Editorial
Marketing (in) the Family Firm
Family Business Review 24(3) 193–196 © The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: http://www. sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0894486511409979 http://fbr.sagepub.com
A. Rebecca Reuber1 and Eileen Fischer2 We are proud to introduce this special issue of Family Business Review on Marketing and Family Businesses because we believe it has the potential to spark the development of novel and interesting family business research. This issue contains four empirical articles that collectively span family businesses that are among our oldest and newest, largest and smallest, publicly traded and privately owned. The articles analyze firms and families and integrate concepts from marketing and strategic management. This special issue is part of a series of special issues that focus a disciplinary lens on phenomena related to family businesses (for past special issues in this thread, see Salvato & Moores, 2010; Sorenson & Bierman, 2009). The Family Business Review editorial board saw a need for a special issue related to marketing because even though the discipline has a long and established tradition among business school scholars and because marketing practices are critical to the success of large and small firms, there is little prior literature on marketing by family firms or on the marketing of family firms. The few recent extant studies can be classified into two groups. The first group examines perceptions of family firms in the market. Along these lines, Carrigan and Buckley (2008) explore consumer perceptions of the meaning of “family” when linked to family businesses and the implications of these perceptions for consumers’ purchase behavior. Byrom and Lehman (2009) suggest that firm-specific perceptions can be managed. They illustrate how an Australian brewery has been adept at leveraging the “family” aspect of its business and increasing the meaning of “family” to include staff and consumers. The second group of studies is focused on marketing practices within family firms. Teal, Upton, and Seman (2003) find that there are few differences in the marketing strategies and practices of high growth family versus nonfamily firms, suggesting that their high growth orientation is more consequential than their ownership. Examining differences among family firms, Tokarczyk,
Hansen, Green, and Down (2007) show that familiness can be related to greater market orientation, with a positive impact on firm performance. This finding is consistent with that of Craig, Dibrell, and Davis (2008), who show that the promotion of a family-based brand identity within a firm is related to a greater customer-centric orientation, which positively influences firm performance. This pioneering work provides a basis for the research presented here, and there is a similar grouping among the four articles in this issue. The first two articles are focused on family-related brands. Given the paucity of research in this area, the objective of both articles is to develop new theory. Accordingly, and consistent with calls for more qualitative family business research (Chenail, 2009; Sharma, 2011), both articles report the findings of a qualitative, inductive study. In “Concealing or Revealing the Family? Corporate Brand Identity Strategies in Family Firms,” Micelotta and Raynard (2011) examine the heterogeneity in branding strategies among 92 of the world’s oldest family firms, all founded prior to 1800. The article serves as an exemplar of strong qualitative methods. Analyzing website content, the authors show that there are three patterns in the way in which families communicate family and business heritage in their corporate brand strategies and suggest factors that may influence the pattern a particular family business uses. These patterns differ in terms of the primary element of the firm’s external identity, the extent to which the past is emphasized externally, and the meanings associated with the family and its relationship to the business. Thus, there is more variation in how “family” is communicated by
1
University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
2
Corresponding Author: A. Rebecca Reuber, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, 105 St. George St., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 3E6 Email:
[email protected]
194 firms than has been hitherto documented, and this variation may be predictable. The article “When David Met Victoria: Forging a Strong Family Brand” provides a valuable complement to the first. Rather than looking for variation in branding strategies among established family businesses, Parmentier (2011) examines the tactics used to develop a new family brand, The Beckhams. She specifically focuses on the brand dimensions of distinctiveness and visibility and the brand of an entrepreneurial family rather than the brand of a specific family business. She finds that brand distinctiveness involves crafting a compelling family brand biography and providing market-relevant family persona cues, and brand visibility involves taking and making opportunities to make the family brand familiar. Since her analysis is at the individual and family levels, her research points out that family business researchers need to be aware of person brands and family brands when they are studying the branding of family businesses. The remaining two articles are focused on marketing practices within family firms and, specifically, on market orientation (Kohli & Jaworski, 1990; Narver & Slater, 1990). Market orientation is a well-established construct, and both sets of authors are extending its application into the family business context, by developing and testing hypotheses, comparing family and nonfamily businesses in one case, and examining heterogeneity among family businesses in the other. The article “Family Business and Market Orientation: Construct Validation and Comparative Analysis” is based on an analysis of large, established, and publicly traded firms on the S&P 500. Zachary, McKenney, Short, and Payne (2011) find that family firms exhibit lower market orientation than nonfamily firms. This research raises the question of whether family firms are as outwardly focused as they should be. Given the relationship between market orientation and firm performance, their findings suggest that family firms may benefit from developing a market-orientation culture. The authors also provide a content analysis methodology to collect data on market orientation that will be of interest to future scholars in this area, because it eliminates reliance on survey data. Finally, in “A Study of the Relationships Among Generation, Market Orientation, and Innovation in Family Firms,” Beck, Debruyne, Janssens, and Lommelen (2011) study small and established family firms in Belgium and the Netherlands. Focusing on the heterogeneity among family firms, they examine the impact of the generation in control of the firm on market orientation
