt and envy (Avey et al., 2009). Ambivalent emotions raise stress levels and confusion (Rothman and Wiesenfeld, 2007), but they may also play a utilitarian role in helping individuals to consider alternative perspectives (Gifford, 2002; Hui et al., 2009), therefore enhancing their ability to deal with complex situations. As we will show in the next section, a wide range of defensive and active responses of managing ambivalent emotions have been previously identified (Lewis, 2000; Smith and Lewis, 2011), the first providing temporal relief, while the second offer a more long-term solution. Defensive strategies may trigger vicious circles (Jarzabkowski et al., 2013), while active responses can lead to the acceptance or transcendence of paradoxes (Engeström and Sannino, 2011).

Management strategies of ambivalent emotions

Ashforth et al. (2014) identified four emotion management strategies⁴ of ambivalent emotions: avoidance, domination, compromise and holism. These strategies consist in moving towards, away from or against the object of ambivalence (Pratt and Doucet, 2000). When moving away from emotional ambivalence, individuals use defensive strategies such as avoidance by engaging in denial or splitting through rejecting, forgetting, reinterpreting or minimising unpleasant information. Avoidance reduces the psychological pressure of ambivalent emotions to a tolerable level, enabling people to persevere and eventually find a solution to display their emotions more openly. In succession, this may relate to strategies adopted by successors for suppressing negative emotions stemming from role conflict to preserve family harmony (Memili et al., 2015). Domination strategies consist of moving towards and against the two opposite emotions. This occurs when successors use response amplification (Harrist, 2006) by boosting one emotion (moving towards) and by diminishing the opposite emotion (moving against). Successors can exaggerate either the positive or the negative emotion to dominate the other, which may relieve their emotional ambivalence when experiencing paradoxical tensions (Bell and Esses, 2002). Compromise strategies involve a moderate moving towards mechanism, when one attempts to accommodate the two opposite emotions, both recognised and partially honoured, which may foster the acceptance of ambivalent emotions. Finally, holism consists in the simultaneous and complete acceptance of opposite emotions, with individuals moving towards both of them and embracing them together, which may support the transcending of paradoxical tensions (Lewis, 2000; Smith and Lewis, 2011). This latter strategy may enable successors to maintain ‘a certain ironic distance’ (Ashforth, 2001: 81) when subjected to persistent incumbent control. We label avoidance, domination and compromise as defensive strategies allowing successors to relieve the internal tension generated by ambivalent emotions in response to paradoxical tensions by denying or minimising mixed emotions, whereas we label emotional display of negative feelings, hyperbolised emotional reactions and holism as confrontational strategies enabling acceptance and transcendence of paradoxical tensions.

As each social setting is associated with particular emotional norms, people are expected to display emotions congruent with the expectations attached to the role they play in the situation (Heise, 2007). Emotion management allows us to avoid sanctions and be perceived as good professionals, mothers, fathers, children and peers (Wingfield, 2010). To do this, three main options exist: changing the expression of emotions communicated to others, changing inner feelings in order to make them coherent with what is expected in the situation (Lively and Weed, 2014) or displaying naturally felt (opposite) emotions (Diefendorff and Gosserand, 2003; Haver et al., 2013). Hochschild (1983) characterised the first two strategies as surface acting and deep acting. Surface acting consists in managing emotional display by altering expressed feelings, while deep acting consists in changing inner feelings to increase emotion–social role congruence. Following Ashforth et al. (2014), we term the third strategy, displaying naturally felt (opposite) emotions as holism.

Emotion management strategies are contextually embedded. As Labaki et al. (2013) observed, families and firms have particular emotional norms influencing how business family members deal with emotional expression. Family members operationally engaged in the firm are impelled to comply with both family and family business emotion expectations; therefore, the quality of the relationship between parents/predecessors and children/successors affects the emotion management strategies of the latter (Thompson and Meyer, 2007). Moreover, Labaki et al. (2013) suggest that the degree of overlapping between the family and the business systems triggers three different configurations of family firms: enmeshed family businesses, balanced family businesses and disengaged family businesses. The enmeshed family business presents high cohesion and emotional closeness among members, which consequently leaves little space for private life and independence. The balanced family business sets explicit boundaries between firm and private lives, which allow members to manage both closeness and independence. In the disengaged family business, emotional separation is high among business family members, which leads to separation between family and business roles, and high independence in decision-making. Successors living in these different contexts may thus manage emotional ambivalence stemming from role conflict differently and thus manage the paradox of control and autonomy in distinct ways.

In the next section, we present how we methodologically addressed the emotional micro-foundations of paradox management by examining the emotion management strategies that successors use to make sense of, deal with and transform or resolve the paradox of control and autonomy in succession.

Methodology

Research design and data collection

We conducted a theory-building qualitative study to better understand and explain the unexplored micro-foundations of paradox management in business families by examining the emotion management strategies of successors confronted with the paradox of control and autonomy. The aim of our research is to build theory in the area of paradox management during succession and to broaden family business theory on paradox and emotion management by extending and refining our knowledge relative to distinct psychological mechanisms and relationships between paradoxes and emotions that have been ignored by family business literature. For this purpose, we adopted a multi-case inductive research design (interpretivist case studies, cf. Leppäaho et al., 2016), that we combined with grounded theory analysis of the collected data (Corley and Gioia, 2004; Gioia et al., 2013); a methodological approach considered as appropriate for bridging a knowledge gap and developing theory inductively (Reay and Whetten, 2011; Whetten, 1989). Specifically, the case studies allowed us to define the unit of analysis and the boundaries of the study, while grounded theory enabled us to engage in an iterative process between theory and data to elaborate new theory and formulate propositions to orient future deductive studies aimed at theory testing (Diaz Andrade, 2009; Myers, 2013).

Inductive theory building is suitable in order to reach ‘methodological fit’ (Edmondson and McManus 2007) when prior research ‘does not address the research question at all’ (Eisenhardt and Graebner, 2007: 26; cf. also Locke, 2007). The aim of inductive theory building is to develop ideas for further studies (Yin, 2018), which we did by formulating 12 propositions drawn from the data, following an inductive logic (see De Massis and Kotlar, 2014; Kotlar and De Massis, 2013).

As we aimed at theory building, we selected a purposeful sample of 20 French family firms (Hamilton, 2006; Patton, 2002). In France, there is no database extensively identifying family firms; we thus dedicated 12 months to build a database of 200 family firms engaged in succession. We used the snowball technique to gather information about firms and their successors; the local Chamber of Commerce and Industry and regional entrepreneurial networks provided contacts. We selected only family successors having experienced succession within the previous five years to ensure that the participants’ ‘recall of their experiences was not clouded by the passing of extensive periods of time’, as suggested by Mills and Pawson (2012: 591). To ensure a variety of answers and perspectives (Strauss and Corbin, 1990), among the 200 contacts we gathered, we selected those that ensured a large diversity of firm profiles in terms of age, size, sector and successor gender. In the 20 selected cases, the successor’s father was the incumbent, which is coherent with the demographics of family businesses in France, whereby current incumbents in succession situations are generally men. An overview of the 20 family firms can be found in Table 1.

Table 1.

Sample.

Case	Sector of activity	Year founded	Number of staff	Revenue (millions of euros)	Generation	Family composition	Successor	Birth order and age
Family Firm 1	Car rental	1984	250	42	Second	2 daughters, 1 son	Son	Third, 35
Family Firm 2	Manufacturing	1975	520	170	Third	2 daughters	Daughter	First, 25
Family Firm 3	Construction	1994	250	3	Second	2 daughters	Daughter	Second, 37
Family Firm 4	Wholesale trade	1920	75	60	Fourth	2 daughters, 1 son	Daughter	First, 35
Family Firm 5	Manufacturing	1921	49	12	Fifth	1 son	Son	First
Family Firm 6	Wholesale trade	1924	15	10.7	Fourth	2 sons, 1 daughter	Daughter	First, 32
Family Firm 7	Wholesale trade	1964	48	66	Third	1 daughter, 1 son	Son	Second, 39
Family Firm 8	Wholesale trade	1938	72	40	Fourth	1 son	Son	38
Family Firm 9	Wholesale trade	1969	22	8	Fourth	1 son, 1 daughter	Daughter	Second, 37
Family Firm 10	Insurance	1974	90	13	Second	3 sons	Son	Second, 38
Family Firm 11	Distribution, transportation, retail	1924	3750	1660	Third	2 daughters, 1 son	Son	Third, 47
Family Firm 12	Food industry	1905	3908	737	Fifth	2 daughters, 4 sons (1 son deceased)	Son	Second, 54
Family Firm 13	Construction	1913	330	100	Fourth	4 daughters, 1 son	Son	Second, 57
Family Firm 14	Sea products	1999	22	2	Second	3 daughters (2 marriages)	Daughter	First, 33
Family Firm 15	Flooring covering	1960	20	2	Third	1 daughter, 1 son	Daughter	First, 37
Family Firm 16	Food industry	1973	250	10	Second	2 daughters, 1 son	Daughter	First; 48
Family Firm 17	Construction	1977	100	8	Second	1 daughter, 2 sons	Son	Second, 32
Family Firm 18	Information and communication	1983	20	2	Second	2 daughters, 1 son (2 marriages)	Daughter	Second, 34
Family Firm 19	Construction	1919	1800	3	Fifth	2 sons	Son	Second, 36
Family Firm 20	Camping car	1962	800	200	Third	2 daughters, 2 sons	Daughter	First, 34

