Identity in Family Firms: Toward an Integrative Understanding

Abstract

To take stock of the literature on identity in family firms (IFF), we examine 122 journal articles published between 2006 and 2020. We then develop a thematic map to help scholars understand the structure of IFF studies and the direction that IFF research is taking. Providing a consistent vocabulary and categorization, the thematic map serves to strengthen the IFF conceptualization and locates potential ambiguities and fragmentation. Thereafter, we analyze the antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies of the different themes identified. Drawing on this foundation, we identify gaps and suggest new directions and stimuli for future research.

Keywords

systematic literature review identity family firm ontology

Introduction

In recent decades, identity in organizational studies has become a popular concept to understand a wide array of internal organizational mechanisms and their interactions with the environment (Alvesson et al., 2008; Gioia et al., 2000). Identity is a multifaceted concept with blurred boundaries, broadly used to shed light on the character and behavior of organizations and their members (Gioia et al., 2000). Moreover, identity is a key element of “understanding and explaining, almost everything that happens in and around organizations” (Brown, 2015, p. 20). For these reasons, the identity concept has been widely researched from multiple perspectives, adopting a social, psychological, organizational, or managerial viewpoint (Brown, 2015), under a variety of lenses (Miscenko & Day, 2016). Organization studies have repeatedly highlighted the complexity and plurality of this theme (Pratt et al., 2016), attempting to provide a conceptual clarification of this broad topic (e.g., Atewologun et al., 2017; Brown, 2015). In the case of family firms, the co-presence of the family and business systems adds further complexity that provides a unique opportunity to investigate identity (Whetten et al., 2014). Consistently, interest in research on identity in family firms (IFF) has flourished over the years in an effort to characterize the idiosyncratic and multiple loci of family firm identities (e.g., the family, firm, and owning family members).

Some studies have analyzed the interrelationship between individual and family identities (e.g., Brannon et al., 2013; Knapp et al., 2013; Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2011; Nicholson, 2008; Parada & Dawson, 2017). Others have focused on multiple identities (e.g., Dieleman & Koning, 2019), the overlap between different identities (e.g., Mahto et al., 2019), or communicating the family firm identity (e.g., Zanon et al., 2019). Moreover, research on IFF has analyzed a substantial number of connecting, affecting, and resulting factors. Some studies consider the link between family firm identity and strategic decisions (e.g., Block & Wagner, 2014) or the internal processes of identity creation and maintenance (e.g., Ponroy et al., 2019; Wielsma & Brunninge, 2019). Others examine the outcomes of identity discordance or how the communication of the organizational identity influences firm strategy and performance (McKenny et al., 2012). However, the remarkable increase in the number of studies investigating IFF has led to a rather splintered understanding of IFF, in turn leading to at least two critical issues.

First, partly departing from the original identity conceptualization (e.g., who are we as an organization?; Albert & Whetten, 1985), and/or borrowing from other constructs (e.g., familiness; McGrath & O’Toole, 2018), scholars have introduced new concepts (e.g., family firm identity or family identity). Second, scholars often oversimplify IFF, using family (or non-family) firm status as a proxy of identity, neglecting some intrinsic and complex dynamics.

As a result, research on IFF has led to mixed, disparate, and fragmented findings in relation to the different identity concepts and definitions and related antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies. As such, we lack a clear understanding of how the various studies relate, complement, and/or build on each other.

The complexity of identity issues, coupled with the plurality of domains, calls for a comprehensive understanding of the IFF literature. Accordingly, our literature review is driven by the following research questions:

Research Question 1: What is the structure of the family firm identity domain in terms of key concepts and themes?

Research Question 2: What antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies have emerged for each theme?

To answer these questions, we identified 122 journal articles published between 2006 and 2020 that we analyzed ontologically, that is, by looking at the meaningful information contained in each article and using it as the basis of the domain’s structure (Jones et al., 2011). We first emphasize the theoretical relevance of applying the identity lens to family firms. Borrowing the distinction and relatedness of identity constructs (i.e., identity itself, identity work, and identification) and levels (i.e., individual, group, and organizational) from core identity literature, we develop a thematic ontological analysis, provide a thematic map, and definitional clarity to the constructs applied to family firms at different levels. Building on this, we then develop an integrative table to analyze the antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies of the different themes. This overcomes the high fragmentation and favors an integrative understanding of how each study is related to and complements the others. This overall effort is the base on which we highlight research gaps and suggest new directions and stimuli for future research to advance. Overall, our study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive overview of IFF research, offering scholars a reliable, ontologically constructed, and practical resource.

Theoretical Background

The growing research attention to IFF can be attributed to the breath and richness of this concept and its potential to explain a wide array of internal organizational mechanisms and behaviors (Alvesson et al., 2008; Gioia et al., 2000). Moreover, family firms are distinctive, conceived as a combination of different and otherwise separate social categories, namely, the “business” and the “family” (Gersick et al., 1997; Whetten et al., 2014), each “heavily laden with beliefs, emotions, values, understandings, and expectations” (Whetten et al., 2014, p. 480).

In family firms, the presence of a plurality of individual identities (e.g., family owner, family employee, and family member) might lead to significant identity conflicts (e.g., Reay, 2009). The same reasoning can be followed for organizational identity, where the coexistence of the family, ownership, and business systems creates complex interaction dynamics and tensions (e.g., Suddaby & Jaskiewicz, 2020), such as between the economic rationality of the business system and the familiness imperative (e.g., Berrone et al., 2010; Habbershon & Williams, 1999). Furthermore, the interrelationship between different identities, such as between the family and the business ones (e.g., Cruz et al., 2012), might influence the strategic priorities (Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2011), implying continuous work tactics to manage the two different identities (Knapp et al., 2013). Accordingly, the IFF literature has expanded in multiple directions, focusing alternatively on different and specific identities, thus generating splintered IFF conceptualizations.

To effectively respond to the need for a clearer understanding of IFF, we borrow conceptualizations of identity from organization and management studies. As an umbrella concept, identity is used to answer the questions “who am I?” or “who are we?” (Ashforth et al., 2008), and it lies on two core theories: identity theory (Stryker, 1968) and social identity theory (Tajfel, 1974). According to identity theory, identity is “the individual’s unique sense of self” (Postmes & Jetten, 2006, p. 260), referring to the traits, competences, and interests of a specific individual. The core notion is that the individual, through self-categorization, enacts a role and merges the self with the specific characteristics, values, expectations, and behavioral models associated with this role within a given social context (Burke & Tully, 1977; Stets & Burke, 2000; Thoits, 1986). In this theoretical perspective, the most important identity level of analysis is the individual. According to social identity theory (Tajfel, 1982), identity is “that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from his knowledge of his[/her] membership of a social group together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel, 1978, p. 63). Thus, individuals holding a common view of themselves converge as members of the same social category (Abrams & Hogg, 1988; Stets & Burke, 2000). In this vein, identity refers to the meaning of a particular entity that is internalized as part of the self-concept (Miscenko & Day, 2016), and the focus is hence on the group and organizational level of identity.

Within organization and management studies, indeed, the identity extends to multiple levels of analysis: individual, group, and organizational (Brown, 2001, 2015; Haslam & Ellemers, 2011; Miscenko & Day, 2016). Furthermore, it has become clear that debates centered around identity typically also concern identity work and identification (Brown, 2017). Accordingly, identity, identity work, and identification are among the most commonly studied constructs (Alvesson et al., 2008; Brown, 2015; Coupland & Brown, 2012). While the boundaries of these three key constructs sometimes seem blurred, further refinement and development of the literature led to a clearer distinction useful to advance knowledge on the field (Brown, 2017; Miscenko & Day, 2016). In this vein, we adopted the following definitions. Identity refers to the meaning of a particular entity (i.e., individual, group, or organization) that is internalized as part of the self-concept (Miscenko & Day, 2016). Identity work is defined as the “range of activities individuals (or collectives) engage to create and sustain identities that are congruent with and supportive of self-concepts” (Snow & Anderson, 1987, p. 1348). Identification refers to “the perception of oneness with or belongingness to” a group or an organization (Ashforth & Mael, 1989, p. 34). Therefore, we review articles that discuss identity, identity work, and identification in family firms and, borrowing from organization and management studies, we use these constructs (identity, identity work, and identification) conceived at the individual, group, and organizational levels of analysis to group the thematic areas and map the terrain of research on IFF.

Method

Literature Identification

The first step was to search for articles (English language) using the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) of the ISI Web of Science database. We utilized two strings of truncated keywords linked by the Boolean connector AND (Bergamaschi et al., 2021; Furrer et al., 2008) to select studies that mention at least one of the words in each string in their title, abstract, or keywords. The first string included terms that relate to the family firm (FF) concept (“family firm*” OR “family business*” OR “family enter*” OR “familin*” OR “family control*” OR “family led*” OR “family owner*” OR “family-based,” Bettinelli et al., 2017); the second string contained “identit*” as an all-inclusive term due to the exploratory nature of our study (Bititci et al., 2012; Neely, 2005; Taticchi et al., 2010). We focused on articles published until December 31, 2020 (no time limit for the beginning of the period). The sample generated by this process consisted of 615 documents. We then applied the same search protocol (i.e., the same strings of keywords about FFs and identity in the title, abstract, and keywords), using the database EBSCO–Business Source Premier to identify any possible additional studies. This search resulted in 160 documents; 49 of these were new and hence included in our sample. Seeking suggestions from experts in the FF and identity literature streams, we manually added three articles (Brinkerink et al., 2020; Prügl & Spitzley, 2020; Zellweger et al., 2010) that did not emerge from the queries. Overall, this search process generated 664 possible studies for inclusion.

After that, two of the authors read the title, abstract, and, when necessary, the full text of each article to categorize them into different groups, placing papers relevant to the research topic in group “A” (N = 118), papers not relevant to the research topic in group “B” (N = 439), and in group “C” the papers of which relevance was uncertain (N = 108; Thorpe et al., 2005). By “relevant” we mean that the paper contributes to understanding the debate around identity in FFs, and in that it identifies antecedents, outcomes, contingencies, mechanisms/processes related to the topic and/or it offers insights into the evolution of the debate on the topic, including discussions of conceptualizations, measures, or research gaps.

