The concept of socioemotional wealth (SEW) seeks to present an
independent paradigmatic basis for family-firm research, and in
doing so aims to establish a sound basis for the scientific legitimacy
of family-firm research. Establishing that legitimacy requires scholars
to demonstrate that SEW is based on coherent assumptions on several
theoretical levels. This paper uses the problematization methodology
to challenge the coherence of the theoretical assumptions
underpinning SEW and to advance theory development. The results
of this problematization show that SEW is built on a theoretical level
close to the object of research (in-house assumptions), but that more
deeply-rooted theoretical levels (e.g. paradigmatic assumptions) are
not sufficiently elaborated. Moreover, the original conceptualization
is based on a positivist-mechanistic view, which hinders SEW
reflecting the complex reality of family firms. Based on the results
of this problematization, new systems theory is applied to reframe
SEW's theoretical grounding. Thereby the main contribution of the
paper is a critical reflection on the theoretical underpinnings of SEW
(in particular root-metaphor and paradigmatic assumptions), serving
as the basis for advancing a coherent theoretical understanding of
this important concept in family business research.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VIENNA/oai:epub.wu-wien.ac.at:5868 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Hasenzagl, Rupert, Hatak, Isabella, Frank, Hermann |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis Group |
| Source Sets | Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, PeerReviewed |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) |
| Relation | http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08985626.2017.1401123, http://www.tandfonline.com/, http://epub.wu.ac.at/5868/ |
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