Consistent with interpretive case-based studies in family business, the main source of data collection was semi-structured interviews (Discua Cruz et al., 2013; Nordqvist et al., 2009). We conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with successors that we positioned as self-narratives, in that they involved extended life accounts developing over the course of interviews (Riessman, 2003). This is in line with interpretive case studies, embracing ‘context and narratives’ (Leppäaho et al., 2016: 166). During the interviews, we aimed at capturing the perspective of participants on the narrated situations, through observing how they interpret what they take into account (Stake, 2005). In order to avoid the desirability bias occurring in researcher–participant interaction (Barrédy, 2016), two members of the research team conducted each interview. The interviews lasted between 45 and 90 minutes. The interview guide covered three main topics: (a) overview of the family firm and the respondent’s current role and involvement in the firm, (b) experience and emotions of successors about successor selection and (c) experience and emotions of successors during successor installation. During the interviews, we randomly raised these topics to prevent participants from rebuilding our intentions and expectations (Barrédy, 2016). The interviews were carried out in French, digitally recorded, then transcribed and sent to participants for approval. We coded the interviews with the qualitative software program NVivo. To contextualise the stories and emotional experiences of the successors, we collected additional data sources such as company brochures, annual reports, notes from company visits and press articles.

Recent studies pointed out possible concerns with qualitative studies, such as subjectivity, lack of rigour, risk in interpretation, biases in data collection and possible threats due to lack of validity and reliability of measures (Barrédy, 2016; De Massis and Kotlar, 2014). De Massis and Kotlar (2014) and Leppäaho et al. (2016) highlight the main remedies adopted to address these risks. First, to enhance the external validity of the study in terms of theoretical generalisation (Walsham, 1995), we opted for a multiple-case study research design. This provided ‘a stronger base for theory building’ than single case studies (De Massis et al., 2015: 18), as it enabled us to frame solid explanations based on cross-case agreement. Second, to ensure construct validity, we both triangulated data from multiple sources and shared our conclusions at the end of the study with the participants for consistency and accuracy (De Massis and Kotlar, 2014; Miles and Huberman, 1994). Triangulation strengthens the corroboration of emerging constructs and secures construct validity (Yin, 2018) by bringing ‘additional evidence’ (Hayward and Sparkes, 1975: 253). Third, we reviewed and discussed the interview transcripts throughout the data collection process and decided to stop collecting additional data once we noticed that no new insights to the research questions were emerging (Guest et al., 2006), and that a certain level of thematic saturation had been reached (O’Reilly and Parker, 2013). Fourth, to ensure internal validity, we rigorously analysed our case studies with the aim to build a sound explanation of the processes we studied and then compared the cases with the predicted patterns (pattern matching, cf. De Massis and Kotlar, 2014). We also searched for alternative reasons and rival explanations for the occurrence of the studied processes, which is a recommended remedy in interpretive studies (Diaz Andrade, 2009). Fifth, to strengthen the reliability of our study, we used a similar case study protocol for the 20 cases and developed a case study database that assisted the research team in organising and coding data during the research process (Yin, 2018).

Data analysis

We conducted an interpretive analysis as recommended by grounded theory methodology (Corley and Gioia, 2004; Gioia et al., 2013). The data analysis comprised three main phases (Table 2). In the open-coding phase, we systematically selected, in the 20 interviews, the text segments containing self-descriptions of emotions and narrating relational exchanges with the incumbent and others within and across family boundary (Daspit et al., 2016), relative to successor selection and installation. In these text segments, we identified the social roles (belonging/private and performing/professional) enacted by successors, along with their perceived position in relational exchanges with others (constraint vs freedom). Our aim was to detect the situations of role conflict. We then coded the emotions of successors using the French version of the Geneva Affect Label Coder (GALC), elaborated and tested by Scherer (2005), comprising 36 categories of emotions. Then, we looked for the situations of emotional ambivalence stemming from role conflict. The rule for categorising verbal data as expressing ambivalent emotions was the following: when a participant explicitly expressed both positive and negative feelings relative to either (a) family members (father/incumbent, mother, siblings and cousins) or (b) leadership, we coded the paragraph/the sentence under the category ‘ambivalent emotions’. Among the four categories of emotional ambivalence described by Oceja and Carrera (2009), we coded as ‘emotional ambivalence’ only ‘simultaneous emotions’ because this is the most intense pattern of emotional ambivalence. We identified and coded the strategies used by successors to manage ambivalent emotions as following: (a) displaying emotions (expressing either the positive or the negative emotion, or both of them), (b) hiding emotions or (c) suppressing emotions. Moreover, we were interested in identifying the objectives of the successors relative to the emotion management strategy adopted: why and with what purpose they regulate their emotions (e.g. to be recognised as a good leader, child, mother or father, brother or sister). During this phase, we also searched for information relative to the family and business contexts, and we introduced codes relative to family cohesiveness, emotional closeness and separateness, independence, loyalty and business-family boundaries. We thus progressively built an ‘insider perspective’ (Diaz Garcia and Welter, 2013) of how successors emotionally experienced the succession process.

Table 2.

Data analysis.

First-order categories	Second-order themes	Aggregate theorising
Relational exchanges with incumbent and others within family boundary: Social roles: child, mother, father, sister, brother Personal position: perceived constraint versus freedom (as regards the expectations of others)	OBJECTS concerned by ambivalent emotions (family members, leadership)	OUTCOMES managing ambivalent emotions Legitimacy versus Emancipation
Relational exchanges with others across family boundary: Social roles: incumbent, successor, leader, manager, business partner Personal position: perceived constraint versus freedom (as regards the expectations of others)
Role conflict (overlapping between family, business and ownership systems)
Self-description of emotions during successor selection and installation: GALC categories (36 emotions) Ambivalent emotions
Emotion regulation: Displaying emotions (expressing either the positive or the negative emotion; or both of them) Hiding emotions Suppressing emotions	STRATEGIES managing ambivalent emotions Defensive strategies (avoidance, compromise, domination, surface acting, deep acting) Confrontational strategies (emotional display of negative feelings, hyperbolised emotional reactions, holism)
Family and business contexts:Family cohesivenessEmotional closenessEmotional separatenessIndependenceLoyaltyBusiness-family boundaries (permeable vs fixed)
Self-description of objectives of emotion management:Being recognised as a good leaderBeing recognised as a good childBeing recognised as a good mother or fatherBeing recognised as a good brother or sisterShowing the successor is different from the former leader (goals, behaviours, mind-set)Showing the successor is better than the former leader (skills, performance)	MOTIVESmanaging ambivalent emotion (self-promotion, self-protection, self-conformity, self-differentiation)

GALC: Geneva Affect Label Coder.

In the second stage of coding, we used extant theoretical concepts to inform our coding (Gioia et al., 2013). To elaborate our second-order categories, we first identified role conflict situations and types of emotional ambivalence occurrences. This helped us to categorise the main objects concerned by ambivalent emotions (family members and leadership) and the main couples of mixed emotions. Second, we organised and categorised the information relative to how successors regulate ambivalent emotions according to prior research on emotion management (Ashforth et al., 2014; Diefendorff and Gosserand, 2003; Haver et al., 2013; Hochschild, 1983; Lively and Weed, 2014); we coded these strategies as defensive (avoidance, compromise, domination, surface acting, deep acting) and confrontational (emotional display of negative feelings, hyperbolised emotional reactions, holism). Finally, we focused on why and to what end successors use these emotion management strategies to deal with emotional ambivalence in situations of role conflict. We identified four main motives of managing ambivalent emotions in succession: (a) the motivation to protect oneself from others’ evaluations and sanctions (self-protection); (b) the motivation to behave in accordance with the expectations of others (self-conformity); (c) the motivation to highlight one’s distinctiveness as compared with incumbent (self-differentiation); (d) the motivation to promote one’s ideas, personality and skills (self-promotion).

In the third stage, we connected the objects of ambivalence, the strategies and the motives of managing ambivalent emotions with the aim of identifying outcomes as related to either the decision to hide, modify or suppress one’s emotions in order to gain social approval and be perceived as adapted to the leadership role (legitimacy outcome) or to the decision to display one’s emotions as they are through the emotional display of negative emotions or holism in order to show others that they are different and/or better than the incumbent (emancipation outcome).

When engaged in a theory-building process, researchers need to make clear the connections between concepts emerging from data (Dey, 2003; Michael-Tsabari et al., 2014). Drawing on the analysis of the data, we expose in the next section our findings relative to when, why, how and with what outcomes successors use emotion management strategies to make sense of, deal with and transform or resolve the paradox of control and autonomy during succession.