Following Kwon et al. (2020), we excluded papers that included “identity” or “identities” in the title, abstract, or keywords but (a) do not focus explicitly and specifically on the concept of identity, that is, where the identity concept is only tangentially or indirectly relevant to the paper’s central arguments (e.g., Gill, 2021); or (b) consider methodological and measurement issues not focused on identity in FFs (e.g., Frank et al., 2017); or (c) were literature reviews with no direct conceptual contributions to IFF (e.g., Sageder et al., 2018).

Finally, we discussed about the relevance of the “C” papers and resolved it (i.e., these papers were placed into either the “B” or “A” category) through iterative discussions and consultation with two other co-authors. This process led to a final population of 122 articles that were included in the literature review. We provide details of each study in Table S1 in the online supplement.

Literature Analysis

Studies on IFF are quite variegated, which motivated us to attempt to understand both their conceptual framing and content. To do so, we followed Jones et al. (2011) and enriched our review (e.g., Tranfield et al., 2003) with a thematic ontological analysis of the papers (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to better appreciate their nature and content (Jones et al., 2011).

Systematic Analysis

We analyzed our sample using an Excel data sheet (Rashman et al., 2009) in which we gathered descriptive elements (i.e., type of study, methodology used, sample size, sector, country, main theory, and the identity level of analysis), research questions, and main findings (i.e., antecedents, outcomes, contingencies, and mechanisms/processes). This approach maximizes transparency and replicability (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009). Following Jones et al. (2011), we adopted the analytic protocol and, after the systematic analysis, proceeded with a thematic ontological analysis, as described next.

Thematic Ontological Analysis

We thematically explored the ontology of our sampled articles. More specifically, we organized an ontological classification by identifying the primary contributions, arguments, constructs, and findings of each article. Following Jones et al. (2011) and Bettinelli et al. (2022), two of us assigned each article a descriptive statement outlining its primary focus, that is, the main contribution to the IFF debate, the primary aim, the main arguments, key constructs, and main findings (T1), taking care to echo its conceptual vocabulary. After reading and describing each paper, the researchers passed the analysis to a third colleague who ensured that the descriptive statements were complete and correct. The three researchers met to compare the descriptive statements and identify initial thematic names discussing eventual discrepancies in perceptions/opinions at every 25 articles. The three researchers carefully re-reviewed all the studies and categorizations, checking for consistency and clarity, noting eventual divergences in labels, and annotating eventual observations on the labeling. The divergences and observations were checked and discussed when needed, leading to a refined list of thematic labels.

In such way, we created a list of thematic names for each article, resulting in the first-ranked theme becoming the first-order thematic name for each paper (T1). Then, following an ontological process and borrowing from the identity literature, the T1 thematic names were grouped to form second-order themes (T2) according to the level of analysis observed (i.e., individual, group, organizational, and multilevel). Similarly, we grouped T2 into the main thematic areas (T3), namely, identity, identity work, and identification, thus forming a taxonomic (subtheme–supertheme) hierarchy. Themes were reviewed for redundancy or duplication. Three researchers carefully followed each step and interacted constantly, sharing their doubts, thoughts, and discussing iteratively until reaching a consensus on the classification.

The thematic map in Figure 1 is the result of our ontological analysis. It allows to decipher the meanings attributed to various categories of IFF and offers an overview of the structure of the conceptual structure of the literature. In so doing, it is instrumental for the categorization of the various antecedents, outcomes and contingencies associated to each theme, and for the identification of future research directions.

Figure 1.

Thematic Map of IFF.

Systematic Description of the Studies

The first article was written by Jones in 2006, which emphasizes the relatively early stage of the application of identity theories to the context of family firms. The academic production was stable until 2016, after which it started to increase consistently. The articles were published in 59 different journals, and the most prolific are Journal of Family Business Strategy (13 articles), Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (12 articles), Family Business Review (12 articles), Journal of Family Business Management (7 articles), Journal of Business Ethics (6 articles), Organization Studies, and International Small Business Journal (5 articles each). The presence of sources, such as Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Organization Studies, and more generally, a variety of journals not specifically focused on family firms highlights that this topic has generated academic discussions involving scholars from different fields.

Our analysis indicates that a large majority of the 122 studies are empirical (N = 103, 84%), 19 are conceptual (N = 14) or commentaries (N = 5), with the latter being extensions of previous studies (Klein, 2008; Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2014; Marler & Stanley, 2018; Reay, 2009; Trippe & Baumoel, 2015). Our sample also contains one article that develops a new measurement scale (Anglin et al., 2017). Among the empirical studies, we found a prevalence of quantitative (N = 61) over qualitative studies (N = 40), while two articles adopt a mixed-methods approach (Malik, 2019; Shen & Tikoo, 2020). Among the quantitative studies, the number of cross-sectional analyses is almost double that of longitudinal analyses (N = 39 vs. N = 23). Similarly, we found that 11 of the 41 qualitative studies investigate the analyzed phenomenon repeatedly and over the years, while the majority do not adopt a specific temporal perspective (N = 18).

Samples Analyzed

The United States is the most studied region (N = 20), notably followed by Italy (N = 9), which is characterized by a considerable number of firms owned and controlled by families (Barontini & Caprio, 2006; Faccio & Lang, 2002). More generally, the majority of articles are focused on European (N = 51) and Asian (N = 16) family firms. In contrast, Latin American and Oceania countries are noticeably less represented (N = 6), while Africa is almost absent (N = 2), despite the considerable number of family firms on this continent, raising questions about goals relating to the generalizability of social science knowledge. Therefore, the concept of identity in family firms has a global reach, but the focus of the articles is concentrated on specific countries. Similarly, a wide variety of industries are represented in our sample: 49 studies include multiple industries, and slightly fewer focus on a single sector (N = 23, e.g., wine, brewery, fashion, hospitality, and automotive). However, a considerable percentage of the studies do not provide information about the industry of the firms analyzed, mainly because they use dummy variables without explicitly defining them (N = 12), are experiments (N = 3), or focus on the individual level without specific reference to an organization (N = 4).

Most Frequently Adopted Theoretical Perspectives

From a theoretical perspective, the theories adopted to examine IFF are fragmented (see Table S1 in the online supplement for details). We can synthesize the main theoretical perspectives under the following macro-categories: social identity theory (e.g., Matherne et al., 2017; Schmidts & Shepherd, 2015), and its organizational identity theory derivate (e.g., Canziani et al., 2020; McKenny et al., 2012); socioemotional wealth (SEW) theory (e.g., Murphy et al., 2019; Razzak & Jassem, 2019); and agency theory (e.g., Martinez-Garcia et al., 2022; Miller et al., 2011).

Some studies integrate multiple theories, for example, adopting social identity theory in combination with other theories, such as leader-member exchange (e.g., Marler & Stanley, 2018) or neo-institutional theory (e.g., Vallejo, 2008). A few others integrate organizational identity theory with family theories, such as family communication theory (Prügl & Spitzley, 2020) or family systems theory (Bernhard & Labaki, 2021), to explain family firms’ distinctive behavior. Other theoretical perspectives adopted are identity theory (e.g., Brannon et al., 2013); stewardship theory (e.g., Medina-Craven et al., 2021); stakeholder theory (e.g., Déniz-Déniz et al., 2020); institutional theory (e.g., Reay, 2009); the resource-based view (e.g., Gallucci et al., 2015); systems theory (e.g., Barbera et al., 2015); and social network theory (e.g., Vardaman et al., 2018). Quite surprisingly, our review shows that, in investigating IFF, few studies integrate theories grounded in identity scholarship with those deriving from the family firm literature.

Ontology of IFF Themes

The IFF ontological organization takes the form of a thematic map (see Figure 1), useful to highlight the structure of the field and reach a common understanding of how IFF has been conceptualized thus far. Next to each theme, the map includes a parenthesis with the year when a paper on the theme was first published and the number of papers published until December 2020. These details, together with the integrative table that we will present hereafter, are useful to distill the future research directions.

Identity in Family Firms

In this first theme, studies focus on the particular meanings that are internalized as part of the self-concept (Miscenko & Day, 2016), and the possible tensions that may arise from the co-presence of different meanings. Four second-order themes emerge: (a) individual identity; (b) group (family) identity; (c) organizational identity; and (d) multilevel identities (see Figure 1).

Individual Identity

Studies in this section are mainly concerned with role identities, that is, “the different social structural positions individuals hold” (Burke & Stets, 2009, p. 112) within the family firm. These studies focus on the following two main categories.

Leadership Role Identities

In this category, the emphasis is on the different features of leadership role identities. Roles considered include being a first-born versus a non-first-born successor (Yoo et al., 2014 and Schenkel et al., 2016), being a founder, heir, or non-family CEO (Caprio et al., 2020), or again, being founders in a team made by a romantic couple, by biologically linked relatives (e.g., father and son, siblings), or by non-family members (Brannon et al., 2013). Finally, differences in role identities can be linked to the leader’s family affiliation, such as being a family versus non-family (Abdulmalik et al., 2020), or being a lone versus family founder CEO (Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2011; Miller et al., 2011). These family affiliations imply that leaders assume more or less salient role identities and family logics that will shape their decisions and behaviors (Barnett et al., 2009).

Individual Identities’ Tensions

As multiple identities may coexist in individuals (Sundaramurthy & Kreiner, 2008), there is a high probability that they enter into conflict. In this regard, Kotlar and Sieger (2019) define identity-based discordance as “contradictions between initial commitments and managers’ personal or professional identity” (p. 255), examining the case where such individual identity-based discordance is fueled when the agent is a non-family manager working in a family firm.

Group (Family) Identity

Family Identities’ Tensions

Tensions manifest as the divergent expectations of two or more group-based identities that are not easy to reconcile (Trippe & Baumoel, 2015). So far, the literature has focused on the family and highlighted that these tensions can arise between active and nonactive family shareholders (Siebels et al., 2017) or between blood- and nonblood-related (i.e., in-law) family members (Kim & Marler, 2022).

Organizational Identity

At the organizational level, more often we see papers equating family firm identity with a relatively static organization’s attribute/essence rather than a dynamic element. We identify the following two second-order subthemes.

