آشنایی با هویت شرکت خانوادگی چندگانه : اکتشاف هویت ارتباط برقرارشده در وب سایت های رسمی

In recent years, family firm identity has been introduced as one of the perspectives to explain how family involvement can result in a source of distinctiveness and competitive advantage for a family business. This paper introduces the idea of multiple family firm identities and explores whether, and if so how, organizations communicate their family firm identity in their official websites. One thousand and thirty-six family firm websites from three countries (Australia: N = 560; US: N = 310, UK: N = 166) were analyzed. Results indicate that fifty seven percent of the firms made some reference to being a family firm in their websites. Twenty six percent of the firms used an explicit message strategy and thirty eight percent used an implicit strategy in their communication efforts. Additionally, firm characteristics (i.e., firm age, country of origin, type of industry, and market orientation) were related to how and where organizations communicated they were family firms. Implications for family firms and ideas for future research are discussed.

A focus of family business research has been to understand the unique challenges and opportunities that result from a family's involvement in the management, control, and ownership of a firm. Even though empirical research exploring “the family effect” on firm performance has received mixed results (Dyer, 2006), there is still a belief that family involvement often results in positive consequences for a firm. In particular, family ownership is seen as resulting in superior performance for publicly traded family firms (Anderson and Reeb, 2003 and Ibrahim et al., 2008), better general performance (Craig et al., 2008, Kashmiri and Mahajan, 2010 and Memilli et al., 2010), and positive perceptions about an organization (Carrigan and Buckley, 2008, Krappe et al., 2011 and Orth and Green, 2009). Thus, family business researchers have suggested that family firms possess a bundle of unique resources that are a product of a family's involvement in the business (i.e., familiness), and can become a source of competitive advantage for a firm (Habbershon and Williams, 1999 and Habbershon et al., 2003). Recently, family firm identity (FFI) has been introduced as a way to explain the link between family involvement and competitiveness in family firms (Zellweger, Eddleston, & Kellermanns, 2010). Zellweger and colleagues (2010) argue that FFI is equivalent to the concept of organizational identity (OID) in a family firm context, and suggest that FFI captures the collective perceptions that the family has about the family firm. Thus, FFI reflects the unique identity that results from the overlapping of the family and the business subsystems, and the varying degrees of involvement and influence that a family can exercise in these types of organizations (Chrisman et al., 2005, Sudaramurthy and Kreiner, 2008 and Zellweger et al., 2010). Zellweger and colleagues suggest that the strength of FFI can influence the behaviors of organizational stakeholders which, in turn, can affect the performance of the family firm and translate into sources of competitive advantage. FFI offers an important contribution to our understanding of family ownership as a source of competitive advantage in that it helps researchers move from an emphasis on internal organizational factors to an appreciation that external factors (e.g., perceptions of external stakeholders) could also result in unique resources that can enhance a family firm's competitiveness in its market. Up to date, most of the work on FFI has been conceptual. A reason for this is the different approaches taken when conceptualizing FFI that could affect how to operationalize this variable in empirical studies. For example, FFI can reflect whether business leaders perceive their company as a family firm, whether the organization communicates that they are a family firm, whether stakeholders perceive a firm as a family firm, or whether family leaders want the business to be known as a family firm. Thus, researchers might have explored the idea of family firm identity under a different label, limiting what we currently know about FFI and whether it results in a source of competitive advantage for a firm. One way to deal with the different approaches to understanding organizational identity (OID) is to think about organizations as having multiple identities (Balmer and Greyser, 2002 and Pratt and Foreman, 2000). Balmer and Greyser (2002) introduced the multiple-identity model of ‘actual, conceived, ideal, desired and communicated’ (AC2ID) identities to illustrate and incorporate internal and external approaches toward defining OID. They argue that organizations possess five types of identity that reflect what the organization is, what they communicate about what they are, how others perceive what they are, what leaders want the organization to be, and, given the current environmental/market conditions, what would be ideal for the organizations to become. Balmer and Greyser (2002) indicate that understanding that organizations posses multiple identities is important because the misalignment of these identities can result in conflicting information for stakeholders, which can have harmful effects for an organization. For example, when an organization communicates an identity that reflects this firm is customer focused, but in reality does not pay attention to customers or customers perceive the organization does not care about them, this conflicting information can result in negative perceptions about the firm. Drawing on previous work on FFI (Craig et al., 2008, Memilli et al., 2010 and Zellweger et al., 2010), OID (Albert and Whetten, 1985, Fiol, 2001 and Whetten, 2006) and the multiple identities – AC2ID model (Balmer & Greyser, 2002) this article has two objectives. First, applying the multiple identities model in the context of family firms, we present the five types of FFI that coexist in family firms and explain why it is important to consider the multiple identities approach. Second, we focus on the communicated FFI (i.e., does the organization communicate that they are a family firm?), and present a study that explores whether family businesses use their websites to communicate their FFI to external stakeholders and, if so, how they communicate this identity in three national contexts (i.e., Australia, US, and UK). Understanding whether and how family firms communicate their FFI is a first step in exploring whether these communication efforts can translate into a source of competitive advantage. To achieve our objectives this article is organized as follows. First, relevant literature in the areas of FFI, OID and strategic communication is reviewed to present a conceptual framework of multiple FFI. We then focus on communicated FFI and present the rationale for our exploratory study on whether and how FFI is communicated through organizational websites. Presentation of the methodology and results follow. We conclude with a discussion of findings, their implications for research and practice, together with suggestions for future research.

The purpose of this article was to expand our understanding of FFI and explore whether organizations communicated their FFI when using their websites. Although communication practices have been linked to the performance of family businesses, and perceptions and intentions of external stakeholders toward family businesses, our results suggest that family firms differ in their likelihood to communicate FFI, how they communicate it, and where they communicate it. That is, 57% of the firms communicated that they were family firms, 38% communicated that they were family firms implicitly, and 48% of the firms used the “about us page” to communicate this information. Given these results, it seems like family businesses are not leveraging the positive associations that can result when involvement of the family is communicated to stakeholders. Future research should continue to explore why family businesses choose these communication strategies in their websites.