Findings and discussion

We present here our main findings relative to (a) the emotional ambivalence of successors in response to the paradox of control and autonomy surfacing as role conflict; (b) the distinction between defensive and confrontational emotion management strategies of ambivalent emotions; (c) the distinction between self-protection, self-conformity, self-differentiation and self-promotion motives of managing ambivalent emotions; and (d) the outcomes of managing ambivalent emotions as related to either accepting or rejecting incumbent control, thus enhancing either successor legitimacy or emancipation.

Emotional ambivalence of successors in response to the paradox of control and autonomy

Narratives of participants show that ambivalent emotions occur during both successor selection and installation towards family members (father/incumbent, mother, siblings and cousins) and leadership. Successors from enmeshed family businesses experience a wider range of ambivalent emotions than successors from balanced and disengaged family businesses, which is not surprising as the family–business overlap is the strongest in the first compared to the latter. In this section, we highlight what role conflicts trigger which ambivalent emotions, where this occurs (enmeshed, balanced and disengaged family businesses) and when (selection or installation phases). Please see Table 3 for illustrative quotes.

Table 3.

Illustrative quotes related to the object of emotional ambivalence.

Emotional ambivalence towards the father/incumbent

3.1 ‘My father systematically showed us that he is just perfect. [. . .] I am so afraid to disappoint him!’ (Man, Firm 13) – Admiration and Anxiety

3.2 ‘selected among 40 cousins’ (Man, Firm 12) – Joy and Pride, while also ‘being always obliged to report everything to my father at the end of the day’ (Man, Firm 12) and ‘not being able to make my own decisions without his approval, even on small details’. (Woman, Firm 9) – Frustration

3.3 ‘my father is a superman, able to solve any problem’ but he ‘always leaves me behind’. (Man, Firm 11) – Admiration and Frustration

Emotional ambivalence towards the mother

3.4 ‘[she] was there for us, she always played the mediator’ (Man, Firm 19) – Gratitude; ‘Going out from school, coming home and seeing Mother still working . . . I always did my homework alone . . .’. (Woman, Firm 14) – Disappointment

3.5 Gratitude for a ‘loving and strong mother’ (Woman, Firm 16) but also Disappointment regarding her ‘constant support for my father and tendency to treat my demands and needs relative to my job in the firm as a caprice’. (Woman, Firm 16)

Emotional ambivalence towards siblings and cousins

3.6 ‘My older brother was replaced because he wasn’t judged good enough as manager, then I arrived in the firm, but the emotional implications are too heavy, it’s like a dagger planted in the heart’. (Man, Firm 17) – Pride and Culpability

Emotional ambivalence towards leadership

3.7 ‘I’ve grown up with a phrase in mind: the first generation builds the company, the second develops it, and the third ruins it. I fell in love of the family firm and I’m afraid of destroying what I love, afraid of ruining everything’. (Woman, Firm 14) – Attachment and Fear

3.8 ‘I’m eager to endorse the CEO role of our company [. . .] I just hope I’m not a burden for the firm. Did they chose me as my father’s successor because I am his son or because I am good? What am I worth as a leader?’ (Man, Firm 13) – Enthusiasm and Anxiety

3.9 ‘I was so happy to have my first child, a daughter [. . .] During my maternity leave, I felt guilty not to be at the office. I don’t know anyone who would feel like this . . .’ (Woman, Firm 14) – Joy and Culpability

Emotional ambivalence towards the father/incumbent

This emotional ambivalence largely occurs in enmeshed family businesses and quite rarely in balanced family businesses (absent in disengaged family businesses). During successor selection, the overlap between the child role and the successor role generates mixed feelings of admiration for the father’s accomplishments (child-related emotion) and anxiety because of the risk of not doing well enough according to paternal standards and example (successor-related emotion) (Table 3, 3.1). During successor installation, emotional ambivalence of successors towards the father consists in mixed feelings of gratefulness for being entrusted as future leaders along with exasperation because of the limited negotiation space left at their disposal by incumbents. Successors narrate how high controlling incumbents leave them little space of autonomy in enmeshed family businesses, which triggers frequent occasions of role conflict. Participants speak about their child role–related joy and pride of being selected (Table 3, 3.2), while also confessing their successor role–related frustration of not being allowed to make decisions alone. In firms characterised by a strong separation between family and business spheres, successors experience mixed feelings of admiration towards the leadership of incumbents and frustration because of their lack of guidance during installation (Table 3, 3.3).

Emotional ambivalence towards the mother

In enmeshed family businesses, participants confess emotional ambivalence towards the mother. Gratitude for her is rooted in childhood experiences. However, because mothers seemed to prioritise family business work over ‘maternal duties’, this generated disappointment (Table 3, 3.4). As adults, successors confess the same couple of mixed emotions, gratitude and disappointment, during successor installation (Table 3, 3.5).

Emotional ambivalence towards siblings and cousins

Particularly in enmeshed family businesses and more rarely in balanced family businesses, successors confess mixed feelings of culpability, envy and sadness as opposed to positive emotions such as tenderness towards young family members. Being selected as future leaders among siblings and cousins triggers pride, but also entails competition and rivalry, which generates sadness (Table 3, 3.6).

Emotional ambivalence towards leadership

During successor selection, participants acknowledge their successor role–related attachment to the family business but also express their child role–related fear of destroying the firm once at the top (Table 3, 3.7). During successor installation, successors declare being at the same time enthusiastic to take the responsibility of the family business and anxious of not being good enough for the job (Table 3, 3.8). Women successors additionally manage emotional ambivalence stemming from the conflict between their mother and their leadership roles, leading to mixed feelings of mother-related joy and successor-related culpability (Table 3, 3.9).

Prior research emphasised family businesses as ‘emotional arenas’ (Fineman, 2000) prone to ‘emotional messiness’ (Brundin and Sharma, 2011) arising because of the everyday experience of contradictory emotions in relation to multiple social roles (Lam, 2011). This study opens the black box of this emotional pandemonium by showing which specific mixed emotions successors experience during succession. We identify four main types of emotional ambivalence towards the father/incumbent, mother, siblings and cousins, and leadership, which answers our first research question. Whereas prior research attributes emotions to the family system only (Bee and Neubaum, 2014; Carlock and Ward, 2001; Combs et al., 2019; Fleming, 2000), we show that ambivalent emotions occur at the intersection of both the family and the business systems because the family–business overlap triggers role conflict. Answering prior calls to examine emotions at the nexus of the family and the business systems (Brundin et al., 2008; Labaki et al., 2013), we find that these emotional ambivalences mostly occur in enmeshed family businesses. In disengaged family businesses, there are less occasions of mixed emotions, according to the accounts of successors. This confirms prior work relative to family–business overlap and emotions in family firms (Labaki et al., 2013; Thompson and Meyer, 2007). We found that emotional ambivalences vary with the type of family businesses we studied. In enmeshed family businesses, ambivalence towards family members are the most frequent, although we also detected situations of emotional ambivalence towards leadership. In balanced family businesses, we particularly observed emotional ambivalence towards leadership and, more rarely, ambivalence towards family members. In disengaged family businesses, the only observed emotional ambivalences are those towards the father/incumbent and leadership.

In enmeshed family businesses, the ambivalence towards the father/incumbent is related to situations of excessive incumbent control, quite characteristic for these firms. In balanced family businesses, the paradox of control and autonomy seems less intense, successors experiencing limited emotional ambivalences in relation to incumbent control. Finally, in disengaged family businesses, emotional ambivalence arises because of insufficient incumbent guidance and excessive successor autonomy, experienced by participants as a form of abandonment, as previously stated by Labaki et al. (2013).

Given these observations, we suggest the following propositions:

Proposition 1. There is a heterogeneity in emotional ambivalence of successors in response to the paradox of control and autonomy – a continuum of (excessive) control to (excessive) autonomy exists, distinguishing how this paradox surfaces as successor role conflict in enmeshed, balanced and disengaged family businesses.

Proposition 2. The paradox of control and autonomy surfacing as successor role conflict occurs more frequently in enmeshed family businesses as compared to balanced and disengaged family businesses.

Proposition 3. Four types of emotional ambivalence stemming from role conflict of successors occur in relation to the paradox of control and autonomy – emotional ambivalence towards the father/incumbent, the mother, the siblings and cousins, and leadership.

Proposition 4. During successor selection, emotional ambivalence of successors towards family members prevails, whereas during successor installation, emotional ambivalence of successors towards the father/incumbent and leadership predominates.

Defensive and confrontational emotion management strategies

When successors experience the paradox of control and autonomy, they manage the ambivalent emotions stemming from role conflict by using either defensive or confrontational strategies. In this section, we expose these strategies by specifically highlighting what strategy is used to manage which ambivalent emotions and when this occurs in the succession process (selection or installation phases). See Table 4 for illustrative quotes.

Table 4.

Illustrative quotes related to emotion management strategies.