Family Firm Status

In these cases, family firm identity is mainly seen as “a status” that the organization holds. Thus, many scholars dichotomize firm identity based on a family ownership percentage cut-off (Biscotti et al., 2018; Cannella et al., 2015; Martinez-Garcia et al., 2022; Wei et al., 2020), or on criteria that account for both family ownership and management (Bingham et al., 2011; Dibrell et al., 2019; Jain & Prakash, 2017; Magistretti et al., 2020; Thiele & Wendt, 2017). Others instead consider the percentage of family ownership to study the firm owners’ identity (Cho & Lee, 2020; García-García et al., 2020; Jabbouri & Jabbouri, 2021), or the extent of the family and business identity fit/overlap (Block & Wagner, 2014; Dou et al., 2019), assuming that larger percentages of family ownership equal larger family and business identity fit/overlap.

Other Approaches to Capture Family Firm Identity

In an attempt to use a finer-grained approach, some scholars have used other ways to capture family firm identity borrowing from related constructs, such as familiness, and/or promoting ad hoc conceptualizations and scales. Zellweger et al. (2010) define family firm identity as a third element of familiness (Habbershon et al., 2003; Habbershon & Williams, 1999) similar to McGrath and O’Toole (2018) and Ingram et al. (2020). El Masri et al. (2017) focus on family firm identity as a dual identity, including the family identity (associated with familial affectivity) and business identity (associated with economic rationality), noting that one identity typically prevails over the other.

Finally, another approach is that of Uhlaner et al. (2015) and Berent-Braun et al. (2018) who define family firm identity as a mix of concepts of identity, family essence, and family involvement.

Multilevel Identities

Finally, IFF studies consider the dynamics among identities at different levels, investigating the following two main themes.

Multilevel Identities’ Tensions

Not much has been written on the fit or misfit between identities at different levels, except for Akhter et al. (2016) who explore the tension between the family and the satellite business identities. This tension, in the case of family firm portfolios, can lead to extreme decisions, such as shutting down a satellite firm instead of selling it as a turnaround strategy that protects the owning family’s identity while guaranteeing the continuity of the family firm portfolio (Akhter et al., 2016).

Meta-Identity

Shepherd and Haynie (2009) introduce another higher-level notion, the family business meta-identity, where the family and business identities are subsumed and signal “who we are as a family” and “who we are as a business,” and how they intersect, thus defining “who we are as a family business” (p. 1246). Focusing on a multilevel perspective, the authors consider family business meta-identity as the tool that resolves conflict at the intersection of the family and the business identities, a tool that can be especially effective when used to adjust to a changing environment (Reay, 2009).

Identity Work in Family Firms

Studies in this theme are in different ways concerned with the work done to build or maintain an identity. We identify the following four second-order themes: (a) individual identity work; (b) group (family) identity work; (c) organizational identity work; and (d) identity work from a multilevel perspective (see Figure 1).

Individual Identity Work

Individual identity work is conceptualized as the range of activities used to create, present, and sustain individual identities (Snow & Anderson, 1987). The following three major aspects have been investigated.

Mechanisms of Construction of Gender Identity

Studies in this area consider gender aspects including women entrepreneurs within family firms (Fernandes & Mota-Ribeiro, 2017), daughters (Hytti et al., 2017; Xian et al., 2021), and women successors (Mussolino et al., 2019), exploring the role of gender in the construction of their entrepreneurial and successors’ identities. This often requires decisions on conforming to or resisting gender discrimination (Fernandes & Mota-Ribeiro, 2017) and on their positioning within the network of interactions with fathers/predecessors and other employees (McAdam et al., 2021; Mussolino et al., 2019), decisions that Byrne et al. (2019, p. 3) define as “gender gymnastics” that impact the legitimacy of CEO successors (Byrne et al., 2019) and even the career choices of young people (Feldmann et al., 2022).

Identity Work in Leadership Positions

Identity work in leadership positions has been studied focusing on the concept of identity confirmation (Milton & Westphal, 2005). A person’s identity is confirmed in a family firm when others therein react positively to it, a process that in family firms may be more difficult, but at the same time, more rewarding (Milton, 2008). Moreover, identity confirmation can be an essential mechanism for successful succession and may vary based on family type, complexity, or life cycle stage (Klein, 2008). Another concept of individual identity work has been applied to family firms, namely, projective identification (Klein, 1946/1975), denoting the mechanism of “unconscious projection of unwanted aspects of the leader’s self into others,” a practice that often occurs in family firms (Petriglieri & Stein, 2012, p. 1218).

Identity Work in Non-Family Employees

Finally, more recently, the discussion has opened up to individual identity work performed by individuals external to the family, that is, non-family employees, and how they see, understand, and deal with their identity as outsiders in a close family firm (Cunningham, 2020), a process that sheds light on different but complementary points of view.

Group (Family) Identity Work

Only two papers refer to this theme. Identity work can be challenging to study at this level as internal group dynamics are often tacit, not codified, and thus more difficult to grasp. Here group identity work was conceptualized (with a focus on the family level) as the processes enacted by owning families to preserve their entrepreneurial family identity (Salvato et al., 2010), or to develop a “family in business” identity (Schmidts & Shepherd, 2015).

Organizational Identity Work

More frequent are the papers on organizational identity work in family firms conceptualized as the work done by the family firm through its components (e.g., firm leaders and departments) “to build or maintain an organizational identity” (Pratt et al., 2016, p. 136). The following two major aspects are investigated.

Family Firm Identity Building and Preservation

In this group of papers scholars acknowledge the important role of history and identify storytelling as a mechanism of organizational identity work that builds and transmits a collective organizational identity (Parada & Dawson, 2017; Parada & Viladás, 2010). In times of change, family firm identity work can be referred to as discursive strategies used to establish a sense of continuity, namely elaborating, recovering, and decoupling (Sasaki et al., 2020). Family firms’ identity work can be performed by different organizational actors. For example, Ponroy et al. (2019) look at how non-family members preserve a family firm identity, identifying a set of different meaning preservation and meaning connection mechanisms. Thus, the past is essential in family firms’ organizational identity work to the point that the founder’s legacy can become a strategic tool to preserve organizational identity even when the firm is no longer a family firm (Boers & Ljungkvist, 2019). Finally, in family firms’ disruptive innovation change, organizational identity work can be seen as the actions aimed at integrating new aspects emerging from the adaptation of the business (i.e., what we do) in the actual organizational identity (i.e., who we are; Brinkerink et al., 2020).

Family Firm Identity Communication (Corporate Identity)

Corporate identity, defined by family firm scholars as “the intentional projection of a family firm identity to external audiences” (Zellweger et al., 2012, p. 239), is a core aspect of identity work indicating the “reflective processes where the firm’s essence and distinction is elaborated” (Blombäck & Brunninge, 2013, p. 329). Scholars have analyzed the narratives of family storytelling, the visual and textual content, and the presentation of identity on family firm websites (Botero et al., 2013; Canziani et al., 2020; Micelotta & Raynard, 2011). Melewar and Skinner (2018) identify seven different dimensions of corporate identity in small family firms while Blombäck and Brunninge (2013) propose a typology of ways to communicate the family, business, and family firm history. Understanding which aspects the family firm decides to communicate is indeed important (Blombäck & Brunninge, 2013; Blombäck & Ramírez-Pasillas, 2012; Canziani et al., 2020; Kansikas & Nemilentsev, 2010; Micelotta & Raynard, 2011). The studies belonging to this group highlight the importance of the “perceptual component regarding what external stakeholders believe about an organization” (Botero et al., 2013, p. 19) which requires collaboration over time between generations and with non-family members (Casprini et al., 2020).

Multilevel Identity Work

Multilevel conceptualizations of identity work see it as a bundle of mechanisms where IFF aspects are simultaneously developed at multiple levels and enacted by multiple actors. The following three main themes have been investigated.

Sociocultural Dynamics

Here, identity work is seen as grounded in cultural theories (e.g., Jones, 2006). Sasaki et al. (2019) study the sociocultural dynamics that contribute to re-enacting and reproducing the social order in Japan through an exchange between family firms and the community, while Jones (2006) focuses on a similar process whereby the mutual confirmation between the cultural context of the American South and the historical values of a family firm provides employees with a powerful affirmation of cultural identity.

Integration Tactics

Knapp et al. (2013) focus on individual and organizational identity work tactics enacted to favor integration between the family and the business domains. In this regard, Sundaramurthy and Kreiner (2008) borrow from boundary theory and stress the importance of boundary work tactics to manage family and business identities’ integration.

Identity Development Sources

Studies in this area highlight that the sources of identity development are variegated—including for example experiences within the business family (Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2014) and non-family employee’s efforts (Lingo & Elmes, 2019)—often interconnected (Lingo & Elmes, 2019; Wielsma & Brunninge, 2019), and evolve in tandem with the context (Dieleman & Koning, 2019). For example, Watson (2009) shows that the identity work of family firms’ entrepreneurs is linked to that of employees and customers, implying considering both internal (self-identity) and external (discourse-related) sources of identity development.

Identification in Family Firms

Studies in this thematic category are concerned with identification, referring to “the perception of oneness with or belongingness to” a group or an organization (Ashforth & Mael, 1989, p. 34) at different levels and in different ways. We categorize the following four second-order themes: (a) individual identification (with the family or business); (b) group (family) identification with the business; (c) business identification with the family; (d) identification from a multilevel perspective (see Figure 1 and Table S1 in the online supplement for details).

Individual Identification

Individual Identification With the Family

Bernhard and Labaki (2021) study individual family members’ identification with the owning family. They note that while most non-family firm studies on identification assume that organizational members can freely choose their social identity(ies), in family firms, owning-family individuals are not only the potential heirs of the family firm but also born into the owning family, and cannot easily modify their identification with the family firm.

Individual Identification With the Business

Here, some scholars consider nonfamily employees’ identification with the business (Marler & Stanley, 2018; Vardaman et al., 2018), some focus on family employees’ identification with the business (Lee et al., 2016), and others on employees’ identification without distinguishing between family or non-family ones (Medina-Craven et al., 2021; Vallejo, 2008; Zhou, 2014). Finally, more articulated attempts distinguish family from non-family employees, exploring their identification with the family and with the business (Matherne et al., 2017; Pagliarussi & Costa, 2017). Other scholars instead focus on next-generation members’ identification with the business (organizational identification), emphasizing its importance in shaping their intention to stay (Dawson et al., 2015; Schröder et al., 2011) or considering the development of organizational identification as a key element of SEW (Murphy et al., 2019).

Group (Family) Identification With the Business

This theme refines earlier understanding of organizational identification by shedding light on the family perspective. We identify the following two clusters according to how the authors conceptualize family identification with the business.

