家族企业决策与成长机制研究:家族期望的视角

Decision-Making in the Family Business and Its Growth:A Family Aspirations Perspective

在家族企业研究领域,经营目标的多元性是学者关注的重要问题。早期研究主要从经济目标的视角探究企业的决策行为和绩效结果,自社会情感财富理论提出以后,越来越多的学者开始强调非经济目标的影响作用。但这些研究大多聚焦企业层面,对家族层面目标期望的关注十分欠缺。基于此,本文围绕笔者所主持的一项国家自然科学基金面上项目,在综述家族期望相关文献的基础上,首先明晰家族期望的概念内涵与具体维度;其次,围绕家族期望如何影响家族企业决策与成长这一研究问题,对现有研究成果进行归纳总结;再次,梳理总结项目团队所取得的研究进展与项目成果;最后,从家族期望的拓展、决策行为的延伸、成长表现的扩充以及研究问题的中国本土化四个方面提出未来可行的研究思路与研究方向。

In the family business research,multiple ambidextrous goals have attracted extensive attention from scholars.Early studies mainly explored the corporate decision-making behavior and performance outcomes from the perspective of economic goals,and since the introduction of socioemotional wealth theory,more and more scholars began to emphasize the influence of non-economic goals.However,these studies almost focus on firm-level goals,and few studies have examined the goals from the family level.In fact,family businesses are concrete manifestations or extensions of the aspirations and capabilities of the controlling family.Using a family aspirations perspective helps to understand more deeply the nature of family businesses and to identify the essence that influence their decision-making behavior and outcome performance.In order to fill this research gap,we applied for a National Natural Science Foundation of China(NNSFC)project.The project was later funded by NNSFC,titled“Family Aspirations,Investment Decisions,and the Growth Mechanisms of Private Firm”.Based on this project,we first systematically review the literature on family aspirations to clarify the concept and dimensions of family aspirations in this paper.We then summarize the research content of the relevant literature from three aspects:the mechanism and theoretical basis of family aspirations,the influence of family aspirations on corporate decision-making,and the influence of family aspirations on corporate growth,in order to clarify the main scientific issues and directions of research in this field;Next,we briefly outline the research results of the project team in order to rethink and re-examine the research content and research results of the topic.We propose four promising directions for future research:Firstly,future research can further expand and enrich the scope of family aspirations,including clarifying the connotation of family aspirations,improving the measurement indicator system of family aspirations,exploring the formation mechanism and institutionalization process of family aspirations,and investigating the interaction and trade-offs among multiple family aspirations;Secondly,future research can further extend the types of family business decision-making behaviors influenced by family aspirations,such as the succession arrangements in inheritance training paths,returning home for entrepreneurship,environmental decision-making,etc.,and consider comparing the preferences and impacts of family aspirations on different decision-making behaviors;Thirdly,future research can expand the manifestations of family business growth,including extending the scope of the outcomes affected by family aspirations,such as innovation quality,high-quality development,and ESG ratings,as well as clarifying the mechanisms by which family aspirations influence business growth;Finally,the localization of research issues in China should be considered,including the embedding and impact of the economic system,such as the strategy of digital transformation and the empowering effect of digital economy;the embedding of institutional environment,such as the goals of mass entrepreneurship and innovation and dual carbon targets;and the embedding of cultural factors,such as the influence of familism,cultural traditions such as the zodiac birth year,and relationship culture.