Defensive strategies

4.1 ‘When you are in front of your boss, you need to show some respect. Moreover, when the boss is your father, there is an enormous respect. So, sorry to be vulgar, I shut my mouth and behave like a good daughter’. (Women, Firm 9)

4.2 ‘There are moments when I am exasperated by his willingness to control everything I do; he says he does it for my good, but I know that he just can’t refrain himself. Of course I’m grateful for his counsels, so I show it to him and don’t tell him much (yet) about my irritation . . .’ (Man, Firm 12)

4.3 ‘Now I fully master the job. My father is a colleague, not my boss’. (Man, Firm 11)

4.4 ‘I have a model, my mother, who has a strong personality, who works more than anyone else, and I told myself that I should work more, I sometimes have the pressure of her example and I don’t have enough energy, but I try to keep calm as I know she is exceptional, she is unique, that’s all. [. . .] and when I visit her I don’t speak about my fears, I just repeat to her how much I admire her and how grateful I am for her support when I was a child . . . Strange, isn’t?’. (Woman, Firm 16)

4.5 ‘When our father told us that any one of the three of us could succeed him, but that we had to demonstrate our commitment and willingness to take the job, I was submerged by envy regarding my younger brothers and at the same time I was so sad to feel this as I love them and I knew we were in the same boat . . .’ (Man, Firm 17)

4.6 ‘When we were younger, my brother and I, we were absolutely against joining the family firm. [. . .] But, then, I thought “it is in the family for two generations, it would be a shame to let it die or to give it to anyone else.” I was so proud and I thought “if I need to, I will die with the firm.”’ (Women, Firm 15)

4.7 ‘I kept it for myself because I did not dare to say it’. (Woman, Firm 4)

4.8 ‘I am so happy to be the next (leader), but also afraid that the family firm will be a poisoned gift, but I can’t tell them (parents) about this . . .’ (Woman, Firm 20)

Confrontational strategies

4.9 ‘He drove me crazy, so I told him, “I’m taking my things, and I’m splitting. [. . .] I’ll find a job tomorrow.” [. . .] After that, he calmed down and started to treat me differently, more as a professional’. (Woman, Firm 3)

4.10 ‘I am fully involved at work, so proud of having been selected to succeed my father, but my parents don’t seem to notice how much I do for the business and this makes me crazy [. . .]. When you have too much stress, too much fatigue, all too often, you want to say, “I’m slamming the door and going elsewhere.”’ (Man, Firm 7)

4.11 ‘I was a little frustrated, I felt like I really didn’t fit in. After the end of the year holidays, I came back and I needed to say it, and suddenly it’s true that it came out. It came out a bit emotional, because I inevitably started crying [. . .]. I got it off my chest and said “I have no place, I want to be heard more, that I have an opinion.”’ (Woman, Firm 4)

4.12 ‘My father demonstrated for so many years that he is able to do things right . . . And I am proud of being the one who will continue his work here. So many people trusted him. I don’t know if they will trust me as they trust him but I have chosen to remain myself and let them know me better!’ (Man, Firm 12)

4.13 ‘Being a mother and a CEO raises many constraints but also allows me to manage my agenda, I’m happy to be able to be there for my children when they are sick or when my husband travels abroad [. . .] My dilemma is that I have a family life and don’t want to dedicate as much time to the business as my parents did. My father still does the job of three or four people. [. . .] It is a sector when one has to be available 24 hours a day, I just can’t do it’. (Woman, Firm 20)

Defensive strategies

During successor selection, participants use defensive strategies to manage their emotional ambivalence towards the father/incumbent. For example, they use surface acting to hide their successor role–related anxiety and display a behaviour in accordance with their child role, expressing pride and admiration towards the father (Table 4, 4.1). Similarly, during successor installation, successors use surface acting to hide their irritation regarding incumbent control and instead convey expressions of gratitude (Table 4, 4.2). Others use avoidance strategies such as denial to manage their emotional ambivalence towards the father/incumbent (Table 4, 4.3). Regarding mothers, successors manage their emotional ambivalence by using domination strategies. Acting from a child position, they hide their successor role–related anxiety and amplify the expression of their child role–related gratitude and admiration (Table 4, 4.4). In relation to siblings and cousins, successors use deep acting during successor selection, aimed at changing their negative successor role–related feelings of envy in an attempt to fit with what their ideal representation of sibling relationships should look like and instead replace them with positive emotions of tenderness (Table 4, 4.5). Regarding leadership, the ability to deal with the emotional ambivalence of successor role–related pride and child role–related anxiety relative to the family firm seem decisive in the intention of successors to join the company, with compromise strategies being of help during successor selection (Table 4, 4.6). During successor installation, successors use avoidance strategies to hide their negative feelings (Table 4, 4.7), whereas others use surface acting because they think a leader does not have the right to express doubts indicating their vulnerability (Table 4, 4.8).

Confrontational strategies

During successor selection, some women successors confess their use of confrontational strategies such as hyperbolised emotional reactions to signify to incumbents that they should treat them as future leaders instead of acting from a parent (paternal) positioning (Table 4, 4.9). During successor installation, participants risk work overload because of the pride they attach to their business role, but as children, they expect their parents to react to their commitment with gratefulness, and thus feel angry when the latter do not seem to notice (enough) their efforts. In these situations, successors use confrontational strategies, such as the emotional display of negative emotions (Table 4, 4.10). During successor installation, participants use the emotional display of negative emotions when their desire for autonomy is stronger than the fear to challenge incumbent control. In these situations, they openly express their frustration of being treated as a child rather than as a future leader (Table 4, 4.11). Only a few successors confess taking the risk of expressing their opposite emotions as they are, through holism, thus promoting personal autonomy (Table 4, 4.12). We noticed that mother successors use holism and the (hyperbolised) emotional display of negative emotions to manage mixed feelings stemming from role conflict (Table 4, 4.13).

We found that successors use a wide range of defensive and confrontational emotion management strategies of ambivalent emotions, which answers our second research question. We confirm prior studies on paradox management indicating that individuals use either defensive or active responses to address paradoxes (Lewis, 2000; Smith and Lewis, 2011). We extend prior research on paradox management by revealing how emotion management underlies responses to emotional ambivalence stemming from paradoxical tensions due to role conflict (Jarzabkowski et al., 2013). Our findings suggest that avoidance underlies splitting, which involves the temporal or spatial separation of two conflicting emotions; domination, surface acting and deep acting underlie suppressing responses, prioritising control over autonomy. Hyperbolised negative emotional reactions underlie opposing responses through engaging in an open confrontation with the incumbent with the aim to defend successor autonomy. Finally, holism underlies adjusting responses through acknowledging the need to accommodate both control and autonomy.

Moreover, we highlight that successors move between defensive and confrontational emotion management strategies over time, as previously stated by Jarzabkowski et al. (2013). We extend prior studies on paradox management by explaining how successors actually do this. We show that during successor selection, successors manage mixed feelings by primarily using defensive mechanisms, which confirms and extends the findings of Memili et al. (2015). Confrontational strategies – used exclusively by women successors – are quite rare here, only occurring when defensive strategies prove ineffective and perceived as endangering the comfort and interests of successors. Once in the successor installation phase, both women and men successors take more relational risks and start using alternatively confrontational and defensive strategies to strengthen their autonomy over the control of incumbents.

Given these observations, we suggest the following propositions:

Proposition 5. When confronted with the paradox of control and autonomy surfacing as successor role conflict, successors either accept or reject incumbent control: in the first case, they prefer defensive strategies to manage ambivalent emotions, while in the latter they privilege confrontational strategies aimed at enhancing personal autonomy.

Proposition 6. During successor selection, defensive strategies of managing ambivalent emotions predominate, while during successor installation, confrontational strategies are used more frequently.

Self-protection, self-conformity, self-differentiation and self-promotion motives

Successors use defensive and confrontational strategies with four main motives in mind: self-protection, self-conformity, self-differentiation and self-promotion. The context moderates the strategy adopted to manage emotional ambivalence, but also influences the emotion management motives: successors from enmeshed family businesses show a higher need for self-differentiation and self-promotion, while successors from balanced family businesses show a higher need for self-protection. All the participants expressed self-conformity needs, including successors from disengaged family businesses. In this section, we expose these motives by specifically highlighting what motive triggers which emotion management strategy and when this occurs in the succession process (selection or installation phases). See Table 5 for illustrative quotes.

Table 5.

Illustrative quotes related to motives emotion management strategies.

