Posted

Friday, August 10, 2012

Call for Papers:

Family Firms, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development

Journal of Small Business Management (JSBM)

2013 Special Issue (Issue 51, Volume 4)

Guest Editors:

Alan Carsrud, Åbo Akademi University (Finland)

Marco Cucculelli, Università Politecnica delle Marche (Italy)

Background and objectives of the special issue

Family firms are an economic phenomenon persisting along time and across regions. Their growth is essential to the increase of economic productivity and overall economic improvement. Their sustainability is crucial as well, as long-lasting family businesses are a key component of long term development of local economies. Enterprises often start from an entrepreneurial idea of an individual, but then continue as family businesses.

Entrepreneurship is a necessary condition for economic growth and development. Modern states converge in treating entrepreneurship as a key economic resource. Entrepreneurship is especially important in the period of structural change and changing global division of labor.

As different parts of the world are experiencing dramatic changes from economic fluctuations, government revolutions, technological innovations, and generational transitions, what is the new role of family firms in sustaining entrepreneurship and economic development? The Special Issue intends to link these issues.

The purpose of the special issue is to describe, analyze, and improve our understanding of the role of family firms and their entrepreneurial characteristics in sustaining the economic development. We seek conceptual and empirical (both qualitative and quantitative) contributions that consider the mixed relationship between these two concepts. Some research questions and issues that contributions might address, among many others, are:

• The relations between entrepreneurship and family firms;
• The advantages and disadvantages of family as a vehicle for firm creation and entrepreneurship;
• The barriers to the growth of family firms;
• The similarities and differences between family firms and SMEs;
• The impact of family firms on local development;
• The spatial dimension of entrepreneurship and family business;
• Sustainability issues in family firms;
• International migration and family firms;
• Governance challenges of family firms;
• Various research approaches to study family firms growth and development;
• The impact of the business environment on the family firms;
• Public policy, local economic development and the growth of family firms.
• Technology based family firms.

Deadlines and important dates for the Special Issue

Submission

Please submit your manuscript to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jsbm and indicate in the submission form that your paper is for the special issue on family firms and entrepreneurship.