Knowledge that Transforms

The case describes decisions faced by Rob Loomis and Jon Pruden, the cofounders of a coffeehouse, and how they resolved them. First, their coffeehouse franchise experienced disappointing results—they decided to close it and reopen as an independent coffeehouse. Shortly thereafter, they had to respond to an existential challenge to their business—the entry of Starbucks across the street. The case describes Rob's decision to persist despite Starbucks’ entry, and his strategic, operational, and tactical moves to ensure growth. A key dilemma that Rob faced was whether his initial success against Starbucks was sustainable. An underlying theme of the case is that entrepreneurial success requires persistent improvisation to adapt to dynamic and uncertain environments.

This case focuses on two Mexican entrepreneurs whose secondhand product retail company has reached a point where they must decide whether to sell an equity stake to a venture capital fund (VCF) or request an equity contribution from existing shareholders. The VCF would ensure opening 40 stores in 2 years and a dramatic boost in the business, whereas contributions from existing shareholders would slow the company's growth but would avoid equity dilution. Is this the right moment for venture capital funding, or is it better to wait to improve the company's financial performance? What are the risks of growing slowly?

This case study presents the story of Glennon Brothers, a third–generation family–owned sawmilling business in Ireland. As the firm evolved through the organizational life cycle and the complexity of firm operations increased, a different style of management was required to navigate the family business to the next stage. The brothers needed to move from being managers to managing managers. This case study highlights how coleaders can become comfortable with each other and unintentionally overlook the need to change their managerial priorities in line with the business's evolution.

The founder, Bill Walsh, with a background in law and a passion to protect the natural environment, has built a nonprofit venture that has pioneered the awareness of toxicity issues in the building industry. He finds himself at a crossroads because he needs an infusion of cash to bring to market the database on building product toxicity that he has developed. The options include whether to radically change the way he manages his nonprofit in order to grow or to change the company status to a Benefit Corporation. Bill is unsure whether he is the right person to implement either alternative.

This case describes Michel Kripalani's entrepreneurial journey culminating in his third start–up, Oceanhouse Media. Oceanhouse Media, ranked 114 in the 2013 Inc. 5,000 list of the fastest growing c...

This essay offers a counterpoint to Le Breton–Miller and Miller's argument that family firms are the ideal organizational form for arts–based businesses and creative work. While the notion of the isolated, individual genius artist has certain romantic appeal, we offer evidence that demonstrates that considerable artistic creativity occurs within the context of a large diversified corporation, at the level of the industry and at the level of the cultural field.

Researchers and advisors in the field of family business have focused on a sequence of topics over the 30 years since the first dedicated conferences and the emergence of Family Firm Institute, Inc. (FFI) and family business review. This essay reviews the issues that have received the most attention from family business advisors across this time period (succession, governance, and intergenerational family dynamics). Then the author proposes a particular focus for intervention in the coming decade—family human capital utilization—and discusses four areas of consultation that may be increasingly valuable to client families.

The growing body of empirical entrepreneurship studies and the advent of meta–analytic methodologies create new opportunities to develop evidence–based management practices. To support research on evidence–based practices, empirical studies should report meta–analysis relevant information, such as standardized effect–size measures and their confidence intervals. The corresponding changes in reporting practices are simple and straight forward—yet they promise strong contributions to the systematic accumulation of entrepreneurship knowledge over time.

This commentary extends the work of Zellweger and Kammerlander by describing how the relationships they hypothesize might be operationalized and tested. It more clearly defines and provides suggestions for how to measure the heterogeneity and complexity of family members and family relationships. It discusses how to operationalize the scope, scale, and complexity of assets controlled by the family, and the characteristics of agents who manage the process. In addition the commentary discusses outcome measures for the family such as family wealth, family communication, family happiness, and family functionality. It describes financial and operational measures of performance for the businesses controlled by the family. The commentary concludes by discussing outcome measures for individual family members and for the agents they employ.

Family firms are heterogeneous and often transitioning. To advance our understanding of how and why family firms change, we draw upon and extend the work of Pieper, Smith, Kudlats, and Astrachan by more closely considering the nature of the multifamily business, which is the focal type of organization in their study. Specifically, we explore how initial founding conditions and ongoing organizational and environmental factors may influence the formation, sustainability, and dissolution of the multifamily business, relative to single–family firms or other organizational forms. We argue that multifamily forms may be more common than generally believed, but tend to be a transitory organizational form.