Using sociological theory to problematize family business research

This article critiques several taken-for-granted assumptions in family business research. We recommend the use of sociological theories to problematize the phenomenon of family business and to push beyond dichotomies in the field. To begin, we complicate the very definition of family-implicitly defined in most family business research as a heterosexual, conjugal family-by discussing socio-legal, socio-biological, and role-based ways of defining "families." Next, we suggest critical ways to research value and worth beyond the financial wealth-socioemotional wealth (SEW) trade-off, by considering major themes in the sociology of value and evaluation (SVE), including: the intergenerational transmission of various forms of capital, conflict over equivalent systems of accounts, and the blending of the intimate and the economic. The groundwork presented here through a focus on the family, provides important theoretically complex questions to help launch transformative research to move the field of family business forward.