Self-protection

5.1 ‘I am afraid of messing up everything, fear of not doing the right thing, afraid of disappointing my father [. . .], he always lets us know that what he does is always perfect compared to others. Eternally dissatisfied, but I also know that if we do not move forward, we move backwards . . .’ (Woman, Firm 16)

5.2 ‘We are 40 siblings and cousins in our generation, it is crucial that we trust each other, otherwise the business won’t survive! [. . .] I’m sure there is some jealousy among us, and I don’t know how exactly I could manage this without somebody getting hurt. [. . .] It bothers me, and at the same time I would be so happy to be the next CEO!’ (Man, Firm 12)

Self-conformity

5.3 ‘My father’s satisfaction is so important to me, I am aware that I systematically act so as to make him proud of me . . .’ (Man, Firm 11)‘Even if I have mixed feelings, I don’t want to disappoint him. I will do everything to make it work’. (Man, Firm 10)

5.4 ‘I had a lot of trouble in the beginning to find in my place [. . .] because I was “the daughter of.” I had to hide my feelings [. . .] I always had the feeling that I had to prove 3 times more than anyone else did. I lost a lot of time: I should have taken my place and not waited to receive it’. (Woman, Firm 15)

Self-differentiation

5.5 ‘My hardest moment at (the firm), I cried. Yes, I broke down. I stopped my car, I can still tell you the place, everything, I remember. I stopped, I cried for a quarter of an hour. (Then I collected myself), I left. When I came back to the firm, I said to my father “I want to change this and this, I want it to change this situation because I’m sick of it, I want to move on.”’ (Man, Firm 7)

5.6 ‘To keep things from festering or feeling resentment, we explain things and then maybe it will not change the decision in the end, but at least it was expressed and then we move on and then it’s like that. [. . .] I have to make him understand that I see things differently because I am different from him’. (Man, Firm 5)

Self-promotion

5.7 ‘I am not ashamed. No, I do not think it’s a shame to hide one’s feelings. This helps me put forward my qualities, show others that I’m good, and maybe even better in some technical aspects than my father’. (Women, Firm 9)‘It’s really about finding the middle ground between “you have known me as a child” and “you will know me as a colleague and as a future leader.” [. . .] Meaning that I have to prove to them I’m now a grown-up woman, smart, pragmatic and ambitious’. (Woman, Firm 2)

During successor selection, a self-protection motive triggers avoidance and compromise strategies (Table 5, 5.1). We have seen in the previous section that because of their strong emotional connection with siblings and cousins, successors use deep acting to modify their negative feelings of envy, culpability and sadness and privilege tenderness. Participants confess the use of defensive strategies to manage these ambivalent emotions during successor selection, motivated by self-protection and self-conformity motives (Table 5, 5.2). During successor selection, successors also express their willingness to behave in accordance with the expectations of incumbents, thus accepting their control, which triggers mainly surface acting strategies, motivated by a self-conformity motive (Table 5, 5.3).

During successor installation, this strategy might generate feelings of regret, self-conformity being perceived as effective in the short term but quite costly in the end because it obstructs the development of successor autonomy (Table 5, 5.4). Some successors take the risk of using confrontational strategies when managing mixed emotions, thus enacting their autonomy over the control of incumbents, either because of their desire to highlight their distinctiveness (self-differentiation, Table 5, 5.5, 5.6) or because of their desire to expose their ideas, personality and skills (self-promotion, Table 5, 5.7). The desire to show others that they are different triggers either an overt display of negative feelings of frustration, anxiety and anger towards the father/incumbent (Table 5, 5.6) or a holistic display of both positive and negative feelings (Table 5, 5.7).

We found that successors manage ambivalent emotions in different ways, depending on four main motives, each attached to either defensive or confrontational strategies, which answers our third research question. The desire to protect themselves from potential evaluations and sanctions (self-protection), along with the desire to act in accordance with expectations of incumbent and others (self-conformity), triggers defensive strategies. Conversely, mainly during successor installation, the desire to show others they are different compared to the incumbent (self-differentiation), along with the desire to put forward their ideas, personality and skills (self-promotion) emerges more notably and triggers confrontational strategies. By identifying why successors move between defensive and confrontational emotion strategies stemming from role conflict in response to the paradox of control and autonomy, we extend prior paradox management literature by revealing individual motivations underlying responses to paradoxical tensions that we connect with the particular context of family business succession. We also extend paradox theory (Lewis, 2000; Smith and Lewis, 2011) by highlighting the situatedness of emotion management strategies motivating successors to respond in particular ways to the paradox of control and autonomy. Emotion management strategies are not only self-regulatory mechanisms enabling successors to manage the internal tension arising because of the co-occurrence of mixed emotions but also motivational devices allowing them to engage in particular courses of action; this reflects the situated cognition literature (Smith and Semin, 2004).

Given these observations, we suggest the following propositions:

Proposition 7. Self-protection and self-conformity motives prompt emotion management strategies supporting the acceptance of incumbent control, while self-differentiation and self-promotion motives prompt emotion management strategies supporting successor autonomy over incumbent control.

Proposition 8. Self-protection and self-conformity motives underlie the successor’s emotion management strategies mainly during successor selection, while self-differentiation and self-promotion motives underlie the successor’s emotion management strategies mainly during successor installation.

Outcomes of managing ambivalent emotions: legitimacy and emancipation

We identified two main outcomes of managing ambivalent emotions: the first relates to the acceptance of incumbent control by successors and connects to defensive strategies enacted in order to gain social approval; the second relates to the struggle for autonomy by successors through acknowledging and overtly expressing mixed emotions in order to show others that they are different and/or better than the incumbent. In this section, we present and characterise the first outcome as successor legitimacy, while we interpret the second outcome as successor emancipation from incumbent control. Please see Table 6 for illustrative quotes.

Table 6.

Illustrative quotes related to outcomes of managing ambivalent emotions.

Legitimacy

6.1 ‘I put a lot of energy into proving [. . .] that I was capable [. . .] before being designated as successor’. (Woman, Firm 14)

6.2 ‘Of course, I was proud that my father gave me the chance to work here, but [. . .] That is to say, initially, I went through what is called all the “shitty jobs.” I delivered the customers, I emptied the boxes . . .’ (Man, Firm 8)

6.3 ‘I am legitimate now. After, luckily, I did not make big blunders and I did not disappoint them because they would not have forgiven me. They tested me and I passed what I had to pass. After, I also go on the field often, to meet the customers and to do customer relationship management, this is also why at one moment they respect you’. (Woman, Firm 6)

6.4 ‘My father and I, we are so different: I am more compassionate, less dominant, and I know that he’s right, people fear him and thus respect him as a manager. I will have to be like him if I want people to follow me, otherwise the firm will suffer . . . Also, I will have to do things even better than him from a professional standpoint to show people that I am the right leader’. (Man, Firm 12)

6.5 ‘Here, everyone knows me since I was a child. We are not the same age and yet, now I’m starting to set boundaries because they are not my friends but my employees’. (Woman, Firm 3)

Emancipation

6.6 ‘My father has been retired for five years, but he is there every day’. (Man, Firm 7)‘The delegation was going very, very badly. He said he delegated (the leadership) without really letting go . . . ’. (Women, Firm 9)‘The problem is that she wants to quit the firm while still being the boss, she doesn’t accept to lose the control over the firm’. (Woman, Firm 18)

6.7 ‘the problem is that we talk about it all the time, but in the end nothing changes, because he can’t let it go. So [. . .] this can last forever unless I tell him to be less present at the office. [. . .] You have to kill the father one day’. (Woman, Firm 3)

6.8 ‘You know, they (employees) called me the “little boss” . . . I had many nicknames: the Little Prince, stuff like that! I was insulted. I had to defend myself and show them that I am a man, and a leader’. (Man, Firm 8)‘[. . .] you shouldn’t reduce me to my position of woman because it’s not a woman that you are talking to, it’s one of your managers’. (Woman, Firm 15)

6.9 ‘I tell everyone ‘I will never do what my father did!’ (Man, Firm 10)‘Me, I say we must go to the right, he wants to go to the left. It’s always a bit of a contradiction sometimes. It’s a generational conflict and I need to get rid of it and go where I want to’. (Man, Firm 8)

6.10 ‘If you are in the shadow of your father, you will always be in the shadow of your father [. . .] unless you tell him what you think about all this and you can show everybody that you are not just the son of or the daughter of, but the new boss’. (Woman, Firm 6)

Particularly during successor selection, successors confess that dealing with the ambivalence of pride and anxiety towards their parent is part of their quest for legitimacy as future leaders. Participants recognise that they needed to show that they were more competent and motivated than other candidates (Table 6, 6.1). To increase their chances of being selected, participants manage ambivalent emotions of pride and frustration by using avoidance or surface acting (Table 6, 6.2). The efforts of masking one’s true feelings while displaying what they think being an appropriate public face are deemed indispensable to reach a leader position (Table 6, 6.3). During successor installation, a participant successively evokes a mix of self-differentiation, self-conformity and self-promotion motives, all attached to the pursuit of legitimacy (Table 6, 6.4). Setting boundaries between private and professional social roles is stressed by a woman successor who signalled employees that she is not just the ‘daughter of [her] father’, but first their future leader (Table 6, 6.5).

Particularly during successor installation, we found that successors manage ambivalent emotions not only to reach legitimacy but also for emancipation purposes. They confess aiming to gain autonomy relative to the incumbent and breaking free from the former management practices and expectations of others. Emancipation requires strong efforts when the incumbent refuses to retire and let the successors make decisions alone (Table 6, 6.6). Emancipation is achieved when successors acknowledge that they need to put forward their successor role and downsize their child role when in the business sphere. This understanding does not come without suffering, because some successors confound the father and the incumbent roles: they think necessary to ‘kill the father’ (Woman, Firm 3), whereas it would be more appropriate to say metaphorically that they should ‘kill the incumbent’ (Table 6, 6.7). Emancipation also occurs in interaction with employees when managing ambivalent emotions towards leadership. This happens when successors rely on a self-promotion motive to manage mixed feelings of pride and anxiety to signal employees that they are now in command (Table 6, 6.8). Claiming difference with the incumbent is stressed as a justification for searching emancipation (Table 6, 6.9), and to achieve this, confrontational strategies are seen as inevitable (Table 6, 6.10).