Family SEW

Here, the SEW conceptual framing is fundamental (Arena & Michelon, 2018; Berrone et al., 2012; Pazzaglia et al., 2013), both to explain the dynamics underpinning family identification with the business and to measure the construct. Indeed, scholars (e.g., Basly & Saunier, 2020; Razzak & Jassem, 2019) tend to use “identification of family members with the firm” from the FIBER construct (Berrone et al., 2012) or derived measures (Calabrò et al., 2017; Neckebrouck et al., 2017; Prügl & Spitzley, 2020; Tsao et al., 2019). Some see the presence of the family name in the firm’s name as signaling family identification with the business (Arena & Michelon, 2018; Deephouse & Jaskiewicz, 2013), others (Cabrera-Suárez et al., 2014; Déniz-Déniz et al., 2020) measure the identification of family members with the family firm borrowing from some parts of the family influence on power, experience, and culture (F-PEC) scale (Klein et al., 2005). Finally, some observe it more inductively (Brundin et al., 2014). Despite the different approaches to observing family identification, these scholars have in common that they followed the conceptual roots of Berrone et al. (2012).

Family Shared Identity With the Business

Other scholars instead consider family identification with the business by emphasizing the concept of “family shared identity with the business” (Mahto et al., 2019; Zellweger et al., 2013) and the consequences from the family’s perspective. While most scholars consider the bright side of identification, others highlight that there might also be a dark side, like the dangers of family over-identification (Nicholson, 2008).

Business Identification With the Family

Only one paper (Anglin et al., 2017) goes in the direction of trying to somehow observe business identification with the family and proposes a measurement method that, among other things, uses an archival approach to measure “the extent to which firms identify as family firms” (p. 24), thereby emphasizing identification more from a business perspective.

Identification From a Multilevel Perspective

Only two are the papers in this category. Elsbach and Pieper (2019) consider how psychological needs may motivate individual identifications with, and identifiers of, family firms (Elsbach & Pieper, 2019). In a similar vein, Matherne et al. (2011) analyze how dual identifications (with the business and the family) may interact at different levels within a family firm and translate into firm behaviors and strategies.

An Integrative Understanding of IFF

Our thematic map depicts the IFF categories based on the identity concepts (e.g., identity itself, identity work, and identification) and identity levels (individual, group, organizational, and multilevel). In so doing, it provides definitional clarity to the constructs applied to family firms. To further clarify how each study contributes to understanding IFF and relates to others, we now engage in an integrative endeavor (see Table 1), where the key IFF themes (Figure 1) are combined with the relative antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies (Post et al., 2020).

Table 1.

An Integrative Understanding of IFF.

		Individual	Group (family)	Organizational	Multilevel
Antecedents	Identity	Next generation sources of leadership and mission (Lefebvre & Lefebvre, 2016)		Management control techniques implemented (El Masri et al., 2017)	Potential entrepreneurial opportunity ( Shepherd & Haynie, 2009 )
	Identity work		Business legacy, values orientation, public family’s exposure, family’s dependence on the business, community involvement, industry passion (Schmidts & Shepherd, 2015)	Storytelling (Parada & Viladás, 2010); Type of market focus & country (Botero et al., 2013); Ownership status, culture (individualistic/collectivistic) (Chen et al., 2019); Sector, organization age (Botero et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2019); Brand expected benefits (Astrachan & Botero, 2018); Family centered noneconomic goals (Van Gils et al., 2019)	Culture (national, rural or urban, family), organization lifecycle ( Sundaramurthy & Kreiner, 2008 )
	Identification	Employee-focused practices (Medina-Craven et al., 2021); Family commitment (Zhou, 2014); Friendship with family members ( Marler & Stanley, 2018 ; Vardaman et al., 2018)	Climate (Cabrera-Suárez et al., 2014; Prügl & Spitzley, 2020); Family influence, commitment, involvement (Mahto et al., 2019; Basly & Saunier, 2020; Neckebrouck et al., 2017); Transgenerational control intentions (Neckebrouck et al., 2017)
		Individual	Group (family)	Organizational	Multilevel
Outcomes	Identity	Entrepreneurial orientation (Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2011); Performance (Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2011; Schenkel et al., 2016; Yoo et al., 2014); Start-up success (Brannon et al., 2013); Growth strategy (Miller et al., 2011); Cash holding (Caprio et al., 2020); R&D spending (Brinkerink & Bammens, 2018); Entrepreneurial behavior (Kotlar & Sieger, 2019)	Conflicts active vs nonactive family shareholders (Siebels et al., 2017); Bifurcation bias (i.e., different treatment between blood and nonblood related family members) ( Kim & Marler, 2022 )	Relational capabilities development (McGrath & O’Toole, 2018); Social initiatives (Bingham et al., 2011); Environmental disclosure (Jain & Prakash, 2017); Proactive environmental strategies (Dou et al., 2019); Corporate social responsibility (Block & Wagner, 2014); Foreign direct investments decision (Wei et al., 2020); Human capital training (Biscotti et al., 2018); Long-term debt (Thiele & Wendt, 2017); R&D investment, innovation (García-García et al., 2020; Ingram et al., 2020); Preferences for outside directors and interlocks (Cannella et al., 2015; Dibrell et al., 2019); Performance (Jabbouri & Jabbouri, 2021)	Entrepreneurial action ( Shepherd & Haynie, 2009 ); Firm shutting down (Akhter et al., 2016)
Outcomes	Identity work	Succession success (Klein, 2008; Milton, 2008); Successor improved legitimacy (Byrne et al., 2019)	Exit from the industry/renewal (Salvato et al., 2010)	Spiritual capital orientation & strategic renewal ( Abdelgawad & Zahra, 2020 ); Consumers’ attitude, brand trust, intention to buy (Alonso-Dos-Santos et al., 2019, 2022; Bednarz & Nikodemska-Wołowik, 2017; Nikodemska-Wołowik et al., 2020); Brand authenticity (Zanon et al., 2019); Organizational behaviors (i.e., citizenship behavior and customer orientation) (Astrachan & Botero, 2018);
		Individual	Group (family)	Organizational	Multilevel
				Stakeholder outcomes (i.e., customer, employee and partner-based benefits) (Astrachan & Botero, 2018; Craig et al., 2008); Performance (Astrachan & Botero, 2018; Craig et al., 2008; Zellweger et al., 2012); Sustainability certifications investments (Richards et al., 2017); Storytelling (McKenny et al., 2012)
	Identification	Level of vicarious guilt, responsible behaviors (Bernhard & Labaki, 2021); Affective commitment to the business (Dawson et al., 2015); Intention to work in the family firm (Schröder et al., 2011); Employees’ behavior ( Marler & Stanley, 2018 ; Matherne et al., 2017; Medina-Craven et al., 2021; Vardaman et al., 2018); Optimal wage profile ( Pagliarussi & Costa, 2017 )	Transgenerational entrepreneurship (Mahto et al., 2019); Desire for continuity (Basly & Saunier, 2020); Disposition to commit resources (Razzak & Jassem, 2019); Family ownership logic (Brundin et al., 2014); Preferences for outside investors (Neckebrouck et al., 2017); Firm reputation (Deephouse & Jaskiewicz, 2013); Environmental disclosure (Arena & Michelon, 2018); R&D spending (Tsao et al., 2019); External corporate venture strategic focus (Prügl & Spitzley, 2020); Nonfinancial goals importance (Cabrera-Suárez et al., 2014); Orientation toward non-family stakeholder (Déniz-Déniz et al., 2020); Earnings quality (Pazzaglia et al., 2013)		Stewardship orientation ( Matherne et al., 2011 )
		Individual	Group (family)	Organizational	Multilevel
Contingencies	Identity	Caring responsibilities & traditional gender norms (Feldmann et al., 2022); Family founder involvement (Kotlar & Sieger, 2019); Information asymmetry, agency conflict, risk aversion (Caprio et al., 2020); Financial investment (Brannon et al., 2013)	National culture & family members’ familial proximity and tenure ( Kim & Marler, 2022 )	Family commitment (Dou et al., 2019); Previous firm similarity (Dibrell et al., 2019); Financial slack, organizational ownership structure (Wei et al., 2020); Institutional country setting (Martinez-Garcia et al., 2022); Economic downturn (Jabbouri & Jabbouri, 2021)	Similarity of conflicts to past conflicts ( Shepherd & Haynie, 2009 )
	Identity work	Organizational life cycle point ( Klein, 2008 )		Consumers’ product involvement (Alonso-Dos-Santos et al., 2019); Organizational size (Shen & Tikoo, 2020)
	Identification	Friendship ties with family members ( Marler & Stanley, 2018 )	Familial TMT (Déniz-Déniz et al., 2020); CEO’ ties to the family (Mahto et al., 2019; Pazzaglia et al., 2013); Family CEO’s efforts (Tsao et al., 2019)

Note. Citations in bold are conceptual papers. IFF = Identity in Family Firms; TMT = Top Management Team.

To ease understanding of the diverse body of work on IFF, for each theme, we discuss what the literature reveals about the following three aspects: (a) antecedents, referring to the factors that explain IFF; (b) IFF outcomes; and (c) IFF contingencies, referring to the factors that moderate the antecedents-IFF-outcomes relationships.

Antecedents

Identity

With reference to the individual identity antecedents, scholars have focused on the skills and sources of leadership. Remarkably, different types of leadership identity projections among members of the next generation are found to depend on the source of leadership (i.e., choice vs. destiny) and mission (i.e., conservation vs. innovation; Lefebvre & Lefebvre, 2016). Regarding organizational identity, scholars reveal that the type of management control the firm implements (El Masri et al., 2017) shapes the prevalence of a business identity over a family identity (and vice versa). Finally, observing multilevel identities, Shepherd and Haynie (2009) see the emergence of a potential entrepreneurial opportunity as an antecedent of family and business identity conflict.

