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Family Members’ Salience in Family Business: An Identity-Based Stakeholder Approach

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  • Silvana Signori

    (University of Bergamo)

  • Yves Fassin

    (Ghent University)

Abstract

The paper builds on the stakeholder salience framework and applies a social identity approach to explain family firm dynamics and how these could impact on family firm governance and ethics. In particular, we consider the family as the main stakeholder for family firms and we refer to the recent approaches to stakeholder theory based on ‘names-and-faces’ and on social identity to focus on family members at the individual and organizational level. Family businesses offer an opportunity to study stakeholder salience in settings with multiple logics. Our paper acknowledges how the attributes of legitimacy, power and status, for family business members, can derive from three different institutional settings (family, business and local community) and how these attributes are assigned and gained by family members on the basis of the stakes they put (or could put) on the business. From the analysis of these dynamics specific ethical considerations emerge.

Suggested Citation

  • Silvana Signori & Yves Fassin, 2023. "Family Members’ Salience in Family Business: An Identity-Based Stakeholder Approach," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 183(1), pages 191-211, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:183:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-021-04998-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-021-04998-8
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    2. Yuliya Ponomareva & Francesco Paolone & Domenico Rocco Cambrea & Marc Goergen, 2025. "The Ties that Bind or Those That Tear Us Apart? Co-CEO Constellations and ESG Performance in Family Firms," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 198(4), pages 971-990, May.
    3. Luis R. Gómez-Mejía & Fernando Muñoz-Bullón & Ignacio Requejo & Maria J. Sanchez-Bueno, 2025. "Ethical Correlates of Family Control: Socioemotional Wealth, Environmental Performance, and Financial Returns," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 198(4), pages 893-917, May.
    4. T. M. Brunner-Kirchmair & M. R. W. Hiebl & J. Thaller & T. Wolf & B. Feldbauer-Durstmüller & H. Pernsteiner & M. Dick & S. Mayr & E. Wagner, 2025. "Religion logic and family firms’ ethical behavior towards employees," Review of Managerial Science, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 1819-1857, June.

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