We discovered that successors manage ambivalent emotions as part of a parallel quest for legitimacy and emancipation, which answers our fourth research question. The outcomes of these two complementary processes are that of becoming a legitimate successor for all the participants and, for a few of them, that of achieving successor emancipation. Self-protection and self-conformity motives guide successors towards the use of defensive strategies, which strengthens their legitimacy as future leaders, whereas self-differentiation and self-promotion motives press them to take the risk of using confrontational strategies, which contributes to their emancipation. We confirm prior research (Dalpiaz et al., 2014; Hytti et al., 2017; Marlow and McAdam, 2012; Swail and Marlow, 2018) by showing that legitimacy is achieved through a self-conformity path, inviting successors to fit normative expectations relative to how they should behave. We extend prior research by highlighting that a self-protection motive also underlies the pursuit of successor legitimacy. Self-protection motivates successors to present a self-image of responsibility and self-containment, further contributing to their perception as legitimate future leaders. Self-protection underlies the attempts by the successors to avoid conflicts and negative emotional displays in order to preserve family harmony, which is in line with the socioemotional wealth literature (Berrone et al., 2012; Hasenzagl et al., 2018; Jiang et al., 2018).

We found that during successor installation, some participants engage in an emancipation process, motivated by self-differentiation and self-promotion motives, mainly by using confrontational strategies. Emancipation seems to be of major importance for successors from enmeshed family businesses, because of their higher need of self-differentiation as regards the incumbent, which extends prior studies on enmeshed, balanced and disengaged family businesses (Labaki et al., 2013). We showed that during successor installation, the self-differentiation motive might become so intense that successors take the risk of revealing their negative feelings by using confrontational strategies and showing incumbents that they are different from them. This helps them break free from the incumbent’s control by claiming that they have the qualities and the capacity to introduce new ways of doing things, which is in line with the authoring strategy described by Rindova et al. (2009).

Given these observations, we suggest the following propositions:

Proposition 9. Successors manage the paradox of control and autonomy in succession by either privileging the pursuit of successor legitimacy (thus accepting the incumbent’s control) or by privileging the pursuit of successor emancipation (thus rejecting the incumbent’s control to instead support personal autonomy).

Proposition 10. Self-protection and self-conformity motives guide towards the acceptance of the incumbent’s control and the use of defensive strategies of managing ambivalent emotions, which contributes to successor legitimacy.

Proposition 11. Self-differentiation and self-promotion motives guide towards the rejection of the incumbent’s control and the use of confrontational strategies of managing ambivalent emotions, which contributes to successor emancipation.

Proposition 12. During successor selection, successors primarily aim at achieving successor legitimacy when managing ambivalent emotions stemming from role conflict, while during successor installation, successors aim at achieving both successor legitimacy and emancipation when managing ambivalent emotions.

Drawing on our findings and the propositions developed so far, Figure 1 summarises and generalises the body of evidence emerging from our interpretive data analysis by graphically presenting the main concepts and relationships of our emerging theory on the emotional micro-foundations of the paradox management of control and autonomy in succession. The elaboration of the emerging theory, illustrated in Figure 1, represents the last step of our inductive approach.

Figure 1.

Managing the paradox of control and autonomy in succession through emotion management strategies.

Our model highlights how, why and with what outcomes successors manage the paradox of control and autonomy surfacing as role conflict during succession through emotion management strategies, answering the calls for more theorisation on emotions in family businesses (Astrachan and Jaskiewicz, 2008; Brundin et al., 2008; Labaki et al., 2013; Pieper, 2010; Rafaeli, 2013; Shepherd, 2016).

The paradox of control and autonomy occurs in different ways during succession because of individual-level factors (degree of incumbent control and successor autonomy) and firm-level factors (degree of family–business overlap). This paradox triggers more ambivalent emotions in enmeshed family businesses than in balanced and disengaged family businesses. We found four types of successor emotional ambivalence: towards the father/incumbent, the mother, the siblings and cousins and leadership; we indicate their probability of occurrence during successor selection and installation. When successors accept the incumbent’s control, they tend to manage ambivalent emotions through defensive strategies, whereas when they reject it, they tend to privilege confrontational strategies. Specifically, we indicate that successors manage ambivalent emotions by using either defensive strategies (avoidance, compromise, domination, surface acting, deep acting) or confrontational strategies (emotional display of negative feelings, hyperbolised emotional reactions, holism). We state that successors use defensive strategies because of self-protection and self-conformity motives, thus increasing their chances of being perceived as legitimate successors. Finally, mainly during successor installation, successors use confrontational strategies because of self-differentiation and self-promotion motives, thus aiming to achieve emancipation by breaking free from the incumbent’s control.

Conclusion

In this article, we focus on the family business context in which paradoxical tensions are pervasive due to overlapping systems to explore the emotional micro-foundations of paradox management during succession. Specifically, we combine a multiple interpretive case study approach with grounded theory to examine the individual strategies, motivations and outcomes involved in the management of ambivalent emotions stemming from role conflict, expressed by a sample of 20 French successors.

This article contributes to advance family business theory in several ways. First, while family business research consistently emphasises the prevalence of paradoxical tensions, how successors actually manage paradoxes during succession was until now understudied. This article extends current theory on paradox management in family firms by taking an individual micro-level approach to highlight the relationship between paradox management and emotion management in succession. We open the black box of successor management of the paradox of control and autonomy by revealing how their emotion management of ambivalent emotions helps them navigate contradictory expectations and aspirations relative to issues of control and autonomy. Second, paradox theory shows how defensive strategies can offer only temporal relief when experiencing paradoxical tensions, while more active responses can lead to accepting or even transcending paradoxes. We extend the theory on paradox management in family firms by opening the black box of emotion management strategies of successors as we reveal how they alternatively and successively use defensive and confrontational strategies and highlight what motives trigger which strategies and when this occurs in the succession process (selection or installation phases). Third, emotion psychology shows that managing ambivalent emotions can be instrumental in helping individuals to deal with complex situations; we extend extant research on paradox management in family firms by revealing how the management of ambivalent emotions by successors enable them to balance control and autonomy through the alternative pursuit of legitimacy and emancipation. To our knowledge, this is the first study offering the pursuit of successor legitimacy and successor emancipation as two opposite yet interrelated processes enabling successors to alternatively accept and challenge the paradox of control and autonomy through emotion management gymnastics.

This study has several limitations. We studied the emotional ambivalence of family successors, but we know little about how incumbents and other family members manage the paradox of control and autonomy through emotion management strategies during succession. We also studied only successful cases of succession. It would be interesting to understand how emotion management strategies, motives and outcomes are involved in unsuccessful succession. Additional research on emotional ambivalence and its resolution mechanisms is necessary to unveil how family businesses deal with the paradox of control and autonomy during succession and beyond.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

We warmly thank Noémie Lagueste and Ameline Bordas, research assistants of the Chair Family Entrepreneurship and Society at Audencia for their help collecting data. We are thankful to the participants to the IFERA conference 2015, the RENT conference 2017, and the EIASM Workshops on Family Firm Management Research 2015 and 2017 (special thanks to Ethel Brundin, our session Chair), for their helpful comments. We are grateful to our two anonymous reviewers who significantly contributed to our theorisation efforts and to the team of guest editors of this special issue for their guidance throughout the process.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors received financial support for the research from the sponsors of the Chair Family Entrepreneurship and Society at Audencia Business School.

ORCID iD

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre

Notes

Author biographies

Miruna Radu-Lefebvre is Professor of Entrepreneurship at Audencia Business School, France. Founder and Manager of the Chair Family Entrepreneurship and Society and Pilot of the French team of the STEP project, she holds a PhD in Social Psychology of Communication from the University Sorbonne Nouvelle and a Habilitation to direct PhD thesis (HDR) in Entrepreneurship from the University of Grenoble. Her research examines the discursive and cognitive construction of social reality and identities in family businesses, succession, mentoring relationships and media.

Kathleen Randerson is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship at Audencia Business School, France, and visiting Professor at the University of Bergamo, Italy. She holds her PhD in Entrepreneurship from the University of Grenoble. She was member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Communications Committee of the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management and held several roles in the global STEP project including EU Board member and EU Research Champion. Her research topics include different types of entrepreneurial behaviours (entrepreneurial orientation, effectuation, internationalisation) in different contexts (Corporate Entrepreneurship, Family Entrepreneurship).

References

Aaker

Drolet

Griffin

(2008) Recalling mixed emotions. Journal of Consumer Research 35: 268–278.

Ashforth

(2001) Role Transitions in Organizational Life: An Identity-Based Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Ashforth

Rogers

Pratt

, et al. (2014) Ambivalence in organizations: A multilevel approach. Organization Science 25(5): 1453–1478.

Astrachan

Jaskiewicz

(2008) Emotional returns and emotional costs in privately held family businesses: Advancing traditional business valuation. Family Business Review 21(2): 139–149.

Avey

Avolio

Crossley

, et al. (2009) Psychological ownership: Theoretical extensions, measurement and relation to work outcomes. Journal of Organizational Behavior 30(2): 173–191.