Identity Work

Regarding group (family) identity work, Schmidts and Shepherd (2015) identify a mix of cognitive and affective antecedents of the development of a “family in business” meta-identity (i.e., the business legacy, orientation to values, the family’s exposure to the public, its dependence on the business, the family’s community involvement, and passion for the industry). Instead, in the case of organizational identity work, and particularly family firm identity building, preservation/maintenance and the role of storytelling are notable, viewed in the literature as both an antecedent (Parada & Viladás, 2010) and an outcome (see the Outcomes section below). With regard to the practices to externally communicate the organizational identity, the literature reveals a considerable number of antecedents that are positively related to family firm image communication. For example, being a business-to-consumer (B2C) business (Botero et al., 2013), being a private family firm from an individualistic culture, and being a really young or really old firm (Chen et al., 2019) increase the likelihood of communicating/leveraging a firm’s family identity. The empirical findings do not always converge. For example, while Botero et al. (2013) find a positive relationship between age and communicating the family firm identity at a later point in time, Chen et al. (2019) find an inverted U-shaped relationship. Botero et al. (2013) find that belonging to the manufacturing sector (vs. the service sector) positively induces communication of the family firm identity, while Chen et al. (2019) find the opposite. These conflicting results may be explained by the fact that the observed samples have different contextual backgrounds. Finally, two additional antecedents are the expected benefits of having a family firm brand (Astrachan & Botero, 2018) and having family-centered noneconomic goals (Van Gils et al., 2019). Finally, studying multilevel identity work, Sundaramurthy and Kreiner (2008) theorize that situational contextual factors (i.e., national cultures, rural or urban cultures, family culture, organizational life cycle) can explain the position of the family firm on the integration–segmentation continuum.

Identification

Regarding individual identification with the business, Medina-Craven et al. (2021) find that employee-focused practices positively influence employees’ identification with the family firm. In the specific case of non-family employees, family commitment (Zhou, 2014) and friendship with the owning family members (Marler & Stanley, 2018; Vardaman et al., 2018) are found to foster these employees’ organizational identification. Thus, relational aspects are essential, especially for individual identification with the business. Studies on group (family) identification with the business highlight instead the importance of the internal climate. Indeed, the presence of a positive family climate is found to be a positive antecedent (Cabrera-Suárez et al., 2014). Similarly, Prügl and Spitzley (2020) find that conformity orientation (the degree to which the family creates a climate that stresses the homogeneity of attitudes, values, and beliefs) and conversation orientation (i.e., the degree to which the family creates a climate where all family members are encouraged to participate freely in communication) are positively related to family identification with the firm. The role of family antecedents here becomes essential. According to Mahto et al. (2019), increasing the number of family meetings, family investments in the firm, and number of family members in the top management team (TMT) are positively related to the level of family identification with the firm. Similarly, family commitment to the firm (Basly & Saunier, 2020), family involvement with management, and intentions for transgenerational control (Neckebrouck et al., 2017) are positive antecedents of the family identification with the firm.

Outcomes

Identity

Various studies consider the effects of individual identity, particularly leadership role identities, on firm performance. Studying publicly listed firms, Miller and Le Breton-Miller (2011) propose that post-founder family owners and CEOs tend to present a “family nurturer” role identity, which empirically leads to lower levels of entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and firm performance. In contrast, firms in which the family founder is still active exhibit intermediate levels of EO and firm performance. Finally, firms with lone-founder owners and CEOs exhibit the highest levels of EO and performance (Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2011).

Focusing on listed firms in Korea, Yoo et al. (2014) find that non-firstborn son succession is more positively associated with firm performance than firstborn son succession in family businesses. Similarly, Schenkel et al. (2016) find that performance is higher for firms in which a non-firstborn son is both the CEO and the largest shareholder and in which outside block holdings exist. Brannon et al. (2013) find that romantic couples are more likely to achieve start-up success (first sale) than teams with other identities (i.e., members of biological teams or non-family teams). Another outcome of the role identities of leaders is the implementation of growth strategies. Miller et al. (2011) reveal that when a family member is the largest shareholder or CEO, the firm embraces conservative (non-growth) strategies.

CEO role identities (i.e., founder, heir, or non-family) affect the cash holdings policy of family firms (Caprio et al., 2020). Brinkerink and Bammens (2018) theorize that decision makers who have a family nurturer role identity are concerned with their firm’s extended preservation, finding that this concern leads to reduced R&D spending in terms of outcomes. A smaller number of scholars have started exploring the outcomes of individual identities’ tension, such as Kotlar and Sieger (2019), who find that identity-based discordance reduces entrepreneurial behaviors.

Also considering identity tensions, but at the group level, Siebels et al. (2017) reveal that certain role identities of non-active family shareholders (i.e., “coentrepreneur” and “traditionalist”) are related to a lower probability of conflict between active and non-active shareholders, while other identities (i.e., “active investor” and “silent shareholder”) are related to a higher probability of conflict between these two groups (Siebels et al., 2017). Kim and Marler (2022) assume that identity tensions (i.e., presence or not of blood relatedness) are positively associated with bifurcation bias, that is, asymmetric treatment of family and non-family members.

Despite that family firm organizational identity is negatively associated with a firm’s development of relational capabilities (McGrath & O’Toole, 2018), it is found to be positively related to the firm’s involvement in social initiatives (Bingham et al., 2011), environmental disclosure (Jain & Prakash, 2017), proactive environmental strategies (Dou et al., 2019), and different dimensions of corporate social responsibility (Block & Wagner, 2014). This approach is also reflected in family firms’ investments, whereby having a family firm identity results in decreasing the propensity for foreign direct investment decisions (Wei et al., 2020) but increasing human capital training (Biscotti et al., 2018) and long-term debt (Thiele & Wendt, 2017). García-García et al. (2020) find an inverted U-shaped relationship between family firm identity and R&D investment, while Ingram et al. (2020) find that it is negatively related to a firm’s financial investments in innovation but positively related to the innovative activity (output). Comparing family versus lone-founder firms, scholars find that family firm identity leads to a tendency toward interlocking with other family firms (Cannella et al., 2015) and appointing outside directors that have previous experience in family firms (Cannella et al., 2015; Dibrell et al., 2019).

Finally, as regards multilevel identities, tensions among multiple identities can lead to specific choices. For example, family and business identity conflicts can lead to expeditious entrepreneurial action (Shepherd & Haynie, 2009). In addition, a misfit between the identities of the family and satellite firms leads to an increase in the probability that the owning family will shut down (instead of selling) the satellite firm (Akhter et al., 2016).

Identity Work

Individual identity work can lead to different types of outcomes that shift from succession success (Klein, 2008; Milton, 2008) to the improved legitimacy of a CEO successor (Byrne et al., 2019), while group (family) identity work may drive family exit from the industry and firm strategic renewal (Salvato et al., 2010).

Organizational identity work can instead influence a firm’s spiritual capital and even its strategic renewal (Abdelgawad & Zahra, 2020). Regarding practices to externally communicate the organizational identity, a plethora of positive outcomes has been found. Communicating the firm’s family identity favors positive consumer attitudes and perceptions (Alonso-Dos-Santos et al., 2019; Bednarz & Nikodemska-Wołowik, 2017; Nikodemska-Wołowik et al., 2020), brand trust (Alonso-Dos-Santos et al., 2022), consumer intention to buy (Alonso-Dos-Santos et al., 2019, 2022; Nikodemska-Wołowik et al., 2020), and brand authenticity (Zanon et al., 2019). Thus, the positive effects of communicating the family firm identity not only favor behavioral outcomes (i.e., corporate citizenship and customer orientation) but also stakeholder outcomes (i.e., customer-, employee-, and partner-based benefits; Astrachan & Botero, 2018), which then translate into performance advantages (Craig et al., 2008) and finally firm performance (Astrachan & Botero, 2018; Zellweger et al., 2012). Moreover, there are different types of identity work (communication). While the use of “domestic-world rhetoric” is negatively associated with investments in sustainability certifications, the use of “civic/green rhetoric” is positively related to such investments (Richards et al., 2017). Storytelling (already explored as an antecedent of identity work), which this body of literature views as an antecedent, also emerges as an outcome (McKenny et al., 2012) of family firms’ organizational identity work.

Identification

Regarding individual identification, scholars have focused on different aspects. Bernhard and Labaki (2021) find that family members’ identification with the owning family is an antecedent of the next generation’s accepted level of vicarious guilt for present or past wrongdoings, in turn affecting responsible behaviors. Others find that individual identification leads to the next generation’s higher affective commitment to a family enterprise (Dawson et al., 2015) and intention to work in the family firm (Schröder et al., 2011). A broader spectrum of employee behaviors emerges as an outcome when identification refers to that of employees with the firm and the owning family, for example, organizational commitment and citizenship behaviors (Marler & Stanley, 2018; Matherne et al., 2017; Medina-Craven et al., 2021). In the specific case of non-family employees, identification with a family firm is found to be associated with a decrease in employee turnover (Vardaman et al., 2018) and a reduction in the dispersion of the optimal wage profile (Pagliarussi & Costa, 2017). The outcomes of group (family) identification with the business are variegated. Some scholars observe its effects on the family, such as transgenerational entrepreneurship (Mahto et al., 2019), the desire for the firm’s continuity (Basly & Saunier, 2020), the disposition to commit resources (Razzak & Jassem, 2019), and the development of a family ownership logic within the firm (Brundin et al., 2014). All these aspects seem to explain why family identification with the firm is found to be negatively related to the willingness to cede control to outside investors, and even when ceding control is considered, family identification leads to a preference for outside investors that also have a family firm identity (Neckebrouck et al., 2017). Moreover, when there is family identification with the firm, firm reputation increases (Deephouse & Jaskiewicz, 2013), and in line with seminal studies (e.g., Berrone et al., 2010), particular attention is paid to the firm’s strategic priorities. Indeed, family identification is positively associated with increased environmental disclosure (Arena & Michelon, 2018), higher levels of R&D spending (Brinkerink & Bammens, 2018), and a lower likelihood that R&D spending will be reduced due to financial problems (Tsao et al., 2019) but also a decreased strategic focus on external corporate ventures (Prügl & Spitzley, 2020). These effects probably emerged because family identification with the business increases the importance placed on nonfinancial goals (Cabrera-Suárez et al., 2014) and even an orientation toward key non-family stakeholders (Déniz-Déniz et al., 2020). An interesting approach to disentangling the role of family identification is proposed by Pazzaglia et al. (2013) who find that whether a firm is acquired by the current family owners (theoretically indicating lower family owners’ identification with the firm) or created/inherited by the current family owners (associated with higher identification) is related to lower earnings quality, especially when the CEO is a family member. Finally, Matherne et al. (2011) surmise that family and business identification leads to greater levels of stewardship orientation.

