Non-family managers in family firms: review, integrative framework and future research agenda

In recent years, non-family managers (NFMs) in family firms have received increased scholarly attention, and numerous papers related to this topic have been published. Since the last academic review of NFMs in family firms (Klein and Bell in Electron J Family Bus Stud 1(1):19–37, 2007) was published a decade ago, an increasing number of relevant papers have been published. However, an integrative understanding of NFMs in family firms is still missing. An updated review in this area is useful for assessing the current state of the literature and for proposing fruitful directions for further research. For these reasons, this paper systematically reviews 118 papers relevant to the study of NFMs in family firms. The findings from the sample are organized, synthesized and analyzed with the help of an integrative framework we developed based on Gersick et al.’s (Generation to generation: life cycles of the family business. Harvard Business Press, Boston, 1997) three-circle model separated into nine different clusters. In addition, we identify a broad array of important future research avenues.