The entry discusses the business exit in the context of family firms. Business exit is as important as business entry, but it has received much less attention in management and entrepreneurship in general and family business context in particular. Exiting a business in family firms poses more significant challenges for the owners’ managers because emotional attachment is at the core of family firms. The entry highlights; why exit is vital in family firms, how it happens at different levels, the modes of exit, and the challenges for family owners.

Applying an inductive case study approach, we analyze four Pakistani family business portfolios and reveal that rural-based family business portfolios tend to grow internally (organically) and through related diversification. In contrast, urban-based portfolios rather grow externally through acquisitions and partnerships and pursue unrelated diversification. The family’s entrepreneurial legacy and how it is transferred to members of the next generation through grooming and imprinting in rural versus urban contexts emerge as a key underlying mechanism.

Exit is a vital element of the entrepreneurial process. It becomes explicitly more multifaceted in family business portfolios due to the complex nature of the business portfolios. Research on family business portfolios has explored the role of resources. However, there is a dearth of studies on how family business portfolios manage resources through exited businesses. Drawing on the case study research approach and following cases from Pakistan, our study led us to report three key insights: (1) Family owners re-direct the resources back to the business portfolio while exiting subsequent businesses to restructure their overall portfolio; (2) They manage resources to provide the next generation with the opportunity to start businesses that follow their passion and renew the business portfolio with a new set of ideas; (3) They manage resources through recycling of the family business portfolios in times of crisis, enabling the business to withstand critical times.

Family business groups (FBGs) are a fascinating phenomenon. They exist everywhere under different names and guises (Parada et al., Academia Revista Latinoamericana De Administración 20:19-30, 2016; Tu et al., Business Horizons 45:39-46, 2002). Their emergence and development showcase the dynamics of families in business and the decisions they proactively, or reactively, take to business opportunities or institutional and contextual challenges. More recent accounts underscore that we are just beginning to understand how they grow, develop, and perform over time (Rosa, P., Rautiainen, M., Pihkala, T., Parada, M. J., and Discua Cruz, A. (2019). Conclusions: Researching family business groups: Lessons learned and avenues for further research. In The family business group phenomenon (pp. 387-395). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.).

Family business groups (FBGs) are ubiquitous, influential, and play a major role in national economies. While much of the current research around this topic has so far focused on emerging economies, more knowledge is needed on family business groups in developed economies; specifically, how they innovate, strategize, govern, and grow. Offering a comprehensive and global perspective on family business groups, this Handbook comprises international contributions from leading experts. Split into five sections, it covers strategy and business transformation; innovation strategies; management and governance; and new avenues for research on FBGs including the issues of sustainability and cultural alignment. An important resource for students and researchers of family business, strategy and management, this Handbook signals the emergence of the family business group phenomenon and solidifies research in this evolving area of study.

We study the temporal evolution of innovation management in a family business group. In so doing, we highlight how family business owners adopt new ways to manage innovation in their business groups. We draw on a case of a family business group from Finland and address the question how the family business owners change their innovation management practices along with the development of the family business group. Our study adds to the temporal management of innovation in family firms, especially innovation in family businesses, by introducing the innovation management framework for analyzing the owners’ innovation activities.

The main interest of this book has dealt with the inherent strengths of FBGs, widening our understanding of their sustainability, competitiveness, and development. This book highlights that research conducted on the internal dynamics of FBGs is sparse. The phenomenon has remained severely understudied around the world.

Although scholars have recognized the importance of innovation in family firms, the literature on family firm innovation tends to generally depict family firms as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for innovation, or focus on the factors with the potential to positively stimulate family firm innovation. Drawing on path dependence theory, this study focuses specifically on what family-specific barriers work against innovation in family firms. To that end, we follow a qualitative theory-building approach due to the limited amount of extant theory, and study a sample of four family businesses headquartered in Spain and Uruguay. The related propositions and theoretical contributions emerging from our study are shared in the concluding section.