IFF Contingencies

Contingencies are those variables that moderate the antecedent–IFF outcomes relationship. The first theoretical conjectures of the moderating effects in the IFF relationship emerged in 2008 (e.g., Klein, 2008) but only recently witnessed the application of empirical tests (e.g., Pazzaglia et al., 2013). Capturing the attention of scholars only in recent times, the potential for exploring contingencies is yet to be exploited, especially with regard to the moderators of the antecedents-IFF relationship whose study is nonexistent.

As IFF is a multifaceted topic, its antecedents and outcomes vary according to a number of factors. Indeed, our review reveals a large set of seemingly unrelated contingencies (for the detailed list, see Table 1). However, when considering the conceptual rationale for each contingency, we find different categories distributed at all levels of observation. Among these, studies focus on identity themes and their outcomes including contingencies that derive from internal attributes of the organization, for example, investment and slack (Brannon et al., 2013; Wei et al., 2020), elements of firm similarity (e.g., Dibrell et al., 2019; Shepherd & Haynie, 2009), or macro-level elements, such as country characteristics (e.g., Kim & Marler, 2022; Martinez-Garcia et al., 2022). Studies considering identity work themes and outcomes explore firm features, including life cycle (Klein, 2008), size (Shen & Tikoo, 2020), or market features, such as consumer involvement (Alonso-Dos-Santos et al., 2019). Finally, studies on identification themes and their outcomes consider contingencies, such as friendship ties (Marler & Stanley, 2018) and familial TMT (Déniz-Déniz et al., 2020), but also emphasize the moderating role of CEO features, including ties to the family (Mahto et al., 2019; Pazzaglia et al., 2013) and family CEO efforts (Tsao et al., 2019).

Our review reveals that much can still be done in terms of empirically testing the theoretically identified moderators (e.g., Kim & Marler, 2022; Marler & Stanley, 2018; Shepherd & Haynie, 2009) and identifying the moderators of the antecedents–IFF relationship. More generally, it would be important to identify a more complete cluster of constructs (and related variables) that conceptually and empirically constitute the backbone of key contingencies in IFF dynamics. To do so, future studies could conceptually and empirically test the validity of moderators in the antecedent–IFF outcomes relationship by distinguishing the micro-, meso-, macro-, and chrono- contextual factors (Kotlar et al., 2018) and including them in a comprehensive model.

IFF Mechanisms/Processes

Various studies have begun to view IFF from a more dynamic perspective. Thus, despite not being listed in Table 1, we consider it important to comment on these studies. They observe the mechanisms and processes of IFF mostly with a time-varying approach that prioritizes understanding of identity work and identification (for a detailed overview, see the papers categorized as “M” in Table S1 in the online supplement).

The focus on the time-varying aspects of IFF began with Reay (2009) who suggests that maintaining a strong and distinctive family business meta-identity over time is challenged by conformity pressures deriving from a changing environment, which in turn impact established patterns of dealing with conflict between the family and the business roles.

Ponroy et al. (2019) elaborate on this idea by considering the case of the withdrawal of the owning family when the founder suddenly passes away, developing a theory of identity maintenance based on three main mechanisms (i.e., passing on the family legacy, unifying the metaphorical family, and modeling the family firm), and two additional mechanisms of meaning connection (i.e., holding on and bridging). In this way, nonfamily members can pave the way for building collective identity, acting as agents of institutional preservation (Lingo & Elmes, 2019).

Thus, from a dynamic perspective, IFF implies complex interactions among actors across and within different levels within and outside the organization. In this sense, Sasaki et al. (2019) emphasize the role of ongoing family firms’ interactions with their local community that allow maintaining a high social status through sociocultural practices of identity (status) maintenance, including social recognition, cultural reproduction, and benign entrapment. Such mechanisms can be important, especially in times of change, when family firms reconcile change initiatives with the values and principles laid out long before (i.e., corporate mottos and philosophies), establishing a sense of continuity through elaborating, recovering, and decoupling tactics (Sasaki et al., 2020).

Another way to observe IFF dynamics is through a multilevel perspective in which processes are enacted by multiple actors simultaneously. For example, Dieleman and Koning (2019) propose three modalities of identity work (harmonized, double, and detached identity work) that underpin different values of the leader, but at the same time, arise from multiple levels and evolve with the context. Overall, emphasizing mutability, precarity, and instability, papers on the dynamics of IFF tend to follow the school of thought presuming that identity is an evolving, subjective, and socially constructed phenomenon (Gioia et al., 2000).

Future Research Agenda

Over time, the concepts associated with IFF have produced different interpretations and meanings, often resulting in conceptual ambiguity. The combination of the themes that emerged from our ontological analysis (Figure 1) with a systematic review of the associated antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies (Table 1) makes it possible to more clearly identify promising future research directions as summarized in Table 2.

Table 2.

Selected Opportunities for Future Research on IFF.

Categories and topic	Research gaps	Future research directions	Examples of research questions
Identity Individual identity	Leader role identities are mostly studied focusing on their outcomes	Consider the mechanisms and antecedents of leaders’ role identity	➢ What is the relationship between executives’ formative years and the way in which they develop a leadership role identity?➢ Which skills enhance the establishment of effective leadership identities in family firms?➢ Is family firm leaders’ identity stable over time or does it change according to particular personal and contextual changes?
Identity Individual identity	Other types of role identities than leadership role identity are hardly considered	Explore different role identities that may emerge in the context of a family firm	➢ What is the impact of employees’ workplace identity on their attitude and behaviors inside the family firm? What are the effects on individual and firm performance?➢ How can the family firm facilitate the development of employees’ workplace role identity?➢ What are other role identities that could be relevant in family firms?
Group identity	Group (family) identities are rarely taken into consideration	Explore more the mechanisms, antecedents, and outcomes of the family-as-a-group identity in depth	➢ What are the main factors (e.g., cultural or traditional) that facilitate a family becoming a business family?➢ What are the unique features of a business family identity?➢ What unique family features lead to higher firm performance?➢ How can specific family-based identities encourage transgenerational entrepreneurship (if at all)?➢ How do different organizations that are often established by business families to administer their assets (e.g., family offices, family holdings, family museums, family academies) concur to shape family-based identity?
Group identity	Group based-identities are completely overlooked	Explore the mechanisms, antecedents, and outcomes of decision-making teams in depth	➢ How does group identity salience in decision-making teams (e.g., boards of directors, family shareholders, TMT) vary based on the family presence and involvement? What are the consequences of firm effectiveness?➢ Within decision-making teams, which identity (family, business, ownership) is the most salient during the decision-making process? According to what contingencies? With what effects?➢ Which are other relevant group-based identities in family firms?
Organizational identity	Simplistic view of the family firm identity concept, mostly conceptualized in a dichotomous way (i.e., being a family firm vs a non-family firm)	Examine the complexity surrounding the family firm identity concept and its variations both in terms of strength and type, theorizing it as a continuous variable. Expand understanding of organizational identity antecedents	➢ What lies at the origin of a family firm identity?➢ Can different family firms vary in the strength or degree of family firm identity? If yes, how?➢ Is a high degree of family firm identity beneficial for the family firm? Is there a too-much-of-a-good-thing effect that reduces the marginal benefits from developing a strong family firm identity and/or triggers negative consequences for family and/or firm outcomes? To what extent does this optimum level differ across different family firms in terms of extent and/or type of family involvement?➢ Are there different types of family firm identity? What are the sources of such variation?➢ Why do family firms exist?➢ How can we build an ad-hoc and more autonomous scale to measure family firm identity beyond the strategy of borrowing parts from different scales?➢ How can qualitative approaches (i.e., grounded theory, ethnography, autoethnography, and process studies) be applied to understand the family firm identity concept?
Identities’ tensions	Few studies and mostly focused on outcomes	Explore further, especially considering the mechanisms and antecedents	➢ How do individuals address the work-family conflict in family firms?➢ How can family firm members manage multiple identity tensions? How does the extent of discordance among individual identities jeopardize family firms’ key events (e.g., succession process) and why?
Identity work Individual identity work	Individual identity work has mainly been examined with a focus on mechanisms, outcomes were rarely studied and antecedents were ignored	Include research on the antecedents of individual identity work in family firms	➢ What are the major antecedents (at all levels, namely individual, group, organizational) of the ways in which individuals craft, develop, maintain, and review their identities?➢ How do these antecedents change over time as identity work develops?➢ How do narratives shape the identity work of family members?
Identity work Individual identity work		Expand research on how individual identity work may affect behaviors in family firms	➢ What is the relationship between the ways in which individuals develop their identities in family firms and firms’ strategic decisions? Is this relationship different from that of non-family firms? How?➢ What is the relationship between the ways in which individuals develop their identities in family firms and firm performance? Is this relationship different from that of non-family firms? How?
Group (family) identity work	Topic rarely approached overall	Explore how business families’ identities are built, maintained, and may change. Invest more to understand group level identity work antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies.	➢ What is the family’s role in maintaining a family identity?➢ How does a business family build, maintain, and review its identity over the generations and why?➢ How do changes in the family identity due to critical family events (e.g., divorce) affect the business? What are the consequences on strategic decisions and performance?
Organizational identity work	Topic mostly studied in terms of family firm identity communication	Further develop the conceptualization of family firm identity building and preservation, and analyze the antecedents and outcomes of organizational identity work more in depth	➢ What is the role of history and traditions in shaping the family firm identity work?➢ What is the role of family social capital in shaping the family firm identity work?➢ What is the role of family social capital in shaping the family firm identity work?➢ What are the effects of organizational identity work on personal motivation, on the behaviors and choices of family and business members?➢ How does organizational identity work in family firms allow managing in times of crisis, and how is this different from non-family firms?
Identification Individual identification	Individual identification with the family is rarely approached.	Expand research on individual identification with the family	➢ How does this type of identification vary based on whether the individual is a member of the owning family or not?➢ Is there a linear or curvilinear relationship between family firm key actors’ (i.e., owners, decision makers, employees) identification with the owning family and firm performance?➢ Under what circumstances does individual identification with the owning family lead to detrimental organizational behaviors?➢ When a (family and or non-family) employee rejects the owning family’s identity, what mechanisms are involved in this process?
Family identification with the business	Studies are mainly focused on issues that neglect the circularity of the relationship between family to firm identification (i.e., family identification with the business is related to business identification with the family, and vice versa).	Expand the scope of research to consider the mechanisms of family identification with the business including its circular effects.	➢ What are the processes unveiling how and why owning families identify with their businesses?➢ How does family identification with the business differ from the general organizational identification concept?➢ How can we describe the circular effects between family identification with the business, and business identification with the family?
	Studies are only focused on the family as a group, neglecting other groups inside the family business.	Extend research on identification to other relevant groups within the family firm, e.g., TMT.	➢ What leads the TMT to identify with the business and with the family?➢ What are the main effects of TMT identification with the business? Does the business benefit from such identification? What are the consequences on the speed and on the effectiveness of the decision-making process?➢ What are the mechanism that favors processes of identification of decision making groups with the family and the business?
Business identification with the family	Topic rarely approached, lack of studies on antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies of business identification with the family.	Pay attention to the antecedents, outcomes, and mechanisms that explain the level of business identification with their owning families, from a conceptual and empirical perspective.	➢ What are the factors that enhance the identification of a business (e.g., employees, TMT, non-family decision makers) with the owning family?➢ How does the business identify with the owning family?➢ What explains the level of business identification with the owning family (beyond the extent of family ownership)?➢ What are the mental associations of the organization of organizational members (beyond family members) in the family firm context?➢ What are the consequences of business identification with the owning family? Are these always beneficial?
	Predominance of cross-sectional research designs	Adopt a longitudinal perspective to understand identification	➢ How does the temporal evolution of the family and business systems affect identification in family firms?➢ How can scholars effectively develop longitudinal studies that trace identification overtime at the different levels of family firms?➢ How do events at a specific point in time affect individual, group, and organizational identification at a future point in time?➢ How does leadership succession affect identification in family firms? Are there differences between internal and/or external successions?➢ How do family events (e.g., divorce, marriage, death, illness) affect identification in family firms?➢ How do other situational or temporal factors (e.g., exit, pressure from institutional investors, lifecycle stages, duration of family ownership) shape identification in family firms?
From a multi-level perspective Identity	Multilevel Identity topics largely ignored	Conduct multilevel research that examines conceptually and empirically IFF concepts at different levels and the interactions among individual, group, and organizational identities.	➢ How do the identity-related dynamics occurring at different levels of analysis in family firms affect one another?➢ To more accurately predict the creation, reinforcement/deterioration, and/or maintenance of family firm identity, is it more appropriate to consider individual-, group-, and organizational-level identities as independent or interdependent on one another?➢ Given that identity is not identical at all levels of analysis, what are the different effects of identity work, identification, role identities, multiple identity discordance, and corporate identity on family firms’ overall competitiveness?➢ How do the psychological foundations of family firm actors’ choices (e.g., values, heuristics, beliefs, emotions, experiences, and memories) affect identities and the dynamics of identity formation and maintenance in family firms?➢ What are the microfoundations of identity formation in family firms? What role does the family system play, what are its components at the microlevel, and how is this level related to the organizational and family levels?
Identity work from a multilevel perspective	Studies focus on the mechanisms that involve identity work at different levels with no studies on multilevel identity work outcomes and only one on its antecedents	Need for a deeper understanding of the antecedents and outcomes of identity work from a multilevel perspective	➢ How are individual, family, and organizational identity work mechanisms linked?➢ When a family owns multiple businesses, how are the identities of these organizations shaped and developed? Are they similar? Which aspects of the family’s identity will they maintain?
Identification from a multilevel perspective	Topic rarely approached	Expand the scope of research considering how individual, family, and organizational identification are related to each other, identify the antecedents of multilevel identification and expand the outcomes	➢ How is family identification with the business different from business identification with the family in terms of processes and outcomes (at the individual, group, and organizational levels)?➢ How do these two concepts—family identification with the business and business identification with the family—conceptually relate to one another?➢ Are there any overarching concepts that can represent the outcomes of identification seen from a multilevel perspective?➢ What are the main drivers of identification from a multilevel perspective?
Management and integration of multiple identities	Topic approached by a limited number of studies	Focus more on how identity conflicts are managed in family firm identity by individuals, the family, and the business	➢ How and by whom can the eventual discordance among different identities (e.g., the owning family and the majority shareholder team) be managed?➢ In family firms’ TMTs, what is the optimal level of group identity discordance vs fit to promote knowledge sharing and effective decision-making processes?