Barrédy

(2016) Typology of interactions and data content in qualitative family case study research. In: Randerson

Bettinelli

Dossena

, et al. (eds) Family Entrepreneurship: Rethinking the Research Agenda. London: Routledge, pp.279–301.

Basco

(2014) Exploring the influence of the family upon firm performance: Does strategic behaviour matter? International Small Business Journal 32(8): 967–995.

Bee

Neubaum

(2014) The role of cognitive appraisal and emotions of family members in the family business system. Journal of Family Business Strategy 5(3): 323–333.

Bell

Esses

(2002) Ambivalence and response amplification: A motivational perspective. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28(8): 1143–1152.

10.

Berrone

Cruz

Gomez-Mejia

(2012) Socioemotional wealth in family firms: Theoretical dimensions, assessment approaches, and agenda for future research. Family Business Review 25(3): 258–279.

11.

Bertschi-Michel

Kammerlander

Strike

(2019) Unearthing and alleviating emotions in family business successions. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. Epub ahead of print 15 March. DOI: 10.1177/1042258719834016.

12.

Björnberg

Nicholson

(2012) Emotional ownership: The next generation’s relationship with the family firm. Family Business Review 25(4): 374–390.

13.

Brehm

Miron

(2006) Can the simultaneous experience of opposing emotions really occur? Motivation and Emotion 30: 13–30.

14.

Brundin

Härtel

CEJ

(2014) Emotions in family firms. In: Melin

Nordqvist

Sharma

(eds) The Sage Handbook of Family Business. London: Sage, pp.529–548.

15.

Brundin

Sharma

(2011) Love, hate and desire: The role of emotional messiness in the business family. In: Carsrud

Brannback

(eds) International Perspectives on Future Research in Family Business: Neglected Topics and Under-Utilized Theories. New York: Springer, pp.55–71.

16.

Brundin

Florin-Samuelsson

Melin

(2008) The family ownership logic: Core characteristics of family-controlled businesses. CeFEO Working Paper no. 1. Available at: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:3702/FULLTEXT01.pdfThe

17.

Brundin

Patzelt

Shepherd

(2008) Managers’ emotional displays and employees’ willingness to act entrepreneurially. Journal of Business Venturing 23(2): 221–243.

18.

Cacioppo

Gardner

Berntson

(1997) Beyond bipolar conceptualizations and measures: The case of attitudes and evaluative space. Personality and Social Psychology Review 1: 3–25.

19.

Carlock

Ward

(2001) Strategic Planning for the Family Business: Parallel Planning to Unify the Family and Business. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

20.

Combs

Shanine

Burrows

, et al. (2019) What do we know about business families? Setting the stage for leveraging family science theories. Family Business Review. Epub ahead of print 18 July. DOI: 10.1177/0894486519863508.

21.

Corley

Gioia

(2004) Identity ambiguity and change in the wake of a corporate spin-off. Administrative Science Quarterly 49(2): 173–208.

22.

Dalpiaz

Tracey

Phillips

(2014) Succession narratives in family business: The case of Alessi. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 38(6): 1375–1394.

23.

Daspit

Holt

Chrisman

, et al. (2016) Examining family firm succession from a social exchange perspective: A multiphase, multistakeholder review. Family Business Review 29(1): 44–64.

24.

Davis

Harveston

(1999) In the founder’s shadow: Conflict in the family firm. Family Business Review 12(4): 311–323.

25.

De Massis

Kotlar

(2014) The case study method in family business research: Guidelines for qualitative scholarship. Journal of Family Business Strategy 5(1): 15–29.

26.

De Massis

Chua

Chrisman

(2008) Factors preventing intra-family succession. Family Business Review 21(2): 183–199.

27.

De Massis

Frattini

Pizzurno

, et al. (2015) Product innovation in family versus nonfamily firms: An exploratory analysis. Journal of Small Business Management 53(1): 1–36.

28.

De Massis

Sieger

Chua

, et al. (2016) Incumbents’ attitude toward intrafamily succession: An investigation of its antecedents. Family Business Review 29(3): 278–300.

29.

Dey

(2003) Qualitative Data Analysis: A User Friendly Guide for Social Scientists. London: Routledge.

30.

Diaz Andrade

(2009) Interpretive research aiming at theory building: Adopting and adapting the case study design. The Qualitative Report 14(1): 42–60.

31.

Diaz Garcia

M-C

Welter

(2013) Gender identities and practices: Interpreting women entrepreneurs’ narratives. International Small Business Journal 31: 384–404.

32.

Diefendorff

Gosserand

(2003) Understanding the emotional labor process: A control theory perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior 24(8): 945–959.

33.

Discua Cruz

Howorth

Hamilton

(2013) Intrafamily entrepreneurship: The formation and membership of family entrepreneurial teams. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 37(1): 17–46.

34.

Edmondson

McManus

(2007) Methodological fit in management field research. The Academy of Management Review 32(4): 1246–1264.

35.

Eisenhardt

Graebner

(2007) Theory building from cases: Opportunities and challenges. The Academy of Management Journal 50(1): 25–32.

36.

Engeström

Sannino

(2011) Discursive manifestations of contradictions in organizational change efforts: A methodological framework. Journal of Organizational Change Management 24(3): 368–387.

37.

Erdogan

Rondi

De Massis

(2019) Managing the tradition and innovation paradox in family firms: A family imprinting perspective. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. Epub ahead of print 19 April. DOI: 10.1177/1042258719839712.

38.

Faherty

Diaz-Moriana

Clinton

, et al. (2016) Managing paradoxes in family firms: A closer look at innovation. Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 36(10): 2.

39.

Fineman

(2000) Emotional arenas revisited. In: Fineman

(ed.) Emotion in Organizations. London: Sage, pp.1–24.

40.

Fleming

(2000) Keep the Family Baggage Out of the Family Business: Avoiding the Seven Deadly Sins That Destroy Family Businesses. New York: Simon & Schuster.

41.

García-Álvarez

López-Sintas

Gonzalvo

(2002) Socialization patterns of successors in first- to second-generation family businesses. Family Business Review 15: 189–203.

42.

Gersik

Davis

McCollom Hampton

, et al. (1997) Generation to Generation: Life Cycles of the Family Business. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

43.

Gifford

(2002) Emotion and self-control. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 49: 113–130.

44.

Gilbert

(2013) The paradox of managing autonomy and control: An exploratory study. South African Journal of Business Management 44(1): 1–14.

45.

Gioia

Corley

Hamilton

(2013) Seeking qualitative rigor in inductive research: Notes on the Gioia methodology. Organizational Research Methods 16(1): 15–31.

46.

Guest

Bunce

Johnson

(2006) How many interviews are enough? An experiment with data saturation and variability. Field Methods 18(1): 59–82.

47.

Hamilton

(2006) Whose story is it anyway? Narrative accounts of the role of women in founding and establishing family businesses. International Small Business Journal 24(3): 253–271.

48.

Harrist

(2006) A phenomenological investigation of the experience of ambivalence. Journal of Phenomenological Psychology 37(1): 85–114.

49.

Hasenzagl

Hatak

Frank

(2018) Problematizing socioemotional wealth in family firms: A systems-theoretical reframing. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 30(1–2): 199–223.

50.

Haver

Akerjordet

Furunes

(2013) Emotion regulation and its implications for leadership: An integrative review and future research agenda. Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies 20(3): 287–303.

51.

Hayward

Sparkes

(eds) (1975) Cassell’s English Dictionary (4th edn). London: Cassell and Collier Macmillan.

52.

Heise

(2007) Expressive Order: Confirming Sentiments in Social Actions. New York: Springer Science + Business Media.

53.

Helin

Jabri

(2016) Family business succession in dialogue: The case of differing backgrounds and views. International Small Business Journal 34(4): 487–505.

54.

Hochschild

(1983) The Managed Heart. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

55.

Hui

Fok

Bond

(2009) Who feels more ambivalence? Linking dialectical thinking to mixed emotions. Personality and Individual Differences 46: 493–498.

56.

Hytti

Alsos

Heinonen

, et al. (2017) Navigating the family business: A gendered analysis of identity construction of daughters. International Small Business Journal 35(6): 665–686.

57.

Ingram

Lewis

Barton

, et al. (2016) Paradoxes and innovation in family firms: The role of paradoxical thinking. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 40(1): 161–176.

58.

Janjuha-Jivraj

Spence

(2009) The nature of reciprocity in family firm succession. International Small Business Journal 27(6): 702–719.

59.

Jarzabkowski

Lê

Van de Ven

(2013) Responding to competing strategic demands: How organizing, belonging, and performing paradoxes coevolve. Strategic Organization 11(3): 245–280.

60.

Jay

(2013) Navigating paradox as a mechanism of change and innovation in hybrid organizations. The Academy of Management Journal 56(1): 137–159.

61.

Jennings

Sharifian

(2016) Living the dream? Assessing the ‘entrepreneurship as emancipation’ perspective in a developed region. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 40(1): 81–110.

62.

Jiang

Kellermanns

Munyon

, et al. (2018) More than meets the eye: A review and future directions for the social psychology of socioemotional wealth. Family Business Review 31(1): 125–157.