Family Business Review 24(3) and innovation. Their findings indicate that market orientation is higher for firms controlled by the founding generation than for firms controlled by subsequent generations and that greater market orientation is associated with greater innovativeness. The article is consistent with the previous one by Zachary et al. (2011) in that it reports a negative relationship between greater family embeddedness (control by later generations) and market orientation, to the detriment of firms’ innovativeness. There are several implications for family business scholars from these four articles considered together. 1. All four articles demonstrate the richness that results from combining concepts from different disciplines, in this case, from marketing and strategic management. Although marketing and strategic management have historically offered distinct perspectives on organizations, with marketing focused on demand-side activity and strategic management focused on supply-side activity, scholars have recently started to think about how these different perspectives can be usefully combined, for example, with a focus on value creation (see Brief & Brazerman, 2003; Priem, 2007). Family business scholars with their multidisciplinary training and interests are well poised to contribute to these conversations. 2. Although the focus of family business research often involves a comparison of family and nonfamily firms, the articles by Micelotta and Raynard (2011) and Beck et al. (2011) illustrate that there is considerable heterogeneity among family firms. Indeed, given the myriad ways that firms differ because of the competitive dynamics of their industry, their history, and/or their leadership, there are likely to be more differences than similarities among groups of family firms. Documenting and explaining this variation represents an opportunity for family business researchers, whereas controlling for it can be a challenge for researchers examining differences among family and nonfamily firms. For more on how to develop variance theory in family business research, see the June 2011 Family Business Review editorial by Reay and Whetten (2011). 3. Research that examines types of family businesses that are not frequently studied can
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Reuber and Fischer enhance constructs and provide new directions for future research. For example, by including in their sample businesses that are much older than those normally studied, Micelotta and Raynard (2011) identified a temporal dimension in branding strategies, which suggests that a longitudinal, process-based approach would be appropriate for uncovering paths and path dependencies in the strategies of family firms. As a second example, Parmentier’s (2011) study of a branded family suggests that research on individual family members is relevant and interesting to the field, since a founder’s brand equity, or even celebrity, can affect their subsequent businesses and the businesses of other family members. 4. The practices of families and family businesses can be illuminated through the study of narratives, as has been shown in other contexts (see, e.g., Martens, Jennings, & Jennings, 2007; Zott & Huy, 2007). Micelotta and Raynard (2011) and Zachary et al. (2011) study the narratives constructed by the firms themselves, as they communicate to their external stakeholders. In contrast, while focusing on the development of one family’s brand, Parmentier (2011) looks at narratives and meanings that are constructed by the family as well as those constructed by others. This is an important distinction. Increasingly, stakeholders want to interact with firms and participate in value creation, and so online brand communities are becoming more prevalent. Although they provide valuable information and functionality for firms, they resist management by the firm (see, e.g., Schau, Muniz, & Arnould, 2009). Thus, as the online world increases in importance, scholars who want to understand how family businesses are perceived by external stakeholders need to look beyond the firm itself for the construction of narratives and meaning. 5. Using innovative research methods can allow for the analysis of new types of data. Zachary et al. (2011) adapted a recently published content analysis technique that enables them to analyze data (from shareholder letters) in a more efficient and systematic way than was previously possible. Online data are becoming increasingly accessible, and indeed, three of the
articles in this volume (Micelotta & Raynard, 2011; Parmentier, 2011; Zachary et al., 2011) rely on online data collection. Although it is enticing to use the large volume of diverse data available on firms’ websites and the websites of market or information intermediaries, it is critical to realize that the data can change instantaneously as websites are changed and new content about the companies being studied is posted online by people both associated and not associated with them. To collect quantitative online data, research teams may need to develop or acquire advanced programming skills so that websites can be scanned regularly and data can be collected automatically (see, e.g., Forman, Ghose, & Goldfarb, 2009). To collect qualitative online data, researchers may need to become familiar with netnography (Kozinets, 2002), which is the methodology of ethnography adapted to the online environment, to study online communities. Thus, individually and together, the articles in this volume suggest some exciting research directions for family business scholars. In closing, we would like to thank all the authors for their efforts during the review process, for attending to the spirit as well as the letter of the review comments, and for reworking their articles with grace and diligence. We would also like to thank the reviewers who provided prompt, thorough, intelligent, and constructive feedback and made this special issue truly special. We hope you enjoy it! Acknowledgments The authors are grateful for the research assistance of Claire Glossop and the helpful suggestions from Justin Craig, Trish Reay, and Pramodita Sharma.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The authors are grateful for the financial support from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.
196 References Beck, L., Debruyne, M., Janssens, W., & Lommelen, T. (2011). A study of the relationships among generation, market orientation, and innovation in family firms. Family Business Review, 24(3), 252-272. Brief, A. P., & Brazerman, M. (2003). Bringing in consumers. Academy of Management Review, 28, 187-189. Byrom, J., & Lehman, K. (2009). Coopers Brewery: Heritage and innovation within a family firm. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 27, 516-523. Carrigan, M., & Buckley, J. (2008). “What’s so special about family business?” An exploratory study of UK and Irish consumer experiences of family businesses. International Journal of Consumer Studies, 32, 656-666. Chenail, R. J. (2009). Communicating your qualitative research better. Family Business Review, 22, 105-108. Craig, J. B., Dibrell, C., & Davis, P. S. (2008). Leveraging family-based brand identity to enhance firm competitiveness and performance in family businesses. Journal of Small Business Management, 46, 351-371. Forman, C., Ghose, A., & Goldfarb, A. (2009). Competition between local and electronic markets: How the benefit of buying online depends on where you live. Management Science, 55, 47-57. Kohli, A. K., & Jaworski, B. J. (1990). Market orientation: The construct, research propositions, and managerial implications. Journal of Marketing, 54(2), 1-18. Kozinets, R. W. (2002). The field behind the screen: Using netnography for marketing research in online communities. Journal of Marketing Research, 39, 61-72. Martens, M., Jennings, J. E., & Jennings, D. (2007). Do the stories they tell get them the money they need? The role of entrepreneurial narratives in resource acquisition. Academy of Management Journal, 50, 1107-1132. Micelotta, E., & Raynard, M. (2011). Concealing or revealing the family? Corporate brand identity strategies in family firms. Family Business Review, 24(3), 197-216.
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