Note. IFF= Identity in Family Firms; TMT = Top Management Team.

Opportunities for Future Research on Identity

Prior research has mostly studied individual identity by focusing on leader role identities and their outcomes. As shown in Table 1, the antecedents of family firm leaders’ role identity remain rather unexplored with few exceptions (e.g., Lefebvre & Lefebvre, 2016), while this gap deserves attention especially because of the different types of role identities that leaders may play in a family firm contribute to explaining its success (e.g., Miller & Le Breton-Miller, 2011). In Table 2, we report a list of possible research questions arising from this knowledge gap. For instance, building on some first insights (e.g., Barbera et al., 2015) and examining the relationship between the executives’ formative years and/or skills and the way leadership role identities are played seems promising. Moreover, understanding the mechanisms behind effective leadership role identities in family firms and whether a change of the identity is based on the family and business lifecycles (Gersick et al., 1997) is another fruitful direction for future research. More in general, as shown in Figure 1, our review shows a concentration of leadership role identity studies (e.g., Caprio et al., 2020), a topic that emerged one decade ago, while other individual role identities are not taken into account. Thus, future research could explore different role identities that may emerge in the context of a family firm (i.e., individual role identities such as parental, spousal, or sibling identity roles) or conduct more empirical studies on those role identities that are underexplored (e.g., employees’ workplace role identity in family firms).

A considerable gap is the lack of studies that explore group identity. The few studies on group identity, as shown in Figure 1, emerged quite recently and tend to focus on family-based identity tensions (e.g., Siebels et al., 2017). Two potential research streams arise from this category. First, rather than distinguishing between subgroup identities within the family (e.g., active versus non-active family members), it seems important to gain more knowledge of the family-as-a-group identity. Despite business (or entrepreneurial), families may have their own identities and behaviors; these are often overlooked in the literature (De Massis et al., 2021). In this vein, some important questions are related to the main factors that lead a family to be (or become) a business family, and, more in general, how family-based identities affect firm-level outcomes (e.g., performance, asset management approach, and transgenerational entrepreneurship). We also see the need for understanding how different organizations that are established by business families to administer their assets besides the operational businesses (e.g., family offices, family holdings, family museums, and family academies), concur to shape the family-based identity. Second, other group based identities within family firms that are important to observe are those of decision-making teams (e.g., boards of directors, shareholders, TMTs) whose behaviors are shaped by various identitarian matters (Hillman et al., 2008). Except for Brinkerink and Bammens (2018), who consider the group identity enacted by decision-making teams, there is a dearth of studies on this aspect. It would be interesting to better understand the salience and interplay of various group-based identities: the family, the business, and the ownership (Gersick et al., 1997) during the decision-making process and how they affect these teams’ behaviors.

Regarding organizational identity, our review shows that in the past decade studies have emphasized the focus on family firm status (see Figure 1); however, these tend to conceptualize family firm identity dichotomously (i.e., being a family vs. non-family firm) or use family ownership as a proxy to capture family firm identity. Like in the case of entrepreneurial identities (Radu-Lefebvre et al., 2021), family firm identities can be many and variegated. Thus, we encourage scholars to examine the complexity surrounding the family firm identity concept and its variations both in terms of type and strength. Moreover, future research could explore whether a high degree of family firm identity is beneficial or not and if there is a too-much-of-a-good-thing effect that reduces the marginal benefits of developing a strong family firm identity and/or triggers negative consequences for family and/or firm outcomes. Our review also reveals that studies often draw on different concepts such as “familiness” to observe family firm identity (e.g., Ingram et al., 2020; Zellweger et al., 2010). Thus, family firm identity at the organizational level has attracted the attention of many scholars (see Figure 1) and the time is ripe for scale validation aimed at developing more specific and elaborated ad hoc measures of the broad concept of “family firm identity” considering its variations in terms of strength (e.g., intensity of perceived identity) and type (e.g., possible types of organizational identit[ies] of family firms); ideally including comparisons of the new scales with those adopted in prior research. To achieve this goal, we urge scholars to more frequently employ qualitative approaches (De Massis & Kammerlander, 2020), which can be particularly useful to explore the anatomy of family firm identit(ies) and determine the bases on which to build new measurement tools.

Moreover, as shown in Table 1, the antecedents of organizational identity are understudied, important questions such as “why do family firms exist?” or “what lies at the origins of a family firm identity?” remain largely unanswered. Evolution in this direction would not only contribute to the family firm literature but also inspire scholars from the broader identity literature, offering tools that may be adapted to other organizational contexts with hybrid identities (e.g., social enterprises or public service firms).

Finally, our review reveals that little research has explored identities in terms of tensions that can arise among them. This is an underexplored topic that emerged only recently (see Figure 1) and whose understanding can be extremely important to improve the overall functioning of the family business system (Gersick et al., 1997), especially in this complex period of human existence where digitalization has made identity boundaries more blurred with the risk of further emphasizing multiple identities tensions and overlaps. Thus, we see a need for future research to explore the mechanisms, antecedents, and outcomes of multiple identities tensions at any level. For example, how can individuals address the work-family conflict in family firms? How can family firm members manage multiple identity tensions and which aspects of the business might mitigate such potential conflicts? To address these questions, we see as particularly promising the adoption of a microfoundational lens (De Massis & Foss, 2018), where, in addition to qualitative approaches, simulations and experimental studies can be especially useful.

Opportunities for Future Research on Identity Work

At the individual level, most of the studies we reviewed examine individual identity work with a focus on its processes/mechanisms, with no studies on identity work antecedents and very few on its outcomes (see Table 1). Thus, we see a need to place greater emphasis on the role of individual agents in family firm strategies, behaviors, and outcomes as well as on the antecedents of such individual-level identity work. For example, we encourage scholars to explore the relationship between how individuals develop their identities in family firms and the firms’ strategic decisions, and how such relationships differ in family versus non-family firms. Moreover, we see a need for future studies that complement the existing focus on mechanisms by explicitly examining the antecedents of individual identity work. For instance, taking stock of previous works, future research might explore how organizational narratives (e.g., Short & Payne, 2020) might shape the identity work of family members.

