Typologies of familial space in family firms

Over the years, family business and regional science scholars have developed an interest in exploring and understanding the relationship between the two research fields, typically, on how they influence each other. In this article, we build on the family business and the regional context to question...

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Main Author: Evans Korang Adjei
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2025-12-01
Series:Regional Studies, Regional Science
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/21681376.2025.2490756
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author Evans Korang Adjei
author_facet Evans Korang Adjei
author_sort Evans Korang Adjei
collection DOAJ
description Over the years, family business and regional science scholars have developed an interest in exploring and understanding the relationship between the two research fields, typically, on how they influence each other. In this article, we build on the family business and the regional context to question and explore how family firms are locally embedded. We argue that the importance of local embeddedness of family firms cannot be fully understood without untangling how and what family firms are locally embedded in. Drawing on the relational spatial ontology and familial factors, and within the regional development framework, we propose typologies of family firms’ relational spaces, thereafter, familial spaces – cognitive familial space, institutional familial space, social familial space, organisational familial space and clientele/communal familial space. Where we define familial spaces as the relational networks of varied functional relationships enabled by familial factors at the disposal of family firms to explore. Based on a multidisciplinary perspective, we offer a specification of familial space and explore how the regional context and family governance system can influence the familial spaces. We maintain that family firms whose resources and productive activities are anchored in specific local places, and who themselves are locally attached, may be more likely than any other organisational type to influence familial spaces to influence their (non) economic goals. We propose suggestions for future research.
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spelling doaj-art-34bb10dfb4f648f58da7bb7979e726ed2025-08-20T02:55:39ZengTaylor & Francis GroupRegional Studies, Regional Science2168-13762025-12-0112143345510.1080/21681376.2025.2490756Typologies of familial space in family firmsEvans Korang Adjei0Centre for Regional Science (CERUM), Umeå University, Umeå, SwedenOver the years, family business and regional science scholars have developed an interest in exploring and understanding the relationship between the two research fields, typically, on how they influence each other. In this article, we build on the family business and the regional context to question and explore how family firms are locally embedded. We argue that the importance of local embeddedness of family firms cannot be fully understood without untangling how and what family firms are locally embedded in. Drawing on the relational spatial ontology and familial factors, and within the regional development framework, we propose typologies of family firms’ relational spaces, thereafter, familial spaces – cognitive familial space, institutional familial space, social familial space, organisational familial space and clientele/communal familial space. Where we define familial spaces as the relational networks of varied functional relationships enabled by familial factors at the disposal of family firms to explore. Based on a multidisciplinary perspective, we offer a specification of familial space and explore how the regional context and family governance system can influence the familial spaces. We maintain that family firms whose resources and productive activities are anchored in specific local places, and who themselves are locally attached, may be more likely than any other organisational type to influence familial spaces to influence their (non) economic goals. We propose suggestions for future research.https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/21681376.2025.2490756Familyfamily firmfamilial factorsrelational spacefamilial spaceregion
spellingShingle Evans Korang Adjei
Typologies of familial space in family firms
Regional Studies, Regional Science
Family
family firm
familial factors
relational space
familial space
region
title Typologies of familial space in family firms
title_full Typologies of familial space in family firms
title_fullStr Typologies of familial space in family firms
title_full_unstemmed Typologies of familial space in family firms
title_short Typologies of familial space in family firms
title_sort typologies of familial space in family firms
topic Family
family firm
familial factors
relational space
familial space
region
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/10.1080/21681376.2025.2490756
work_keys_str_mv AT evanskorangadjei typologiesoffamilialspaceinfamilyfirms