63.

Knapp

Smith

Kreiner

, et al. (2013) Managing boundaries through identity work: The role of individual and organizational identity tactics. Family Business Review 26(4): 333–355.

64.

Kotlar

De Massis

(2013) Goal setting in family firms: Goal diversity, social interactions, and collective commitment to family-centered goals. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 37(6): 1263–1288.

65.

Labaki

Michael-Tsabari

Zachary

(2013) Exploring the emotional nexus in cogent family business archetypes. Entrepreneurship Research Journal 3(3): 301–330.

66.

Lam

(2011) Dancing to two tunes: Multi-entity roles in the family business succession process. International Small Business Journal 29(5): 508–533.

67.

Leppäaho

Plakoyiannaki

Dimitratos

(2016) The case study in family business: An analysis of current research practices and recommendations. Family Business Review 29(2): 159–173.

68.

Lewis

(2000) Exploring paradox: Toward a more comprehensive guide. The Academy of Management Review 25(4): 760–776.

69.

Lively

Weed

(2014) Emotion management: Sociological insight into what, how, why, and to what end? Emotion Review 6(3): 202–207.

70.

Locke

(2007) The case for inductive theory building. Journal of Management 33(6): 867–890.

71.

Long

Chrisman

(2014) Management Succession in Family Business. London: Sage.

72.

Lüscher

Lewis

(2008) Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. The Academy of Management Journal 51(2): 221–240.

73.

McAdam

Crowley

Harrison

(2018) The emancipatory potential of female digital entrepreneurship: Institutional voids in Saudi Arabia. In: Academy of management proceedings, p.10255. Briarcliff Manor, NY: Academy of Management. Available at: https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/AMBPP.2018.58

74.

McAdam

Dibrell

Clinton

(2018) Special issue on the navigation of the paradoxical landscape of the family business. International Small Business Journal 36(3): 359–360.

75.

Marlow

McAdam

(2012) Analyzing the influence of gender upon high–technology venturing within the context of business incubation. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 36(4): 655–676.

76.

Marshall

Sorenson

Brigham

, et al. (2006) The paradox for the family firm CEO: Owner age relationship to succession-related processes and plans. Journal of Business Venturing 21(3): 348–368.

77.

Memili

Chang

Kellermanns

, et al. (2015) Role conflicts of family members in family firms. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology 24(1): 143–151.

78.

Michael-Tsabari

Labaki

Zachary

(2014) Toward the cluster model: The family firm’s entrepreneurial behavior over generations. Family Business Review 27(2): 161–185.

79.

Miles

Huberman

(1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An Expanded Sourcebook. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

80.

Mills

Pawson

(2012) Integrating motivation, risk-taking and self-identity: A typology of ICT enterprise development narratives. International Small Business Journal 30(5): 584–606.

81.

Myers

(2013) Qualitative Research in Business and Management. London: Sage.

82.

Nordqvist

Hall

Melin

(2009) Qualitative research on family businesses: The relevance and usefulness of the interpretive approach. Journal of Management & Organization 15(3): 294–308.

83.

Oceja

Carrera

(2009) Beyond a single pattern of mixed emotional experience: Sequential, prevalence, inverse, and simultaneous. European Journal of Psychological Assessment 25(1): 58–67.

84.

O’Reilly

Parker

(2013) ‘Unsatisfactory saturation’: A critical exploration of the notion of saturated sample sizes in qualitative research. Qualitative Research 13(2): 190–197.

85.

Patton

(2002) Two decades of developments in qualitative inquiry: A personal, experiential perspective. Qualitative Social Work 1(3): 261–283.

86.

Pieper

(2010) Non solus: Toward a psychology of family business. Journal of Family Business Strategy 1(1): 26–39.

87.

Pitts

Fowler

Kaplan

, et al. (2009) Dialectical tensions underpinning family farm succession planning. Journal of Applied Communication Research 37(1): 59–79.

88.

Pratt

Doucet

(2000) Ambivalent feelings in organizational relationships. In: Fineman

(ed.) Emotions in Organizations. London: Sage, pp.204–226.

89.

Radu-Lefebvre

Denis

(2015) To be or not to be a future family business leader: The emotional ambivalence of next generation members. In: EIASM 11th workshop on family firm management research, Lyon, 29–30 May, and IFERA 2015 annual conference, Hamburg, 1–2 July.

90.

Radu-Lefebvre

Randerson

Denis

(2017) The family business paradox and emotional ambivalence of business family members. In: RENT conference, Lund, 15–17 November.

91.

Rafaeli

(2013) Emotion in organizations: Considerations for family firms. Entrepreneurship Research Journal 3(3): 295–300.

92.

Randerson

Radu-Lefebvre

Denis

(2017) Emotional ambivalence in business families: A preliminary analysis. In: EIASM 13th workshop on family firm management research, Bilbao, 25–27 May.

93.

Reay

Whetten

(2011) What constitutes a theoretical contribution in family business? Family Business Review 24: 105–110.

94.

Rees

Rothman

Lehavy

, et al. (2013) The ambivalent mind can be a wise mind: Emotional ambivalence increases judgment accuracy. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49: 360–367.

95.

Riessman

(2003) Analysis of personal narratives. In: Gubrium

Holstein

(eds) Handbook of Interviewing. London: Sage, pp.695–710.

96.

Rindova

Barry

Ketchen

Jr (2009) Entrepreneuring as emancipation. The Academy of Management Review 34(3): 477–491.

97.

Rothman

Wiesenfeld

(2007) The social consequences of expressing emotional ambivalence in groups and teams. In: Mannix

Neale

Anderson

(eds) Research on Managing Groups and Teams: Affect and Groups. London: Elsevier, pp.275–308.

98.

Scherer

(2005) What are emotions? And how can they be measured? Social Science Information 44(4): 695–729.

99.

Schuman

Stutz

Ward

(2010) Family Business as Paradox. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

100.

Seo

Putnam

Bartunek

(2004) Dualities and tensions of planned organizational change. In: Poole

Van de Ven

(eds) Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation. New York: Oxford University Press, pp.73–107.

101.

Sharma

Chrisman

Chua

(2003) Predictors of satisfaction with the succession process in family firms. Journal of Business Venturing 18(5): 667–687.

102.

Shepherd

(2016) An emotions perspective for advancing the fields of family business and entrepreneurship: Stocks, flows, reactions, and responses. Family Business Review 29(2): 151–158.

103.

Shepherd

Haynie

(2009) Family business, identity conflict, and an expedited entrepreneurial process: A process of resolving identity conflict. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 33(6): 1245–1264.

104.

Smith

Semin

(2004) Socially situated cognition: Cognition in its social context. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 36: 57–121.

105.

Smith

Lewis

(2011) Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. The Academy of Management Review 36(2): 381–403.

106.

Stake

(2005) Qualitative case studies. In: Denzin

Lincoln

(eds) The Handbook of Qualitative Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp.443–466.

107.

Stead

(2017) Belonging and women entrepreneurs: Women’s navigation of gendered assumptions in entrepreneurial practice. International Small Business Journal 35(1): 61–77.

108.

Strauss

Corbin

(1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. London: Sage.

109.

Suchman

(1995) Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. The Academy of Management Review 20(3): 571–610.

110.

Swail

Marlow

(2018) ‘Embrace the masculine; attenuate the feminine’ – Gender, identity work and entrepreneurial legitimation in the nascent context. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 30(1–2): 256–282.

111.

Tagiuri

Davis

(1992) On the goals of successful family companies. Family Business Review 5(1): 43–62.

112.

Tatoglu

Kula

Glaister

(2008) Succession planning in family-owned businesses: Evidence from Turkey. International Small Business Journal 26(2): 155–180.

113.

Thompson

Meyer

(2007) Socialization of emotion regulation in the family. In: Gross

(ed.) Handbook of Emotion Regulation. New York: Guilford Press, pp.249–268.

114.

Umans

Lybaert

Steijvers

, et al. (2018) Succession planning in family firms: Family governance practices, board of directors, and emotions. Small Business Economics. Epub ahead of print 12 July. DOI: 10.1007/s11187-018-0078-5.

115.

Walsham

(1995) Interpretive case studies in IS research: Nature and method. European Journal of Information Systems 4: 74–81.

116.

Whetten

(1989) What constitutes a theoretical contribution? The Academy of Management Review 14(4): 490–495.

117.

Wingfield

(2010) Are some emotions marked ‘whites only?’ Racialized feeling rules in professional workplaces. Social Problems 57(2): 251–268.

118.

Yin

(2018) Case Study Research and Applications: Design and Methods. New York: Sage.

119.

Lumpkin

Praveen Parboteeah

, et al. (2019) Autonomy and family business performance: The joint effect of environmental dynamism and national culture. International Small Business Journal 37(2): 153–185.

120.

Zellweger

(2014) Toward a paradox perspective of family firms: The moderating role of collective mindfulness of controlling families. In: Melin

Nordqvist

Sharma

(eds) The Sage Handbook of Family Business. London: Sage, pp.648–655.

121.

Zellweger

Astrachan

(2008) On the emotional value of owning a firm. Family Business Review 21(4): 347–363.