Paper title and abstract

The Implications of Historical Changes in Families for Future Research on Family Business

Abstract: Using the family embeddedness perspective (FEP) as a framework, I review historical transformations that have reshaped families in the United States and elsewhere, profoundly affecting the composition of families, their internal dynamics, and their long-term stability. I examine the extent to which research published by family business scholars addresses these changes and provide suggestions for future research that investigates how the social and economic transformations affect families and the process by which families create and own/manage business entities.

About Howard E. Aldrich

Howard E. Aldrich is Kenan Professor of Sociology and Adjunct Professor of Business at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He is a fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University, and an Affiliate in the Strategy Department, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. His main research interests are entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial team formation, gender and entrepreneurship, and evolutionary theory. His publications have been cited over 80,000 times, with an h-index of 99. Among his over 200 publications are ten sole authored, co-authored, and edited books, one of which -- Organizations Evolving – – won two national awards: the George R Terry Award from the Academy of Management and the Max Weber Award of the American Sociological Association.  A third edition was published in 2020, with co-authors Martin Ruef and Stephen Lippmann. In 2000, he won the Global Entrepreneurship Researcher of the Year Award from the Swedish Foundation of Small Business Research. In 2013, he received the Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference Lifetime Membership Award. He has Honorary Doctoral Degrees from Mid-Sweden University and Bowling Green State University.

This seminar represented an integrative and important part of the House of Innovation's strategy to build a research environment through engagement with prominent guests and their work.

This seminar was part of the Academic Seminar Series offered in cooperation with the Stockholm School of Entrepreneurship.