At the group level, our review reveals that, although group-level identity work emerged already one decade ago, it has largely remained an overlooked topic, with only two papers written so far (see Figure 1). Considering the importance of the family in this context, and the central role of generations as a constitutive element of family firms (Magrelli et al., 2022), we call for more research that explores the family’s role in maintaining a family identity, and how family identity changes across generations or due to critical events that have consequences on the business. For instance, scholars might leverage family science (e.g., Jaskiewicz & Dyer, 2017) to examine the different features of family identity work’s antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies. These, as confirmed by Table 1, are understudied and certainly deserve more attention as testified by the recent calls to focus more on the family salience in family firms (e.g., Signori & Fassin, 2021). Finally, as shown in Figure 1, one of the most populated and established debates concerns organizational identity work in family firms, which has been studied in terms of its mechanisms and outcomes, mostly focusing on family firm identity communication. In sum, the theme of corporate identity has been explored in various ways mainly under the implicit assumption that family firm identity communication can create a competitive advantage (e.g., Astrachan & Botero, 2018; Zellweger et al., 2012), as “family identity is unique and therefore impossible to completely copy” (Sundaramurthy & Kreiner, 2008, p. 416). However, scholars have tended to neglect that family firm identity building and preservation covers a range of activities that go well beyond the mere communication of the family firm identity. Thus, we see a need to expand research in this direction. In this vein, it would be important to consider more deeply the role of history and tradition (Erdogan et al., 2020; Jaskiewicz et al., 2016; Suddaby & Jaskiewicz, 2020), the role of human resource management practices (Kidwell et al., 2018), and the role of family social capital in shaping the family business identity (Arregle et al., 2007).

Opportunities for Future Research on Identification

At the individual level, antecedents of individual identification with the family business have rarely been addressed (see Table 1). A wider understanding of this topic offers fruitful opportunities for future research. For instance, researchers could consider what favors single employees’ and decision makers’ identification with the business, whether this is good for the competitiveness of a family firm, and under what circumstances individual identification with the family business may lead to detrimental organizational behaviors. At the group (family) level, Figure 1 reports a relatively high number of papers (16) that emerged already in 2008, and most of these implicitly assume that family identification with the business is related to business identification with the family and vice versa. However, no empirical evidence has thus far offered a clear understanding of how these factors are actually related to each other. Therefore, it is important to expand the research scope to consider the mechanisms underlying family identification with the business, including potential circular relationships between family and business identification (i.e., at the organizational level). In addition, similar to the suggestions in the group (family) identity section, we encourage scholars to consider other relevant groups when exploring identification in family firms. For instance, future research might focus on how family firm TMT identification leads to behaviors that can have consequences on the firm’s entrepreneurial orientation (Anderson et al., 2015) or learning capabilities (Jerez-Gomez et al., 2005).

Moreover, studies on the antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies of identification at the organizational level (i.e., business identification with the family) are missing as shown by the empty cells in Table 1 and also testified in Figure 1 (where only one paper is counted). This is not surprising because studies have so far tended to address organizational identification by considering employees which report their individual perceptions (e.g., Lee et al., 2016). For this reason, we have categorized papers on individuals’ perceptions of organizational identification in the “individual identification with the business” thematic area. Despite intriguing, studying organizational identification with the owning family by focusing on the organizational level and seeing the business as a collective entity (e.g., employee collectivities) seems very challenging. Indeed, scholars would need to focus on the aggregate organizational perception of oneness with or belongingness to the owning family. This task can be performed starting with some methodological reflections, a good example of which is Anglin and colleagues’ work (2017).

Finally, the IFF literature is characterized by a predominance of cross-sectional studies, even more so when dealing with identification studies. Embracing a dynamic, longitudinal perspective will lead to a better understanding of identification at all levels, and might shed light on its temporal evolution and the effects of situational or temporal factors, such as the unfolding of a succession process, the exit of a family from their business, the pressure of institutional investors, the duration of family ownership, or different life cycle stages of the family and/or the business. Likewise, longitudinal approaches to investigate the evolution of the family system might shed light on the effect of family events (e.g., divorce, marriage, death, or illness) on identification aspects.

Opportunities for Future Research on IFF From a Multilevel Perspective

While there are some good examples of multilevel studies (e.g., Dieleman & Koning, 2019; Sasaki et al., 2019), our review reveals that the literature on IFF has mainly relied on a single level of analysis. Indeed, looking at Figure 1, the number of multilevel studies on identity (3), identity work (9), and identification (2) remains small. Thus, we see a need for future research that theoretically and empirically examines multiple levels of analysis, theorizing and testing how identity, identity work, and identification play at different levels of analysis, and examining the interactions among these different levels. As for identity and identity work, multilevel considerations of identification cover some extremely promising themes (shedding light on the interactive nature of IFF issues and spanning levels) while challenging the many nuances of the concepts investigated. We hope that in providing conceptual clarifications of each topic and level, our review can help integrate the findings from prior research, leading to a better understanding of the IFF antecedents, contingencies, and outcomes that have so far remained underdeveloped as reflected in the empty cells in the “multilevel” column in Table 1. A way to proceed in this direction is by integrating more incisively theories grounded in identity scholarship with those derived from the family firm literature.

We encourage future research designs to consider multiple levels of analysis (Zahra, 2018). In this respect, Elsbach and Pieper’s (2019) conceptual effort to embrace IFF considering individuals as well as organizations is commendable. Studies on identity work have started to emphasize this approach. Future research might continue in this direction with qualitative and quantitative investigations of the various IFF themes that leverage multiple responses within the same organization. Specific suggestions are reported in Table 2. For instance, we encourage future scholars to explore the psychological foundations of management in family firms (Picone et al., 2021) to uncover how the values, heuristics, beliefs, emotions, experiences, and memories of different family firm actors at the micro-level shape family firms’ identities and identity dynamics.

More in general, an underdeveloped research area is multiple identities’ management and integration within family firms. For example, how and by whom can the eventual discordance among different identities (e.g., the owning family and the majority shareholder team) be managed? In family firms’ TMTs, what is the optimal level of group identity discordance versus fit to promote knowledge-sharing and effective decision-making processes? Answering these questions might contribute to the family firm literature but is also important for a more general understanding of multiple-identities management in other organizational settings, such as professional service firms where professionals cover both professional and managerial identities.

Boundary theory (Lamont & Molnár, 2002; Nippert-Erg, 1996) can be particularly promising to work on our proposed research agenda. The concept of boundaries refers to the “limits or perimeters that define entities as separate from one another and that define components within entities” (Sundaramurthy & Kreiner, 2008, p. 416). This concept has been applied as a key perspective to interpret and understand several organizational phenomena, and we believe it can be particularly powerful to study many of the aspects highlighted in the proposed research agenda in relation to the formation and development of identity and identity-related phenomena. For instance, we encourage scholars to conceive boundaries as an act of “demarcation of the social structure that constitutes an organization” (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2005, p. 491), and to draw on the idea that boundaries within a family firm can be created and managed over time, to understand how identity, identification, and identity work dynamics emerge and evolve. A recurring perspective in the boundary theory literature highlights that the nature of the boundaries is socially constructed by actors internal and external to the organization through a multilevel sense-making process that ultimately provides a coherent understanding of “who we are” as an organization (Albert & Whetten, 1985; Whetten, 2006). Such perspective might be of help to explore how identity in family firms can be strategically manipulated to cope with changing contextual influences, and whether different identity antecedents can lead to, or be influenced by, multiple and heterogeneous outcomes and contingencies. Overall, our review indicates that, to advance knowledge on IFF, it will be particularly important to support inbound and outbound theorizing (Jaskiewicz et al., 2020) through bidirectional exchanges between the family business field and other fields (e.g., mainstream identity research or boundary literature) and to conceptually and empirically examine the nuances and complexities of identity-related concepts and phenomena in the family firm setting.

Conclusion

To help advance the field and understand identities in family firms, we have reviewed studies of identity in family firms, constructing a thematic map based on their ontological analysis. We then considered the antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies that emerged within the extant literature for each theme. Our aim has been to provide an integrative understanding of the IFF domain and, based on this, insights on interesting directions that IFF research can take. Our hope is that our efforts to review and integrate the knowledge generated by this literature will help advance knowledge of the identity concept and related phenomena to reflect on ways to move this expanding and fascinating research area forward.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-fbr-10.1177_08944865221113675 – Supplemental material for Identity in Family Firms: Toward an Integrative Understanding

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-fbr-10.1177_08944865221113675 for Identity in Family Firms: Toward an Integrative Understanding by Cristina Bettinelli, Elena Lissana, Mara Bergamaschi and Alfredo De Massis in Family Business Review

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

To take stock of the literature on identity in family firms (IFF), we examine 122 journal articles published between 2006 and 2020. We then develop a thematic map to help scholars understand the structure of IFF studies and the direction that IFF research is taking. Providing a consistent vocabulary and categorization, the thematic map allows strengthening the IFF conceptualization and locating potential ambiguities and fragmentation. Thereafter, we develop an integrative understanding to analyze the antecedents, outcomes, and contingencies of the different categories. Drawing on the gaps and inconsistencies that emerged from our examination, we suggest new directions and stimuli for future research.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Cristina Bettinelli acknowledges financial support from the University of Bergamo (grant n. 60BETT18).

ORCID iDs

Cristina Bettinelli

Alfredo De Massis

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Author Biographies

Cristina Bettinelli is Associate Professor of Management at the University of Bergamo, Italy. She received her Ph.D. in Marketing and Strategy from the University of Bergamo. She has held visiting positions at Harvard University and Linz University among the others. Her research interests rotate around the family nature of firms’ manifestation in behavioral and strategic aspects.

Elena Lissana holds a Ph.D. in Business and Law at the University of Bergamo, Italy. She was visiting scholar at IESE Business School in Barcelona and got a master’s degree in International Management, Entrepreneurship and Finance from University of Bergamo with distinction. Her main research interests include the management of family businesses, organizational identities, and CSR.

Mara Bergamaschi is Full Professor of Management at the University of Bergamo, Italy. She previously worked at the Bocconi University, Milano. Her research interests include behavioral and strategic aspects in professional service firms and family businesses as well as marketing and branding in business and consumer markets.

Alfredo De Massis is a Professor of Entrepreneurship & Family Business who serves as advisor to family enterprises and policy makers. He is an Editor of Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Associate Editor of Family Business Review, serves on the boards of public and private organizations internationally, and provides intellectual contributions to the International Institute for Management Development by working on collaboration and scientific advisory activities at the Wild Chair in Family Business.

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